Bangladesh, June 4 -- Sarah Stern, founder and president of the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) spoke to participants in a May 22 Middle East Forum webinar about her efforts to fight anti-Israel bias at federally funded Middle East studies centers in the United States.

Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965 was established to provide funding for foreign language and area studies instruction at institutions of higher learning because it was "felt that the Soviets . had a better knowledge of foreign languages and cultures," Stern explained. Numerous Middle East studies centers at American universities have received funding under this program.

In the last several decades, however, "the pure rigorous discipline of Middle Easter...