American University of Beirut Doesn’t Deserve American Taxpayer Funding

Recent events in America’s newsrooms have shown that left-wing radicalism extends beyond our universities. But is the United States inadvertently sponsoring a more nefarious campus radicalism abroad? Each year, the U.S. sends millions of dollars to the American University of Beirut (AUB), a liberal-arts institution founded by Protestant missionaries in 1866 and based in Lebanon’s capital. The Washington Post’s David Ignatius recently argued that it is in America’s “moral and strategic interest” to support the AUB. Yet the university’s contemporary record raises serious questions about the wisdom of continuing to provide such support.

In recent years, the AUB has been accused of providing material aid to Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization at odds with U.S. interests. Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia group, is the political kingmaker in Lebanon. It is also responsible for international terrorism — including attacks on U.S. military personnel and Jewish communities worldwide — and war crimes committed in support of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime, violence for which it now faces new U.S. sanctions under the Caesar Act. From 2007 to 2016, the American University of Beirut allegedly provided material support to Hezbollah in the form of media training granted to reporters from two Lebanese outlets under U.S. sanctions for their ties to the group. It also provided a link to a Hezbollah-affiliated NGO, Jihad al-Binaa, in an online database. The AUB paid $700,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging that in both cases its actions had violated the terms of its USAID grant. (As of 2018, USAID had granted the AUB at least $66 million.)

TB

About the Author

Tamara Berens

Tamara Berens is a Krauthammer Fellow at Mosaic magazine.

Featured Tags

Manage following

Education

Recent events in America’s newsrooms have shown that left-wing radicalism extends beyond our universities. But is the United States inadvertently sponsoring a more nefarious campus radicalism abroad? Each year, the U.S. sends millions of dollars to the American University of Beirut (AUB), a liberal-arts institution founded by Protestant missionaries in 1866 and based in Lebanon’s capital. The Washington Post’s David Ignatius recently argued that it is in America’s “moral and strategic interest” to support the AUB. Yet the university’s contemporary record raises serious questions about the wisdom of continuing to provide such support.

In recent years, the AUB has been accused of providing material aid to Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization at odds with U.S. interests. Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia group, is the political kingmaker in Lebanon. It is also responsible for international terrorism — including attacks on U.S. military personnel and Jewish communities worldwide — and war crimes committed in support of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime, violence for which it now faces new U.S. sanctions under the Caesar Act. From 2007 to 2016, the American University of Beirut allegedly provided material support to Hezbollah in the form of media training granted to reporters from two Lebanese outlets under U.S. sanctions for their ties to the group. It also provided a link to a Hezbollah-affiliated NGO, Jihad al-Binaa, in an online database. The AUB paid $700,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging that in both cases its actions had violated the terms of its USAID grant. (As of 2018, USAID had granted the AUB at least $66 million.)