Of the academic associations that have spoken out against President Trump’s recent executive order on immigration, few have as much at stake as the Middle East Studies Association, an international group with more than 2,700 members.
Mesa’s Board of Directors has strongly condemned the order and urged President Trump and Congress to lift it. In a separate statement, Mesa’s Task Force on Civil and Human Rights argues that the order “does damage to academic institutions in the United States” and calls on colleges to continue admitting students and hiring scholars from the seven nations that the order singles out: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
The Chronicle on Monday discussed the order with Beth Baron, Mesa’s president. Following is an edited and condensed transcript of that interview with Ms. Baron, who is a professor of Middle Eastern history at City College of the City University of New York and director of the Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center at CUNY’s Graduate Center.
[To read the rest of this interview, please click here.]
