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Nathan J. Brown discusses the controversial reauthorization of area studies, supported by Title VI of the Higher Education Act, in his article "In defense of U.S. funding for area studies“ on Washington Post’s Blog Monkey Cage. [caption id="attachment_1441" align="alignleft" width="216"] Capitol Washington DC (photo: david__jones under CC BY 2.0)[/caption]In times of crisis and political instability the U.S. Congress is about to cut funding for Area Studies. In particular, Middle East Studies, due to its alleged bias towards Israeli-Palestinian conflict, would suffer from these cuts. The reauthorization of area studies came to be an occasion for a new proxy war of the two American parties, while ignoring the scientific value of this field of research. Unwanted sciences became the target of policy makers.According to Nathan J. Brown the USA is at risk of losing political understanding of the world, yet a world they are deeply involved in.Read more about this issue here.