Chicago-based foundation gives over $500,000 for research carried out, through Montclair State University, by extreme "Teaching While Muslim" organization
Reclaiming ME: Muslim Educators Research Collective, hosted by Montclair State University, formed as a research collective in 2018 and received its first grant from the Spencer Foundation in 2020
The Spencer Foundation and Dr. Na’ilah Suad Nasir
The Spencer Foundation, formed in 1962 and providing grants since 1971, has given over $500 million in grants in furtherance of its goal - “to investigate ways in which education, broadly conceived, can be improved around the world.”
Recently, under the stewardship of Dr. Na’ilah Suad Nasir, president of the Spencer Foundation since 2017, the focus of the Foundation has shifted to funding education research to do with anti-racism, decolonialism and other social justice topics du jour.
This is unsurprising. Dr. Nasir had been the vice-chancellor for equity and inclusion at the University of California, Berkeley. She had held been faculty in the School of Education at UC Berkeley and was chair of American American studies there.
“Dr. Nasir’s research examines the racialized and cultural nature of learning and schooling, with a particular focus on the experiences of African American students. She co-edited The Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning and We Dare Say Love: Supporting Achievement in the Educational Life of Black Boys. She is the author of Racialized Identities: Race and Achievement for African-American Youth..”
Montclair State University, the Muslim Educators Research Collective and the money
It is no surprise then that with Spencer’s new funding priorities, the Muslim Educators Research Collective, led by a Montclair State University professor, would be a successful grantee. So successful in fact, that it was awarded the Spencer Foundation’s Large Research Grant for Education - $500, 000 to conduct research on “Teacher Diversity, Retention, and Muslim-American Teachers”.
The research includes an online survey:
According to the Spencer Foundation’s 990s, Montclair State University was given $346,685 in FY 2020-2021 , $177, 519 in FY 21-22, and $169,166 in FY 22-23 for the Muslim Educators Research Collective’s “Teacher Diversity, Retention, and Muslim-American Teachers” study. From the information provided in the 990, it seems the study was given an additional $193,370 over and above the initial $500,000 grant.
Who is in the Muslim Educators Research Collective
Who are some members of the Muslim Educators Research Collective?
Dr. Mayida Zaal. Associate Professor of Teaching and Learning at Montclair State University and the Principal Investigator. Dr. Zaal describes herself as a “scholar activist” who is “committed to decolonizing methods of research.”
Manar Hussein. A doctoral candidate at Montclair State University in teacher education and teacher development.
Manar’s LinkedIn description includes:
“The social justice approach grounds my life philosophy. To have equitable, inclusive, and educational experiences for all, we must know our audience and scholars in their context of race, class, and gender. It is crucial to create culturally responsive spaces for the people we work with and for. In education, that means a culturally responsive curriculum for teacher educators as well as students, in addition to offering a worldview perspective on various racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural practices outside of the scholars’ mainstream view. I firmly believe that all students deserve an education that will challenge them intellectually and that everyone learns in various contexts. Learning can also be achieved through mediums beyond the educational system of academia, but also through other outlets such as multimedia, marketing, social media, and more. My current research interest focuses on the recruitment and retention of teachers of color and their impact on all students, and I’m also researching Muslim American teachers and their experiences.”
Her instagram posts reveal a slightly different side:
The below post credits Hussein with providing them “education, resources, and tools” - that education apparently extends to the description of October 7th, 2023 as “Hamas launched a barrage of rockets toward Tel Aviv.”
Hussein had this to say about October 7th -
“so after israel, an apartheid regime, cuts off water, food, and fuel from gaza - an open air prison they control - after they put palestinians through 75 years of active colonialism and expelling - after 600 children are killed after this single week, after they dropped 6,000 bombs - am i supposed to trust the israeli to tell me the palestinian story? to justify their war crimes, like settlers and colonizers before…so they can kill and kill.”
And what does Hussein think of America?
Hussein is of course followed by Teaching While Muslim. She is also followed by, and follows, Decolonize_the_classroom and also follows Educators for Palestinian Liberation.
Decolonize_the_classroom is Thuraya Zeidan, a Passaic High School teacher. Zeidan believes in the right to “armed resistance”, decries western values of liberalism and attends seminars run by Islamist organizations.
Educators for Palestinian Liberation , who mourned Nasrallah’s death, agree with Zeidan that “armed resistance” must be supported.
Maheen Ahmad. Assistant Director of Teaching While Muslim. Ahmad teaches 6th grade English at Thomas A Edison middle school in West Orange, New Jersey. Ahmad is also a PhD candidate in Teacher Education at Montclair State University. Ahmad was also awarded the government-funded Fulbright Scholarship for 2022 -2023.
Nagla Bedir. Founder and director of Teaching While Muslim. Bedir is a social studies teacher at Perth Amboy High School in New Jersey. Bedir appeared in a “Why Islam” video for ICNA (the Islamic Circle of North America). ICNA’s charitable arm “ICNA Relief” is part of Jamaat -e-Islami, a violent Islamist organization.
Teaching While Muslim (TWM) describes itself as “an organization that focuses on creating a supportive network for Muslim American teachers and advocates for fighing against discrimination, implicit bias, and institutional racism.” It has worked with CAIR to design curriculum, such as its 9/11 curriculum which blames the cause of 9/11 on US foreign policy in the Middle East and ignores the influence of radical Islam. TWM distributed flyers in New Jersey schools which called the United States “a co-conspirator with Israel, preventing Muslim Palestinians from partaking in Ramadan as the Israeli Zionist occupation enacts a genocide against them.”
As previously covered in this substack, TWM provides resources to teachers on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, resources like this one celebrating the first intifada. TWM has also taken part in “teach-ins” with extremists like Thuraya Zeidan and Nerdeen Kiswani of Within Our Lifetime.
Money well spent from the Spencer Foundation? A research project worthy of hosting by Montclair State University?
Where else is the Spencer Foundation sending its cash?
What follows is just a smattering of examples:
The Spencer Foundation also gave grant money to Thea Abu El-Haj. El-Haj is a professor of education at Barnard College and a member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine. She has called education “ a site of resistance” and described the response to the campus encampments as “A brilliant colonial strategy to get us talking about what is happening on our campuses and not Gaza.”
El-Haj expressed support for the vandals of Hamilton Hall at Columbia and also praised Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a group with terror ties and made famous by Mahmoud Khalil.
In FY 2023, El-Haj received a $75,000 “racial equity grant” to pursue research on “Disrupting Dispossession: Teaching Palestine in Exile, 1975 - 1995.”
Other grantees that year include researchers from the University of Illinois who received $499,940 to research “Teaching about Race, Racism and Racial History: Investigating Experiences of Educators in Chicago”, and researchers at University of California Berkeley who received $184,106 to research “Race-conscious education policies and adaptive anti-discrimination in a divided, multiracial democracy.”
In FY2024, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia received $75 000 to research “Teachers as Change Agents in Addressing Racial and Intersectional Microaggressions in School Settings”, while Clemson University got $49,831 for “As It Unfolds: How Black Teachers Approach Racialized Current Events with Students.”
The Learning Policy Institute got $75 000 for “Preparing Culturally Sustaining and Responsive Teachers” and $150,000 for “Advancing SoLD-Aligned, Equity-Focused Educator Preparation and Policy.”
Guess who is on the board of directors for the Learning Policy Institute? Dr. Na’ilah Suad Nasir.
Take Away
Organizations like the Spencer Foundation give huge sums to universities and research institutes for research that prioritises identity politics. This incentivises universities to carry out this research which then trickles down into K-12. Not only that, but as seen by this example, it opens the door for illiberal actors to influence research agenda and ultimately what comes down into the K-12 classroom.