Master’s program to prioritize ‘viewpoint diversity’
The conservative-leaning Pepperdine University recently rolled out a new master’s program for Middle East Policy Studies, joining forces with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in an effort to tackle the topic with a dispassionate approach and a viewpoint diversity lens.
The alliance between the research institute and the private and elite Christian university aims to “provide students with an alternative to politicized choices now available,” according to a news release.
Dean of Public Policy at Pepperdine, Pete Peterson, told The College Fix the program aims to offer an alternative to Middle East studies department that “throughout the country, seemed to be ideologically captured.”
The program, to be run out of the Southern California school’s Washington D.C.-based campus, seeks to train future policy makers, diplomats, journalists, analysts, and entrepreneurs working in the Middle East or who have careers dealing with the region.
It is now accepting students for the fall 2025 semester — and a full-tuition scholarship is being offered for the inaugural cohort of students.
Graduate students can expect to be provided with a “balanced and non-ideological” preparation for jobs in the government or otherwise, Peterson told The Fix.
Those accepted should have a political or business interest in the Middle East and also must be “committed to viewpoint diversity,” he said.
And more students should consider studying Middle East policy, as “that region is going to be an important part of American business [and] American national security for decades to come,” Peterson said.
In a joint Real Clear Education op-ed, Peterson and Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute, described the program as a “bold answer to the decline of Middle East Studies in America.”
“The crisis in America’s elite colleges and universities–brewing for decades–burst into public view following the Hamas assault on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023,” they wrote, adding “… [e]ntire academic departments have been hijacked with downstream implications for sectors ranging from American business to national security.”
The situation initiated a desire for the “original truth-seeking and citizen-preparing mission of their alma maters” among many donors and alumni.”
Pepperdine boasts one of the only public policy programs at a Christian university, as opposed to many other secular, private or public schools. Because of this, Peterson said he believes that his program can both better understand and appreciate the Middle East for its history as well as national security risks, but also “understand and honor the religious dimension.”
During the two-year program, those enrolled can expect to be taught by nationally recognized experts in Middle East policy from the Washington Institute and Pepperdine University. The curriculum will revolve around three main things: grasping the area’s history, politics, and societies, how American foreign policy has evolved toward the region, and the policy-making process, officials stated in the release.
Students will also travel with guides from the Washington Institute to the Middle East with opportunities to intern with government and diplomatic institutions.
“The result is that they will all leave our program with the skills and knowledge to be effective players in the world of Middle East policy—but without the radical indoctrination that has become customary,” Peterson and Satloff wrote in their op-ed.
The initiative was praised in a recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal, which argued its a vitally needed counterbalance to the money being poured into American universities by countries such as Qatar.
The editorial pointed out that too many Middle Eastern studies departments have “traded scholarship for anti-Israel politics.”
“The Middle East Studies Association has endorsed an academic boycott of Israel and amended its mission to place advocacy on par with scholarship. Columbia University is a leading example of where this ends up,” the editorial stated.
MORE: $22M tax dollars fund ‘radical,’ ‘far-left’ Middle East studies programs: watchdog
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Pepperdine’s campus in Malibu / YouTube screenshot