US school’s ‘no’ to grant fighting extremism

Fourth group waives funding after Trump stance on Muslims

WASHINGTON // An Islamic school in California wanted to keep an open mind before Donald Trump took office.

But less than a month into his presidency, the school has rejected US$800,000 (Dh2.9 million) in federal funds aimed at combating violent extremism.

The decision by the Bayan Claremont graduate school’s board to turn down the money – an amount that would cover more than half its annual budget – capped weeks of sleepless nights and debate. Many members felt Mr Trump’s singling out of Islamic extremism and his travel ban affecting predominantly Muslim countries had gone too far.

The school is the fourth organisation in the United States under the Trump administration to reject funding for a programme created under former president Barack Obama known as countering violent extremism, or CVE, which aims to thwart the ability of extremist groups to recruit would-be terrorists.

More than 20 per cent of the roughly $ 10m awarded by the homeland security department has been rejected in total. Bayan Claremont was given the second-largest sum among the first 31 organisations, schools and municipalities to receive CVE allocations in the dwindling days of the Obama administration. The school had hoped to use the money to help create a new generation of Muslim community leaders, with $250,000 earmarked for more than a dozen local non- profits doing social justice work.

But the fledgling school’s founding president, Jihad Turk, said officials felt that accepting the money would do more harm than good.

“Our mission and our vision is to serve the community and to bring our community to a position of excellence,” Mr Turk said. “And if we’re compromised, even if only by perception in terms of our standing in the community, we ultimately can’t achieve that goal.”

The school’s debate is emblematic of hand- wringing among grass- roots and non- profit organisations involved in the programme in recent weeks.

At Unity Productions Foundation of Potomac Falls, Virginia, officials said they would decline a grant of $396,585 to produce educational films that challenge the justifications for extremist ideologies and violent extremism “due to the changes brought by the new administration”. And in Dearborn, Michigan, Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities said last week it was turning down $500,000 for youth development and public health programmes because of the “current political climate”.

Ka Joog, a Somalian non-profit organisation in Minneapolis, also turned down $500,000 for its youth programmes.

Mr Turk said Bayan Claremont school officials already had reservations about the CVE strategy during Mr Obama’s presidency because they felt there was no clear or proven pathway to violence for someone with a particular extreme ideology.