Saving Iraqi Scholarship

Via Catallaxy comes this report on a plan to rescue Iraqi scholars and academics and place them temporarily in neighbouring countries:

In an urgent effort to save a critical mass of scholars unlike any initiative undertaken since World War II, the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund is finalizing plans to rescue hundreds of Iraqi professors beginning in the coming months.

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And arguably not a moment too soon: IIE’s president and CEO, Allan E. Goodman, said Friday that the institute has been in communication with the Iraqi minister of higher education, who has identified hundreds of scholars with specific death threats against them. That cooperation is part of what is unusual about this initiative — such efforts often focus on helping professors in conflict with their governments. But Iraq is obviously facing a unique and more urgent predicament: some estimates put the number of Iraqi professors killed since 2003 at around 300, although Goodman said that number is likely deflated as hundreds more are missing or kidnapped.

“The Iraq situation is the closest we’ve come to the Holocaust” in terms of systematic attacks on professors, Goodman said. “The terrorist groups seem to be trying to wipe out the intellectual capital of what was once Iraq.”