Is it naive to hope public will see value of Fulbright program?

I always believed the value of certain things was self-evident.

Of course, I have friends who will tell me that I am being naïve. This is exactly what one should expect from this president and this administration.

In 1946, Sen. J. William Fulbright, the junior senator from Arkansas, a former member of the House and the former president of the University of Arkansas, wrote and passed a bill to create a program of scholarly exchange that took the name of its creator.

Fulbright — a former Rhodes scholar at Oxford — shocked by the devastation of World War II, frightened by the power of atomic weapons, and deeply concerned by the aggressiveness of the Soviet Union, did not believe the United States could shelter behind two oceans as did some of his isolationist colleagues.

He believed Americans must engage with the world, that American scholars must go abroad, as he had, to learn about the world and that scholars from every corner of the globe should come to America to learn about the country that had emerged from World War II as the leader of the liberal democracies.

For 80 years, Fulbright has been synonymous with the highest ideals of this country and has strived to meet Sen. Fulbright’s hope that these kinds of exchanges might help create a world governed by reason.

Last week, the 12 members of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, which governs the Fulbright program, resigned en masse:

“Effective immediately, members of the Congressionally mandated Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board voted overwhelmingly to resign from the board, rather than endorse unprecedented actions that we believe are impermissible under the law, compromise U.S. national interests and integrity, and undermine the mission and mandates Congress established for the Fulbright program nearly 80 years ago.”

The program falls under the Department of State’s Bureau of Public Diplomacy, which has canceled the grants of 200 American scholars and suspended an additional 1,200 grants for foreign scholars that are “under review.”

The administration is attempting to determine if these Fulbright scholars’ areas of study “conform with executive orders signed by the president,” especially those related to issues that include gender, minority rights, or immigration. Climate change is also taboo.

Many of those executive orders are tied up in legal fights and could be deemed illegal or unconstitutional by the courts.

However, the Trump administration has signaled that it wants to go much further. The president’s budget proposal asks for a 93% cut in all exchange programs run by the bureau, which would effectively dismantle the flagship Fulbright program.

The current under secretary for public diplomacy, Darren Beattie, who infamously stated that, “competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work,” supports the view that such exchange programs are a waste of money.

The program is funded by Congress, but is a partnership with other countries that also contribute. Wealthier countries often give more than the United States because they understand the value of the program. Americans and host country nationals sit on the selection panels and choose the scholars — both American and foreign — together.

The story of the board’s resignation probably made little more than a blip in a news cycle that is unrelenting. The administration’s “flood the zone” strategy is designed to overwhelm an American public with a notoriously short attention span. Even the most outrageous policy decisions can slip past unnoticed. I suspect this story has, too.

Still, I would like to believe that if presented with the facts, that the American people would overwhelmingly support the Fulbright program, understanding that we all benefit from unfettered academic freedom for the best and the brightest. Or perhaps I am being naïve

• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.