Deepa Kumar

Another Middle East studies academic is in the news for exposing her radical views to the public via social media. Deepa Kumar , an associate professor in media and Middle Eastern studies at Rutgers University, has been roundly criticized for tweeting in March, "Yes ISIS is brutal, but US is more so, 1.3 million killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan." (For a detailed analysis of this oft-repeated, inflated death toll, click here .)

Following Breitbart contributor and Marine Corps University Chair of Military Theory Sebastian Gorka's appearance this week on Fox and Friends to discuss Kumar's tweet, the professor claimed to have received "hate mail" and "death threats," which, if true, is lamentable, but merely means she's experiencing the reality of being in the public eye. Moreover, given the proclivity of Middle East studies academics for making false death threat claims, one should be skeptical about her story. Charlotte Allen, writing for the Independent Women's Forum, adds some perspective by suggesting that, "about those death threats, she ought to ask . . . Pamela Geller. (Speaking of Kumar's pals at ISIS.)."

Faced with the horror of outside criticism, Kumar complained to Inside Higher Ed that her work was "taken out of context" and "distorted" as part of an organized campaign to "silence and intimidate faculty who have dissenting opinions on the U.S. government and policies in the Middle East." Given that Kumar bragged that she and other leftist activists "won" when Condoleezza Rice withdrew from a planned 2014 commencement address at Rutgers, her attempt to don the mantle of victim is as farcical as her protestations.