Comment on FR Doc # 2026-13248

The Modern Language Association (MLA), which represents almost 20,000 researchers and teachers of language, literature, and culture, submits this comment in opposition to the proposal to rescind all regulations governing the Title VI and Fulbright-Hays programs. The MLA’s members include faculty working in National Resource Centers and Language Resource Centers; our members have benefited from Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships and with Fulbright-Hays awards, all administered under the regulations the Department of Education proposes to rescind. Removing the regulatory framework that has sustained the instruction and study of these regions and languages threatens decades of investment in expertise on regions of major geopolitical importance to the United States. The defined set of rules governing these programs provide a stable basis on which institutions can make long-term investments in building and sustaining area studies and language training programs. The existing regulatory framework is necessary for higher education institutions to organize language and area studies programming and compete for the department’s grants. A peer review process with clear, standardized guidelines at all levels is critical for the effective governance of these programs. The Title VI program was created to build a standing, national infrastructure of regional experts and language specialists capable of responding to long-term as well as immediate national needs, not simply “the current geopolitical context.” The structure as it operates today has been built carefully to support language and culture education in the most effective way, independent of short-term political projects that change with each presidential administration. Please allow the experienced civil servants who administer this program to continue to do it with the needs of the nation in mind, independent of political interference. We ask that the Department of Education maintain the regulations governing Title VI and Fulbright-Hays programs.