Bill Meulemans
The primary academic focus for Bill Meulemans has been the study of opposing political groups in the United States, Israel, and Northern Ireland. At the beginning of his career, he was appointed to a position at Southern Oregon College where he brought extremist group members of the left and right into his classroom. Meulemans developed models that illustrated the source of political attitudes and methods for resolving community conflicts. His primary focus was researching revolutionary groups of both the left and right. In addition, he spent time with the Hells Angels of Oakland, California, and other clandestine groups. At this point, his academic research was centered in Oregon and northern California, but later he moved into the southern and eastern United States to do interviews with members of the Ku Klux Klan and opposing racial groups in urban areas. He worked closely with professional organizations that developed techniques for resolving conflicts between minority groups and law enforcement agencies in Jersey City, New Jersey. Later, he expanded his research to include paramilitary groups in Israel and Northern Ireland.
After a long tenure as a Professor of Political Science at Southern Oregon University, Meulemans was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Israel. He spent his days with the Israelis in Jerusalem and his evenings with the Palestinians in Ramallah. One year later, he accepted a teaching post as Professor of Politics at The Queen’s University of Belfast where he split his teaching duties with his research on paramilitary units in Northern Ireland. He conducted on-the-ground research while living in both Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. After a decade in Ulster, he returned to the United States as a Professor of Political Science at Portland State University where he offered a course titled, “War and Peace in Northern Ireland.”
In addition to his university work, Bill Meulemans was a staff aide in the US House of Representatives for the Committee on Education and Labor. He has written many articles and served on several boards and commissions in the United States and Northern Ireland. In a secondary role, he was a newspaper correspondent, a radio and television political commentator, and he also served as a political organizer for governmental agencies, business groups, ethic communities in conflict, and native people in western Oregon.
