How Qatar Fuels Campus Extremism in the United States

Executive Summary

This report highlights the deep and systemic interdependence between Northwestern University’s main campus in Evanston, Illinois, and its Qatar campus (NU-Q), revealing a bilateral academic, financial, and ideological integration far beyond the traditional model of an international satellite institution. Although the Qatar Foundation has committed over $700 million in funding to NU-Q, the physical and academic footprint in Doha remains modest. Yet, this significant investment supports not only operations in Qatar, but exerts influence over Northwestern’s home campus through shared academic appointments, ideological programming, faculty exchanges, and institutional governance.

Key pillars of interdependence include:

A. Shared Faculty and Curricula: Numerous NU-Q faculty hold dual appointments with departments at Evanston, particularly within the Middle East and North African Studies (MENA) Program. This creates a pipeline for cross-campus ideological transfer, with several scholars advocating anti-Israel narratives and participating in political activism that has influenced discourse on the Evanston campus.

B. Administrative and Governance Overlap: Leadership of NU-Q, including the appointment of its dean, is directly managed by Northwestern’s Provost in Evanston, underscoring organizational integration. NU-Q faculty also serve as members of Northwestern University’s Faculty Senate, through which they participate in policymaking at the institutional level.

C. Student and Academic Exchange Programs: Formal exchange initiatives between the campuses—including study abroad programs, residencies, and joint seminars—create academic and cultural bridges. These include the “Doha Seminar,” which promotes Qatar’s national narrative and influences American students’ perspectives.

D. Ideological Convergence and Content Symmetry: Both campuses increasingly share pedagogical content and political outlooks, particularly around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Programming at NU-Q, such as courses and events featuring speakers sympathetic to terrorist organizations, reflects and reinforces a growing ideological trend at Evanston, which has seen intensified campus activism and antisemitic incidents over the last two academic years (2023-2024 and 2024-2025) following Hamas’s October 7 attacks.

E. Funding Flow and Resource Exchange: Despite the Qatar campus’s modest size (about three times the size of Northwestern’s ~150,000 square feet Norris building in Evanston, known as a student and food hub), its disproportionate financial endowments—targeted specifically toward journalism, communications, and Middle East studies—suggest an intentional strategy to shape public discourse. This includes the establishment of endowed chairs at Evanston, funded by the Qatar Foundation, which extend Qatari influence onto the main U.S. campus.

F. Institutional Integration Through Policy and Infrastructure: The Qatar Support Office (QSO) at Evanston coordinates logistics for NU-Q operations, further embedding NU-Q into the university’s broader infrastructure. Events and initiatives, including joint research and media projects, reflect a unified institutional strategy.

G. Criticism of Qatari Regime Forbidden: As this report was going to press, it was reported that the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce discovered that NU’s contract with the Qatar Foundation, which finances NU’s presence in Qatar, requires that everyone connected to NU and NU-Q obey Qatar’s laws while deferring to Qatar’s cultural and religious norms. This effectively forbids criticism of the Qatari regime by the entire NU and NU-Q communities—a draconian requirement that demonstrates the hollowness of both institutions’ claims of intellectual independence from the Qatari regime.

In 2024, Northwestern University President Michael Schill faced questions during a House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing about Qatari donations to the school, insisting that “every dollar” went to the Doha campus. In a public statement, a Qatar Foundation spokesperson addressed the implications from a large, fake check displayed at the hearing for $600 million that was made out to Northwestern from “Qatar-related sources.” The state-led charity claimed that 90 percent of that amount went to operating costs at the Doha campus.

“Only a fraction of this investment has been directed to the U.S., and the allegations that this money has somehow swayed the decision-making of reputable institutions of the likes of NU has no basis in fact or logic,” said Francisco Marmolejo, Qatar Foundation president of higher education.

This study refutes Northwestern and Qatar Foundation’s response to congressional inquiries. Based on Marmolejo’s own math, Qatar Foundation would have to spend $134,000 per student every year at the Doha campus.

The Northwestern-Qatar partnership is not a traditional overseas educational venture. It constitutes a two-way, ideologically charged entanglement with significant implications for academic freedom, institutional independence, and U.S. higher education policy. The shared ecosystem between Evanston and Doha is shaped not only by administrative links and funding flows, but by aligned ideological agendas and personnel mobility, resulting in academic interdependence that merits deeper scrutiny and transparency.

Key Findings and Critical Aspects

The deep and systemic entanglement between Northwestern University’s Evanston campus and its Qatari counterpart not only compromises academic independence and transparency, but contributes to the creation of a hostile environment for Northwestern’s Jewish, Israeli, and Zionist students studying at the Evanston campus and the Chicago campus, where Northwestern’s law and medical schools are based.

The integration of faculty, funding, and ideology across both campuses has fueled the spread of antisemitic rhetoric and pro-terror narratives, intensifying polarization, and marginalization on the Evanston campus.

Below are key findings and critical aspects of this entangled relationship that will be discussed:

Allocation and influence of Qatari funding: Despite substantial investments, including $516 million between 2007 and 2024 and an additional $221 million expected by 2028, questions persist about transparency and priorities. NU-Q offers only two undergraduate degrees and operates out of a single building in Doha that has been criticized for inadequate student facilities. These atypical limitations demand scrutiny over where the funds are directed.Ideologically driven endowments and potential conflict of interest: Qatar Foundation’s establishment and funding of three endowed chairs at Northwestern raises potential conflicts of interest. This could allow undue influence on academic independence, particularly in areas of strategic significance to Qatar, such as Middle East studies, journalism, and communication. This strategic focus is evident in the absence of funding for other disciplines like law or medicine and highlights a targeted approach to shaping academic discourse.Cross-Campus Integration: Dual faculty appointments between NU-Q and Evanston—particularly within Evanston’s MENA program—facilitate the spread of ideologically-aligned scholarship that often glorifies and justifies Palestinian terrorism, thereby contributing to antisemitic campus climates.Event and Curriculum Bias: NU-Q regularly hosts events and offers courses with an anti-Israel bias that is mirrored in Evanston’s curriculum and public statements by faculty. This contributes to a culture of normalized hostility toward Israel and its supporters, who are mainly Jewish students.Institutional Governance by NU-Q Faculty: NU-Q professors serve as members of Northwestern’s Faculty Senate, raising concerns about foreign-funded personnel shaping domestic university policy without full immersion in Evanston’s academic life or accountability to its standards.Potential Alternative Use of Funds: The dramatic increase in funding for 2024-2028, alongside reports of controversial activities such as the construction of Gaza solidarity encampments, raises the question of whether the funds were used for alternative purposes. The lack of transparency regarding such expenditure deepens concerns about possible diversion into initiatives beyond academia.Radicalization and Campus Activism: NU-Q’s influence is visible in the emergence of anti-Israel activism at Evanston, including the aforementioned Gaza solidarity encampments and the glorification of intifada slogans, which further alienate Jewish students and trigger federal investigations.External Funding: Another perplexing issue is the Carnegie Corporation‘s financial support of NU-Q’s Institute for the Study of Global South (IAS_NUQ), which has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants. The rationale behind this support, particularly given IAS_NUQ’s ties to Qatar and its ideological focus on reshaping narratives about Western influence, remains unclear.Qatari Censorship: As reported in the Washington Free Beacon just as this report was going to press, NU’s agreement with the Qatar Foundation stipulates that “NU, NU-Q, and their respective employees, students, faculty, families, contractors and agents, shall be subject to the applicable laws and regulations of the State of Qatar, and shall respect the cultural, religious and social customs of the State of Qatar.” This invasive requirement demonstrates the tight control exercised by the regime and the Qatar Foundation that it controls over NU and NU-Q in toto.1

A Hostile Climate for Jewish Students: Title VI

The entanglement between Northwestern University and its Qatar campus presents a critical challenge under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs receiving federal financial assistance.2 Upon receiving over $700 million in funding from the Qatar Foundation since 2007, Northwestern has cultivated an academic and cultural environment across both its Evanston and Doha campuses that is increasingly hostile3 to Jewish students and Israeli perspectives.

This is reflected in curricula, faculty appointments, student organizations, and campus events that promote anti-Israel narratives, glorify designated terror organizations such as Hamas and the PFLP, and marginalize or reject the legitimacy of the State of Israel.

Jewish students at the Evanston campus have reported facing harassment, exclusion, and threats, particularly during protests and 2024 “Gaza encampments,” where antisemitic chants and propaganda were openly displayed.4 This climate of hostility raises serious concerns about whether Northwestern is meeting its Title VI obligations, especially given that federal funds are supporting an environment where Jewish students are not protected or equally included.

Despite Northwestern University’s efforts to take corrective action, the situation continues to deteriorate. The university recently introduced a mandatory anti-discrimination training program; however, it relies on unverified data sourced from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)—an organization with documented ties to Hamas.5 Moreover, the training deliberately excludes terms like “anti-Zionist” and “anti-Israel” from its list of harmful biases, signaling a selective and politically motivated approach that fails to address the core issues facing Jewish students on campus.6

Additionally, Northwestern issued a warning to its Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) chapter, stating that its constitution—which prohibits Zionist Jews from joining—violates the university’s new anti-discrimination policy.7 However, the university did not clarify how much time JVP has to revise its constitution, nor did it specify what consequences, if any, the recognized student organization would face if it failed to comply. Documentation has shown that JVP and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) are among U.S. groups aligned with the ideological influence network funded by Qatar via proxies like American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), WESPAC Foundation, and National Students for Justice in Palestine (National SJP).8

NU also continues to employ Arthur Butz, an engineering professor who authored the book The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extinction of European Jewry, which claims that the Holocaust is a hoax.9

The result is a deeply integrated system in which Qatari influence extends into academic governance, faculty ideologies, and student programming at the expense of Jewish inclusion, intellectual diversity, and federal accountability.

Qatari Influence on Northwestern

Northwestern University’s partnership with Qatar was formalized in 2008. Initiated as part of Qatar’s broader Education City initiative, which was designed to attract world-class universities to Doha, the partnership was underpinned by substantial funding from the Qatar Foundation, reportedly amounting to $516,456,203 between 2007 and 2024.10

The contract between Northwestern University and the Qatar Foundation was renewed in 2024 through 2028, during which an additional $221,352,324 in funding is expected. As reported in the Washington Free Beacon as this report was going to press, NU’s contract with the regime-controlled Qatar Foundation obligates every person connected to NU and NU-Q to obey Qatari laws and “respect” Qatar’s social and religious customs.11 Clear details about the contract, including amounts given, between NU and the Qatar Foundation are also not readily available lending to suspicions that this complexity and obscurity is intentional. Northwestern has also not provided clear or extensive details regarding the ultimate allocation of these funds, including which programs, departments, projects, or other initiatives will be funded.

Shared Funding from the State-Led Qatar Foundation

Evidence suggests that much of the funding from the Qatar Foundation will likely not go towards supporting the Qatar campus. As of 2023, Northwestern University in Qatar had a yearly enrollment of only 473 students. Approximately half of the student body consists of Qatari nationals, with the remaining half coming from nearly 60 foreign countries including Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Liberia, Uzbekistan, Hungary, Colombia, Ireland, Ghana, and Somalia.12 Not only is the Qatar campus student body limited, but so are the academic offerings, with only two undergraduate degrees (communication and journalism) and six minors (1. strategic communication, 2. Middle East studies, 3. film and design, 4. media and politics, 5. AI and media, 6. Africana studies). Northwestern Qatar does not offer any full master’s or doctoral programs, only pilot proposals, or executive classes.13

Northwestern University in Qatar

(Source: Qatar Foundation)

Research reveals that NU-Evanston and NU-Q are integrated, receiving a continuous flow of funding and human resources shared between the two campuses and between the Qatar Foundation and Northwestern Evanston. Additionally, despite studying at the Qatar campus, NU-Q students receive Northwestern University degrees, and their academic records are managed by the main registrar in Evanston. NU-Q, therefore, is not independently accredited, but falls under Northwestern’s regional accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC).14 This means that NU-Q must adhere to the same academic standards and quality as the main campus in Evanston. But this does not seem to be the case.

In contrast to the sprawling Evanston campus, the Northwestern University Doha campus (NU-Q) is housed in a single building that does not reflect the enormous financial investment of the Qatar Foundation in Northwestern University.

Despite the presence of numerous high-tech amenities, the impressive exterior belies functional shortcomings.15 Although the campus was promoted as “state-of-the-art,” key facilities were reportedly unfinished or underutilized at launch, indicating potential delays or misallocated funding.16 The building serves as a showcase of architectural ambition and branding, yet falls short in addressing daily necessities, raising questions about the prioritization of funds and whether the Doha building truly supports the lived experience of its student community— or other things altogether. Students reported problems, including insufficient and overpriced food, with many students forced to depend on off-campus meals during long class days.17

Lobbying Efforts for the DETERRENT Act

Northwestern has reportedly lobbied on the DETERRENT Act (H.R. 1048), a bill designed to increase oversight and transparency regarding foreign influence on U.S. universities.18 While Northwestern’s official stance on the legislation remains unclear, as no direct public statement has confirmed whether the university lobbied in favor of or against the bill, it is significant to note that Northwestern is a member of two influential organizations—the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the American Council on Education (ACE)—both of which opposed the DETERRENT Act.19

The AAU, representing 69 leading U.S. research universities, was a key opponent of the bill, urging Congress to reject it due to concerns that it would impose burdensome and duplicative reporting requirements, hinder international collaboration, and exceed the capacity of the Department of Education.20 ACE, joined by at least 17 other higher education associations, expressed similar concerns in a joint letter to Congress in December 2023.21 While these organizations did not identify individual universities by name, the opposition was expressed at the organizational level. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Northwestern, as a member of both associations, likely aligned with their positions against the DETERRENT Act.

From Doha to Evanston: Qatari-Funded Radicalization

NU and NU-Q operate as a single institutional entity, with shared faculty, academic programs, governance structures, and administrative oversight. This integration enables a continuous flow of personnel, funding, and ideology between the campuses, blurring the distinction between domestic and foreign influence within the university.

The Radicalization Begins: The Student Exchange Program

The Evanston campus hosts the Qatar Support Office (QSO), which serves as the primary administrative liaison between the Evanston and Qatar campuses, coordinating travel arrangements and course programming for NU-Q faculty and staff visiting Evanston, and vice versa.22 QSO’s program administrator is Abdelrahman Moustafa Abouzid, an NU-Q graduate in journalism, who earned a master’s degree education policy and analysis from Harvard University and also worked for the Qatar Foundation and Doha Debates.23

Exchange programs are limited to students from the School of Communication, the Medill School of Journalism, and the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern’s Evanston campus. The programs available consist of semester-long study, spring break programs, or journalism residencies.24

Based on the 2024 information, it appears that from 2018 – 2021, between three to five students were chosen each year to spend a semester in Doha.25 In 2018, three students (Dylan Gresik, Bryan Lee, and Liming Wan) spent a semester at Northwestern Qatar; in 2019, four students (Miguel Aponte, Leslie Bonilla, Martin Herrmann, and Eliza Posner); and in 2021, only two students (Xuadi Wang; Ernest Coppée). In the past, American visiting students also participated in the Global Media Experience (GME), which includes a trip to Riyadh to allegedly “explore the region’s evolving media landscape.”26

The Doha Seminar: Terror-Tied Professor

Upon starting their semester at NU-Q, American students are required to attend the Doha Seminar, a course co-taught with Georgetown University’s campus in Qatar focused on “issues relevant to Qatar and the Gulf that may include Qatari and Gulf history.” The mandatory course’s sole purpose is showcasing Qatar’s achievements and priorities and to promote the Qatari government’s narrative.27 The Doha Seminar’s instructor is Ibrahim Abusharif, an associate professor in residence in journalism.28

Born and raised in Chicago, Abusharif, a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, served as the co-founder, editor, and treasurer of the Quranic Literacy Institute (QLI) from 1990 to 1998. QLI, an Illinois-based nonprofit organization, faced legal scrutiny during the infamous Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial for serving as “a money-laundering clearinghouse” by redirecting over $1 million to Hamas in the early 2000s.29 Ironically, considering his former employment at an NGO that supported Hamas, Northwestern lists Abusharif as an expert on the “Israel-Hamas war.”30

In 2004, the parents of David Boim (an American killed in a Hamas attack) sued QLI under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act. A jury found QLI liable, initially awarding $52 million, which was later tripled to $156 million. Following the adverse verdict and loss of assets, QLI was dissolved in 2004. Subsequent legal enforcement efforts targeted successor organizations like American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and AJP Educational Foundation, Inc., which is AMP’s fiscal sponsor.31

American students at NU-Q

According to his LinkedIn profile, Abusharif pivoted to Illinois-based Lewis University (2005-2008) and then to NU, where he worked as a senior lecturer for nine months in 2008. Abusharif then moved to Qatar, where he has spent 17 years as a professor of journalism.32

In a post published in November 2024, Abusharif enthusiastically highlighted that “both Doha and Evanston students” attended his Doha Seminar titled “Postcolonial Solidarities, Palestine and Qatar”.33

The Holy Land Foundation Trial

The Holy Land Foundation (HLF) case remains the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history and serves as a blueprint for understanding how charitable front groups are used to funnel funds to Hamas. In 2008, HLF and five of its leaders were convicted for providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization through so-called zakat committees in the West Bank and Gaza. These committees were controlled by Hamas and operated under the guise of humanitarian relief. Evidence introduced at trial also revealed a U.S.-based network—including affiliated nonprofits, think tanks, and educational initiatives—designed to soften Hamas’s image and shift U.S. opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The case exposed how these ideological support structures often used academic figures, legal advocacy, and student groups as cover for broader propaganda and terror operations. This is especially relevant today as Qatar-funded institutions like NU-Q, and groups such as AMP, SJP, and JVP, continue to blur the lines between legitimate advocacy and ideological laundering.

Muslim Brotherhood-Linked Infrastructure Feeding U.S. Campus Radicalism

The above chart illustrates the evolution of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated networks in the United States, from early entities like the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP, est. 1981) and the Holy Land Foundation (HLF, est. 1989), to successor groups including American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Qatar’s strategic role—including through funding of Al Jazeera, university initiatives, and aligned faculty—has accelerated the penetration of these ideological currents into elite American college campuses.

This diagram – presented to Congress in 2016 by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) – documents how the Holy Land Foundation and the Islamic Association for Palestine, both shut down or designated due to Hamas ties, rebranded through new entitiesd including AMP. AMP inherited HLF’s infrastructure, donors, and personnel. These links bolster claims tht AMP operates as a successor and ideological continuation of Hamas’s U.S. support network.

The terror finance and ideological support network dismantled by the U.S. government in the HLF trial has not disappeared. Rather, it has rebranded and metastasized into successor entities like AMP and USPCN, with direct conduits into campus activism via groups like SJP.

This diagram underscores how the Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S. network, seeded by IAP and HLF in the 1980s, has been preserved through AMP and USPCN—both of which serve as ideological incubators and logistical support arms for the new generation of anti-Israel campus movements. Qatar’s role in this chain, via direct institutional funding, faculty recruitment, media soft power (Al Jazeera), and the establishment of NU-Q, provides the infrastructure and financial fuel behind this transnational influence operation.

These successor groups have retained the ideological DNA and foreign ties of their predecessors, while rebranding themselves as civil rights and student advocacy organizations, thereby evading public scrutiny and regulatory enforcement.

NU-Q and Potential Student Radicalization

NU-Q student Sara Al-Ansari spent her 10-week journalism residency in 2018 at AJ+ in San Francisco, Al Jazeera’s digital platform headquartered in Washington, D.C.34 In addition to publishing content that is anti-Israel and anti-West, AJ+ has been criticized for being highly critical of the U.S., including its history and policies, and for creating content intended to create social distrust, upheaval, and division.

For example, it published a video on YouTube in 2022, just a few months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, called “Why the U.S. and Russia Get Away with War Crimes.”35 More recently, it has published videos critical of the U.S. government, its domestic and foreign policies, and companies on its social media platforms with divisive, controversial titles like:

“Israel and the U.S. Are No Longer Pretending” (August 2025)36“International Students vs. the Trump Administration” (July 2025)37“Black Hair is Getting Banned” (May 2025)38How 5 Companies Are Keeping the World at War” (July 2025)39How U.S. Corporations Sterilized Thousands Worldwide” (March 2025)40

AJ+ has also been the subject of federal scrutiny over the past few years. Due to its Qatari state influence, limited transparency, and political activities, Al Jazeera’s U.S. affiliate was ordered by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2020 to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).41 Al Jazeera disputed the order and, as of 2024, has not filed the required FARA documentation and is therefore in violation of U.S. laws.42

Congressional pressure in 2024 forced Northwestern to exit its MOU with Al Jazeera.43 The unresolved FARA issue remains a major compliance red flag, particularly given NU-Q’s historical integration with Al Jazeera and the broader concerns over foreign influence in U.S. universities. The FARA noncompliance risk further amplifies potential Title VI exposure.

Like Sara Al-Ansari and other students who could have easily been influenced by their studies and internships at places like AJ+ to speak out against U.S. policy, Aneesa Johnson was also likely influenced, and even potentially radicalized, by her experiences at NU and NU-Q. A Communication major from Northwestern’s Class of 2018, Johnson was an outspoken pro-Palestinian activist both during her time at NU and while studying at NU-Q in 2016.44

(Source: Washington Free Beacon)

As events coordinator for Students for Justice in Palestine at NU, she faced disciplinary action and was summoned by the university for alleged “bias and hate” following tweets she posted which strongly criticized Zionism.45 In November 2023, Johnson was put on administrative leave by Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, where she was employed, for her antisemitic story on social media.46 According to social media posts, in July 2015, Johnson tweeted, “Ever since going to [Northwestern University] I have a deep seeded [sic] hate for Zio bitches. They bring out the worst in me.”47 Johnson also posted, “You know why I call them Zio b—ches, because they’re dogs.” A week later, Johnson retweeted an unflattering picture of an Orthodox Jew that was captioned, “When the whole world hates you bc you a thief and you grow up looking like shaytan [the devil] #GrowingUpIsraeli.48

NU and NU-Q Faculty Supporting Student Radicalization

The two campuses also offer exchange opportunities for faculty. For example, in 2021 NU-Q Professors Anto Mohsin and Jairo Lugo-Ocando joined fellow NU faculty at seminars hosted by the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program in Evanston.49 The program was funded by a $100 million donation by Warren Buffet’s sister, Roberta Buffett Elliott.50

Alternatively, in 2020 Larissa Buchholz, an assistant professor at NU’s School of Communication, spent a year in Qatar conducting research on “how artists from non-Western regions become globally successful.”51 Although these faculty exchange programs are not systematic, they indicate how the two institutions are tightly bound together at the ideological and cultural levels.

The deep entanglement of the two institutions is also visible at a pedagogical level, with NU faculty participating in a series of meetings in 2012 aimed at adapting the

MENA curriculum taught at NU-Q to the newly established MENA department at NU.52 The six NU faculty members included anthropologists Jessica Winegar and Katherine E. Hoffman, historian Henri Lauziere, English and humanities scholar Rebecca Johnson, political scientists Wendy Pearlman and Elizabeth Shankman Hurd, and legal scholar and historian Kristen Stilt.53

Dr. Wendy Pearlman supports NU students at the encampments

Some of the scholars involved in the attempt to reach ideological convergence between the two campuses54—namely Elizabeth Shankman Hurd, Wendy Pearlman, and Jessica Winegar—are also known for endorsing and promoting this anti-Israel bias at NU. All three scholars have held anti-Israel views for many years, which have only intensified and potentially contributed to their increased involvement on campus in recent years as the “pro-Palestine” cause has been brought to the forefront in the U.S. and around the world by sympathetic student, faculty, and activist groups.

In January 2024, 12 years following the meeting about “redefining MENA studies,” Elizabeth Hurd and Wendy Pearlman co-founded NU’s chapter of Educators for Justice in Palestine (NUEJP), with Pearlman serving on the chapter’s publicity committee.55 In April 2024, NUEJP partnered with SJP NU and JVP NU on the antisemitic “Northwestern People’s Resolution” and the antisemitic encampment.56 This could suggest that time spent in Qatar served as a catalyst for ideological radicalization or at least helped support and further enhance radical ideological beliefs, and that the hostile climate on the Evanston campus is, in part, being shaped by individuals and ideas flowing from NU-Q into its MENA program and faculty.

Dr. Elizabeth Shankman Hurd

Elizabeth Shankman Hurd: Shankman Hurd is an NU professor of political science, professor and chair of Department of Religious Studies and a member of the NU Senate.57 She was among the founders of the NU chapter of Educators for Justice in Palestine, a complement of NU SJP established at the Evanston campus in December 2023, which endorses BDS and rejects IHRA’s definition of antisemitism on the grounds it “silences criticism of Zionism or support for Palestinian liberation.”58 Two years after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, Hurd co-signed an open letter blaming Israel and claiming that condemning Hamas “while ignoring this broader context” misunderstands how “we got where we are today”.59 Additionally, she opposed NU’s proposed Committee on Antisemitism, worried it would restrict critical discussion of Israel and Zionism, asserting that fervent Zionism should not be a “litmus test for being Jewish.”60 Hurd’s husband, NU professor Ian Hurd, is the president of the NU Faculty Senate and in April and June 2025, he called for NU to fend off actions by the Trump administration. Northwestern also lists Elizabeth and Ian Hurd as experts on the “Israel-Hamas war,” despite their bias against Israel.61

Wendy Pearlman: Pearlman is the Jane Long Professor of Arts and Sciences and professor of political science at Northwestern University.62 Pearlman also serves as an official faculty advisor to Northwestern’s chapter of JVPNU, whose constitution is antisemitic and violates Northwestern’s discrimination policy.63 She was among the founders of NU Educators for Justice in Palestine.64

Pearlman served as president of Harvard’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine as a graduate student.65 In 2000, she attended Birzeit University in the West Bank in 2000.66 Birzeit allegedly has ties to Hamas. Hamas has already won the Bir Zeit student council elections several times, and some of its students have been stopped by security forces for planning to carry out terror attacks that Hamas recruited them for.67 In November 2020, Pearlman directed68 her X (formerly Twitter) followers to an online event hosted by Masar Badil, which is the clone organization of the U.S.-designated terror organization Samidoun.

Masar Badil

Masar Badil or the “Alternative Palestinian Path” has been widely criticized as a militant rejectionist movement that glorifies armed resistance and promotes the dismantling of Israel. Masar Badil is essentially a clone of Samidoun, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization that acts on behalf of the designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).69 Samidoun and PFLP are both ideologically aligned with Qatari-backed extremist networks and function within the broader Qatar–Iran influence ecosystem that promotes armed resistance and undermines U.S. civil rights norms.70

Wendy Pearlman’s public promotion of Masar Badil further demonstrates her anti-Israel biases and unsuitability as a faculty advisor to student organizations at a U.S. university.

In June 2021, Pearlman opened a campus teach-in on “Palestinian history and rights” discussing whether Israel’s actions constitute “settler colonialism.”71 Under her direction, NU’s MENA Studies Program released a 2021 statement expressing solidarity with Palestinians “fighting dispossession … and enduring bombings” and justifying violent confrontation by affirming that colonialism is “a form of racism to be combated.”72

In December 2023, Pearlman wrote an article for CNN in which she argued that accusations of antisemitism were being used to silence pro-Palestinian students. She further characterized criticism against SJP’s anti-Israel discourse and disruptive actions as “inaccurate accusations” and downplayed the meaning of “intifada” as “nonviolent grassroots protest.” Additionally, Pearlman accused lawmakers and institutions of equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism; referred to anti-Israel speech as “challenging ideas;” and claimed that campus crackdowns are driven by wealthy donors and political agendas.73

In February 2024, Pearlman published a commentary titled “The Erasure of Palestinian Society” sharply criticizing Israel’s narratives in legal and political forums and depicting Israeli policies as” erasing Palestinian existence.”74

Dual-Affiliated Faculty Members

The website of the MENA Studies Program at NU lists 23 NU-Q faculty as “affiliates.”75 Dual affiliation implies a circulation of agendas, with faculty members often carrying the institutional priorities, research interests, and political dynamics of one campus into the other. This applies even more so to Northwestern, where the choice to appoint dually affiliated faculty within the MENA Studies Program appears strategic; serving to advance and normalize a Qatari-centric perspective on Middle Eastern and global affairs across NU’s academic discourse. The list of faculty includes several problematic figures known for their anti-Israel bias and in some cases, even seeming justification of terrorism.

Khaled Al-Hroub: Al-Hroub is a Middle Eastern studies professor in residence at NU-Q, whose scholarship focuses on the history of Hamas. Sources show Al Hroub has had direct contact with terror organizations and members. For example, in 2019, he appeared on a panel with PFLP member Khalida Jarrar and spoke at the same event as PFLP terrorist and hijacker Leila Khaled.76

Al-Hroub’s NU-Q course on Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict is centered on narratives that emphasize the “devastating impacts” from the “state of conflict” between Israel and its neighboring Arab countries following the establishment of the State of Israel.77 He has also been accused of channeling Qatari government propaganda by portraying Hamas as “a symbol of resilience” that reflects deeper-state objectives to influence Western academic discourse.78

In a Facebook post published just days after the Hamas-led October 7 massacre on October 10, 2023, Al-Hroub called for a “third intifada in the West Bank” to “sweep away the occupier.”79 In an interview for WBUR On Point, which aired on October 16, 2023, Al-Hroub questioned the credibility of media reporting regarding civilian casualty figures from October 7 and blamed Israel for the “demonization campaign against Hamas and Palestinians.” On Point issued an editor’s note that this episode “did not meet our editorial standards.”80 Because of the attention around his comments, NU (Evanston) was forced to denounce his remarks and Al-Hroub partially retracted his statements.81

Aside from his bias against Israel, Al-Hroub has also made anti-American comments. On October 25, 2023, he published a call for Muslims worldwide to “bring America to its knees through an economic boycott.”82 Despite his biased views, Al-Hroub also appeared on CNN, where he continued to clearly push Hamas talking points.83

Marc Owens Jones: Jones is an associate professor of Media Analytics at NU-Q, who also holds an academic position at Hamad bin Khalifa University, which is part of Qatar Foundation.84 Through his social media accounts he spreads anti-Israel and anti-Zionist tropes.

On October 12, 2023, just a few days after the Hamas-led massacre, he shared a post comparing Hamas’s crime against humanity against civilians to Israel’s legitimate defense: “if killing civilians makes you ISIS, what does that make Israel?”85

During the June 2025 Israel-Iran war, he justified Iran’s targeting of Beer Sheva’s Soroka Hospital because it “treats IDF soldiers.”86 Additionally, he seemingly justified the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., by Elias Rodriguez in May 2025, claiming that the murder was “clearly motivated by support for Israel and mental health issues.”87 Jones also claimed “Israel is worse than Hamas.” In another post, Jones shared an article by left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz which said that Israeli soldiers “weren’t only soldiers. They were lovers and football fans, they were human beings.” Jones then commented on the article, insinuating that Hamas terrorists—whom he calls “fighters”—deserve to be considered in the same light as IDF soldiers defending their country and people, saying: “Trying to imagine an English language outlet doing a piece like this on Hamas fighters.”88

In a 2023 talk titled “Israel’s Disinformation and Propaganda War,” Jones argued that Israel’s social media efforts aimed to dehumanize Palestinians and justify violence and accused Western media of deep bias.89 In a June 2021 NU‑Q webinar on the “Digital Occupation in the War Against Palestine,” Jones described how bot networks fostered normalization of Gulf–Israel ties while silencing Palestinian narratives.90

Sami Hermez: Another dual-affiliated faculty member is Sami Hermez, the director of the Liberal Arts Program and associate professor in residence of anthropology at NU-Q.91 On October 7, 2023, he praised Hamas for having “retaken a town from settlers” and referred to the deadly attacks as a “significant moment.”92

At the Pearl Forum in November 2022, Hermez led a discussion on “The Fight Against the Normalization of Israel,” emphasizing Palestinian resistance and framing Israel as “an occupier.”93 In a 2007 article for the anti-Israel media outlet Electronic Intifada, Hermez compared former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.94

Other faculty members with dual affiliation are Anto Mohsin and Craig La May. Anto Mohsin is an assistant professor in residence in the Liberal Arts Program at NU-Q and is affiliated with NU’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.95 At NU‑Q, Mohsin teaches courses on environmental disasters, energy systems, and knowledge production in Asia. He also leads seminars on climate action, infrastructure, and renewable energy solutions at NU’s Buffett Institute.96

NU Board Chair Peter Berris at NU-Q’s 2025 graduation ceremony

Craig La May is a professor at both NU’s Medill School of Journalism and NU‑Q, where he has served as acting dean and director of the Journalism & Strategic Communication Program.97 At NU‑Q, LaMay leads a core class in Media Law & Ethics, which covers international free-speech principles and dives deeply into Qatar’s own 1979 Prints & Publications Law, its constitution, penal code, and comparative regional legal frameworks.98 Meanwhile, at Medill, LaMay teaches Media Law & Ethics, framing First Amendment principles, libel, privacy, defamation, and comparative international media liability. This course is explicitly aligned with its NU‑Q counterpart, even integrating cross-campus materials and perspectives.99

Human Resource Process Supports Faculty with Radical Views

Further proving how NU and NU-Q are essentially run as a single entity and guided by their Qatari sponsors, NU‑Q’s leadership is appointed by NU’s Provost, now Kathleen Hagerty, in consultation with the Qatar Foundation.100

The NU provost also leads the search process for a new dean, as seen in the 2019 search for a replacement for Dean Everette Dennis. The search firm Witt/Kieffer was engaged to assist with the search, and feedback was solicited from the Northwestern community before the final choice was made.101 Dean Dennis took over for founding Dean and CEO of NU-Q, John D. Margolis, an associate provost at NU who served from 2008 to 2011.102

NU’s provost not only helps to appoint NU-Q leaders, but they also visit NU-Q to meet with Qatari counterparts and staff. According to NU-Q, in 2011, a delegation including the provost and other senior officials visited the Doha campus to recognize new leadership and foster connections.103 The visit aimed at “underscoring Northwestern’s support for the campus and community in Qatar.”104 In May 2025, a senior delegation from NU, including Northwestern University Board of Trustees Chairman of the Board Peter J. Barris and Provost Hagerty, attended the NU-Q graduation ceremony.105

Notably, Hagerty’s leadership came under sharp scrutiny in the October 2024 Congressional report on campus antisemitism. Her response to discrimination against Jewish students and public handling of bias incidents were criticized for being dismissive and insufficient.106 Her appearance alongside Qatari officials in Doha underscores concerns raised in the report about NU’s tolerance of extremist ideologies and foreign influence.

Beyond helping to choose the leadership at the Qatar campus, a striking number of NU-Q senior faculty and administrators are transplants from—or retain ongoing ties with—NU Evanston, underscoring how NU and NU-Q operate as one entity striving to achieve the same goals support the mission of their financial sponsors. In this light, therefore, NU-Q and NU should be seen as continuations of one another that use their resources to educate the students on both campuses with the same problematic viewpoints that foster criticism of and disdain for Israel, Jewish people, and their allies, including the United States.107

For example, Marda Dunsky, previously a long‑time NU professor, became assistant professor in residence at NU-Q in 2021.108 As a national and foreign desk editor at the Chicago Tribune, Dunsky focused her scholarship on the critique of U.S. media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.109 Her work, particularly her 2008 book Pens and Swords: How the American Mainstream Media Report the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, argues that “American media” neglects essential historical and political context when reporting on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. During a panel called “The Palestinian Story in the Shadows: The Media’s Role in Covering the War in Gaza,” held at NU-Q on November 18, 2023, Dunsky somewhat justified Hamas’s attacks against Israel by claiming that the “war is not something that started on October 7th; it started with decades and decades of Israeli occupation of the Palestinians, [and] Western mainstream media narratives rarely depict the realities of occupation.”110

NU-Q Faculty Serving as NU Senators

Faculty senators at American universities have significant responsibility in shaping academic policy and upholding shared governance. Among the 99 NU senators, three are affiliated with NU-Q: Haya Al Noaimi, Mohammed Ibahrine, and Spencer Striker.111 Appointing professors affiliated with foreign institutions (like NU-Q) to this position raises concerns, as their limited engagement with the university’s operations and potential conflicts of interest may compromise informed decision-making and the integrity of institutional governance.

Haya Al-Noaimi: Al-Noaimi is an assistant professor in residence in the Liberal Arts Program at NU-Q and the institution’s first Qatari faculty member.112 She pursued her Ph.D. at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and joined NU-Q after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Georgetown University in Qatar.113 She also served as executive director of administration of the FIFA Intercontinental Cup Qatar 2024 Local Organizing Committee (LOC).114

Al-Noaimi also serves as researcher for NU-Q’s Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South (IAS-NUQ), which promotes critical views of the West. She is a member of IAS-NUQ’s “Critical Security Studies Hub” research group, where she authored an article titled “Conceptualizing the Everyday Life of Security Through Narrative and Affect” that seems to critique Western security paradigms and “national security narratives” in which she claims “citizens are often forgotten.”115

In the spring of 2024, Al Noaimi led the workshop “Territories, Peoples, Nations: Decolonial Approaches to Foundational Concepts,” which engaged in classic anti-Western critique. Participants discussed and debated themes, including “the ongoing legacies of colonialism and imperialism,” “reparations for colonial injustices” and so-called “exploitative and extractive practices of racial capitalism.”116

Al Noaimi’s post praising Hamas’ October 7 massacre

On October 7, 2023, Al Noaimi seemingly praised Hamas’s attacks against Israeli, American, and other civilians, claiming (in Arabic) that “the chain must surely break.”117

Mohammed Ibahrine: Ibahrine is a professor in residence in the Journalism & Strategic Communication Program at NU-Q.118 Prior to his appointment an NU-Q, Ibahrine taught at the American University of Sharjah in the UAE, Al-Akhawayn University in Morocco, and several German academic institutions.119

From 2010-2012, Ibahrine served as researcher for the “Mapping of Digital Media in Morocco” project at the Open Society Foundations, an American grantmaking network founded by George Soros, who is known for funding and supporting anti-Israel organizations including SJP, JVP, and IfNotNow through The Tides Foundation.120

At NU-Q, Ibahrine is responsible for the training course, Crisis Communications Strategy and Preparation, organized in collaboration with Qatar’s Government Communication Office (GCO) and aimed at advancing Qatar National Vision 2030, the country’s long-term development strategy launched in 2008.121 Ibahrine’s commitment to a Qatari government-affiliated program and his position as an NU faculty senator raises conflict of interest concerns because his alignment with a foreign government’s strategic communication goals may compromise academic independence.

Qatar Foundation Endowments and Partnerships Promoting Qatari Interests at NU

Establishing endowed chairs at U.S. universities is often framed as a commitment to academic excellence, but its strategic implications go beyond mere prestige. Endowments provide a reliable funding source, which not only helps attract prominent faculty, but also subtly shapes the priorities of teaching and research. By connecting funding to specific disciplines or research areas, donors can influence the intellectual direction of an institution, often aligning it with their own interests. This is the case at NU, where in 2010 the Qatar Foundation provided funding support for three endowed professorships in Middle East studies, communication, and journalism, all named after Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani.122

NU’s MENA Program offers a range of courses that frequently critique Western and Israeli policies, while amplifying Palestinian narratives and broader Middle Eastern perspectives. Courses like “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict – Competing Narratives, and Making the Modern Middle East” highlight contentious historical and political dynamics, often framing them in ways critical of Zionism and U.S. influence in the region.123 Courses such as “Traveling While Muslim: Islam, Mobility, and Security After 9/11” and others critique Western security policies, further contributing to narratives that question the U.S. and Israel.124 The course description for “Traveling While Muslim” states that “Some have argued that what unites Modi’s India and Trump’s United States is Islamophobia—albeit in different guises–as radicalization of Islam and Muslims continues to punctuate our current era.”125 It is clear how NU’s curriculum heavily incorporates themes of colonialism and post-9/11 Islamophobia to disproportionately frame the United States, Israel, and the West in a critical, often negative light.

Thus, the strategic decision to fund three endowed chairs in these specific fields, while deliberately excluding faculties in scientific, engineering, and medical disciplines—despite their presence on NU’s campus—clearly demonstrates Qatar’s intent to shape the ideological production of knowledge about the Middle East and geopolitical narratives and foster an international environment favorable to Qatar’s interests.

The MENA Studies Program Endowed Chairs

On June 15, 2022, Jessica Winegar was appointed the Hamad Bin Khalifa Al‑Thani Chair in Middle East Studies.126 Winegar is an assistant professor in anthropology and has a clear record of anti-Israel bias. She is a member of Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions and, in July 2023, she helped introduce a resolution to the American Anthropological Association to boycott Israeli academic organizations.127 In an interview released after the resolution passed, she bragged of her devotion to “years of work educating the AAA membership on the issues and on the boycott. And we had a carefully crafted campaign.”128

She has glorified individuals tied to designated terrorist groups and downplayed Hamas’s October 7 massacre in public statements. Her leadership role during the 2024 Gaza encampments and resignation from NU’s antisemitism committee further highlight her significant role in fueling anti-Israel sentiment on campus.129 Despite her clear bias against Israel, NU still lists Winegar as an expert on the “Israel-Hamas war” on October 12, 2023.130

In 2024, Winegar co-authored an article with Lara Deeb titled “Resistance to Repression and Back Again: The Movement for Palestinian Liberation in US Academia,” which traces the history of pro-Palestinian activism and the alleged corresponding “backlash” on U.S. campuses, arguing that repression has consistently fueled further resistance from the 1960s up to the 2024 “Gaza encampments.” The article glorifies the BDS movement and calls for a “BDS-inspired dismantling of Zionism through education … so that Palestinian terms for their own liberation can be centered, spoken, and acted upon by allies in US academic institutions.”131

Winegar was a contributor for the Institute of Palestine Studies, a non-profit research institution headquartered in Beirut, Lebanon, with offices in Washington, D.C., and Ramallah, known for its ties with the U.S.-designated terror organization, the PFLP.132 In 2009, Winegar also spent three months in Egypt for “ethnographic interviews with independent Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood members.”133 In some posts, which have been removed, Winegar glorified PFLP terrorist Bilal Kayed, Ahmad Sa’adat and Marwan Barghouti.134

On October 16, 2023, Winegar was among the nine signatories of an open letter called “NU Leaders’ Responses to War in Palestine and Israel” to the NU administration in response to previous communications sent out by NU. The letter downplayed and justified Hamas’s October 7 massacre against Israeli, American, and other foreign nationals and criticized earlier communications sent out by NU leaders: “The leaders’ messages also address the attacks by Hamas as if they came out of nowhere. They did not. … To condemn Hamas’s attack while ignoring this broader context is to fail to understand how we got where we are today.”135 Despite her clear anti-Israel bias, NU included Winegar among the campus “experts” to discuss Israel-Hamas war on December 4, 2023.136

In November 2023, Winegar was among NU “concerned faculty” who signed a letter to President Schill criticizing and rejecting the establishment of NU’s Advisory Committee on Preventing Antisemitism and Hate, claiming it would not allow students to “historicize current events, wrestle carefully with language, and learn how to enact change in relation to their conscience.”137

Jessica Winegar’s controversial involvement in Northwestern University’s pro-Palestinian activism became particularly evident in the spring of 2024, when she was selected as the NU president’s lead negotiator to meet with the anti-Israel students of the “Northwestern Liberated Zone” Gaza encampment.138 Simultaneously, Winegar resigned, along with six other members, from the NU’s Advisory Committee on Preventing Antisemitism and Hate. These actions significantly contributed to increased hostility towards Jewish students and Israel on campus.139

The October 30, 2024, report by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce criticized Winegar for her radical anti-Israel activism and questioned her fitness to serve in any role addressing antisemitism. The report highlighted her leadership in the academic boycott movement against Israel, her past use of the term “Zionist media” to delegitimize mainstream reporting, and her public defense of a Palestinian terrorist convicted of murdering Israeli civilians.140 That NU appointed Winegar to the Advisory Committee on Preventing Antisemitism and Hate despite this record moved the Committee to condemn her appointment as deeply inappropriate. The report argued that Winegar’s actions and affiliations demonstrate ideological bias incompatible with the goals of civil rights enforcement and the protection of Jewish students and described her inclusion on the antisemitism task force as a severe failure of judgment by university leadership.

The Communication Studies Endowment

A second Qatar Foundation endowed chair is the Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani Chair in Communication, currently held by Leslie Dechurch, who also serves as chair of the Department of Communication Studies.141 Although Dechurch’s work is largely apolitical, faculty of the department she chairs includes Sulafa Zidani, an assistant professor of communication studies, who is also affiliated with NU-Q’s Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South (IAS_NU-Q).142

Anti-Israel event featuring NU faculty member Sulafa Zidani

Zidani is a Palestinian scholar in the field of digital culture, but her scholarship focuses deeply on Palestine-Israel topics and frequently fosters anti-Israel and anti-Western bias. In 2021, she published an article about the use of memes by Palestinian youth in Israel, claiming that “memes are used to reflect on and intervene in Palestinian youths’ navigation of life in mixed cities under prolonged war and colonialism.”143

In a 2022 account of her experience as a student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Zidani made antisemitic claims about Israel and Israelis: “Out of place, indeed, my university on our stolen land,” a “microcosm of the Israeli carceral state, that “my landlord, Nissim, a middle aged Yemeni Jewish man, did not want to rent to me. Fine, I retorted. I didn’t want to give my money to a racist anyway.” She writes that he rented her the apartment for two years.144

In 2024, she wrote about Twitter (now X) trends during the 2021 Palestinian uprising and claimed that, in the words of the Taylor & Francis Online abstract of the article, “In June 2021, in the midst of the Palestinian Unity Intifada, Twitter users took to the platform to imagine a desired future in which Israel’s apartheid occupation … no longer existed.”145 In addition, her graduate seminary titled “The Imperial Internet” claimed that the internet “was constructed on a set of desires, namely of American elites, and is situated within a set of unequal relationships.”146 This classic anti-Western critique is deeply influenced by the anti-Western narrative cultivated at the IAS-NU-Q.

The Journalism Endowment

The third Qatar Foundation-funded endowed position is the Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) at NU’s Medill School of Journalism, which has been held by Professor Vijay Viswanathan since 2021.147 Viswanathan is a scholar of AI digital marketing, digital media and marketing communications and currently serves as Vice Dean of IMC at NU Medill School of Journalism in Evanston. This institution over which Viswanathan is associate dean is controversial in that contributed—and still contributes—to the anti-Israel environment at NU.

For example, the Medill School of Journalism offers the core course Journalism in Practice. One of the classes which is provided as a sample class within the Journalism in Practice course is called “Israel Today: Divergent Dreams in a Promised Land,” taught by Bob Rowley.148

Rowley’s class includes travelling to Israel and explores “U.S. policies and the opposing narratives of the current conflict” and on the “political strife” and “peace efforts” between Israelis and Palestinians. While presenting itself as balanced, it is unclear whether the curriculum and professor effectively balances the viewpoints and debate to reflect both the Palestinian and Israeli/Jewish perspectives.

Medill professors are also problematic. For example, Steven Thrasher, a Medill associate professor in Journalism, became a prominent figure in the NU Gaza encampment in April 2024 as he helped form a “protective line” between police forces and student protesters, leading to misdemeanor charges, the cancellation of his classes for the fall quarter, and the denial of a tenure track position at NU (he remains employed until April 2026).149

The Chicago Arabic Teachers Council

The Chicago Arabic Teachers Council (CATC) was established in 2016 as a collaborative initiative between NU’s MENA Studies Program and Qatar Foundation International (QFI).150 The Council aimed to provide a platform for K-12 educators to access teaching strategies and curriculum and to discover professional development opportunities. This initiative was part of a broader effort to strengthen Arabic instruction in the Chicago area, where over 3,000 students in Chicago Public Schools were enrolled in Arabic language programs.151

On December 17, 2016, CATC held its symposium at NU, focused on classroom practices and teaching strategies.152 As part of the partnership, Crown Professor in Middle East Studies and Director of NU’s MENA Program, Brian Edwards, served as CATC chair.153 Fadia Antabli, an associate professor in Arabic at NU, was appointed as the council’s coordinator. Antabli, who also served as the language coordinator for the MENA Studies Program from 2016 to 2019, emphasized the importance of community and support for Arabic language educator.154

While the University of Chicago took over administrative hosting of the Council in 2017, Qatar Foundation International still publicly lists the CATC as an active QFI-affiliated entity on the QFI website.155

Qatar’s influence, routed through NU’s initial facilitation, now lives on in K–12 Chicago classrooms, which have been under scrutiny recently as teachers’ unions have been promoting anti-Israel sentiments. After October 7, the Chicago Teachers Union reportedly “instigated pro-Hamas demonstrations”, and “organized a student and faculty “walkout” to show solidarity with Hamas.”156 In the midst of this, Chicago Public Schools has faced mounting incidents of anti-Jewish harassment in its school community and continues to receive federal scrutiny for its DEI-aligned curricula.157

The Anti-Israel Environment at NU

The anti-Israel environment at Northwestern University has intensified since the escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict that began following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks. The campus has witnessed a surge in pro-Palestinian activism, accusations of antisemitism, and heightened tensions between student groups. On October 25, 2023, the campus was littered with fake versions of the Daily Northwestern student newspaper that demonized Israel and university leadership. Articles used inflammatory Holocaust-era language, accusing Israel of committing “genocide” and dehumanizing hostages captured by Hamas by comparing them to recyclable containers.158

This charged atmosphere has left many Jewish students feeling unsafe and marginalized.

NU Students for Justice in Palestine

NU’s Students for Justice in Palestine has been actively promoting anti-Israel sentiments on campus for many years. In May 2017, Rasmea Odeh, a PFLP terrorist convicted of killing two civilians in a 1969 Jerusalem bombing, spoke at an NUSJP event as part of its Israeli Apartheid Week, prompting backlash from Jewish students and national advocacy groups.159

Especially since October 2023, NUSJP has been central to the rise in anti-Israel and anti-American activism, organizing demonstrations, advocating for divestment from Israeli-linked companies, and distributing controversial materials.160 In May 2025, the organization distributed pamphlets quoting the PFLP, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. NUSJP promoted content urging students to “destroy Amerika” and “build an Intifada,” and statements such as “a message to the student intifada: Let us not dialogue with our persecutors” have contributed to a hostile campus climate, especially for Jewish students.161

PFLP terrorist Rasmea Odeh hosted by Northwestern’s SJP chapter in May 2017

Just one month before the circulation of the pamphlets quoting the PFLP, the radical U.S.-based group Unity of Fields took credit for vandalizing Northwestern’s Holocaust Educational Foundation with red spray-painted slogans “Death to Israel” and “Intifada Now” with the red triangle Hamas uses to identify its targets.162

Anti-Israel vandalism at NU

NU’s Deering Meadow Encampment

In Spring 2024, Northwestern participated in the “Gaza Solidarity encampments” movement, hosting the “Deering Meadow encampment.” Anti-Israel students occupied the campus public spaces, covered themselves with keffiyehs and forbade interviews with Israel or pro-Israel media.163

Among the individuals documented at the encampment was Hatem Abudayyeh, the executive director of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), one of the organizations mentioned previously as being heavily influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood network. Abudayyeh has a long history of radical affiliations and national security scrutiny.164 Abudayyeh previously served as executive director of the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) in Chicago. In September 2010, his home was raided by the FBI as part of a federal investigation into alleged support for FTOs, including Hamas and the PFLP.

In the widely circulated video from the Deering Meadow encampment, Abudayyeh can be seen involved in a confrontation, reinforcing his role as an ideological leader within the protest movement.165 His presence drew condemnation from Jewish advocacy groups and national security observers, given his longstanding praise for Hamas and Hezbollah, his public endorsement of “armed resistance,” and his use of AAAN as a platform to promote anti-Zionist extremism and reject coexistence with Israel. Abudayyeh’s appearance at NU’s encampment underscores the growing convergence between radical anti-Israel networks and campus activism and highlights the failure of university administrators to properly vet or restrict individuals with documented ties to extremist or terror movements from participating in student-organized events.

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a central organizer of the Deering Meadow encampment, is not merely a fringe anti-Israel student group—it operates as a national movement with ideological and financial ties that raise significant national security concerns. According to the 2025 StandWithUs investigative report, JVP has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors and foundations connected to Lebanon, Iran, and Qatar-aligned interests. The report further documents that JVP’s communications director worked in Beirut for over 17 years, and the group has “hosted events, endorsed campaigns, and collaborated with organizations directly linked to U.S.-designated terrorist groups like the PFLP and PIJ.” These documented affiliations strongly suggest that JVP operates within an international ideological network that aligns with anti-Israel and anti-American Qatari and Iranian objectives targeting the U.S. Jewish community and other American institutions.166

One JVP member at the encampment celebrated the campus occupation as a “community that welcomed every aspect of my Jewish identity, including anti-Zionist beliefs.167 Several faculty members actively participated in protests including Alithia Zamantakis and Steven Thrasher, who were arrested during demonstrations, though charges were later dropped.

Because of the radical nature of the events at the Deering Meadow encampment, Jewish students reported feeling harassed and unsafe.168 A lawsuit filed by three students alleged that the encampment represented a “dystopic cesspool of hate,” citing verbal and physical harassment, glorification of Hamas, and chants hostile to Israel and its supporters. Alleged incidents included students being told to “go back to Europe” and facing derogatory online posts.

An agreement to end the encampment was eventually signed by NU President Michael Schill and the encampment activists, but included stipulations that the school recruit two Palestinian professors and provide funds to five students from Gaza.169 Therefore, NU hired Mkhaimar Abusada, a visiting associate professor of political science, who also serves on the boards of two terror-affiliated organizations: the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), which praised Hamas and personally met with Ismail Haniyeh, and the PFLP-affiliated Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).170 Abusada is profiled on the MENA Studies Program’s “Visiting Affiliated Faculty” webpage.”171

Overall, the environment at NU has become deeply polarized, with pro-Palestinian activists, including SJP, JVP, and EJP pushing for divestment and the amplification of their cause, while Jewish students and their allies feel increasingly marginalized and fear for their safety.172 The university remains under intense scrutiny as it seeks to balance free speech, academic freedom, and campus safety amid ongoing federal and legal investigations.

Anti-Israel Content at NU-Q

Courses at NU-Q are marked by their anti-Israel bias. The Fall 2025 teaching program includes the following courses:

National Cinema: Palestine, taught by Greg Burris, which focuses on “power and resistance, violence and non-violence” in Palestinian visual culture.

Conflict Reporting Literacy, taught by Marda Dunsky, which aims to counter the alleged “mainstream media coverage of the conflict produced in the West … suffused with—and frequently overtaken by—narratives that support the interests of Israel and U.S. policy,” and to rather teach students how to provide an alleged more neutral – pro-Palestinian – conflict reporting.173Topics in Political Science, taught by Khaled Al Hroub, which covers such topics as “lack of Palestinian statehood,” “conflicting narratives, role of regional and international players and the long-lasting and present ramifications of the conflict.” 174

NU-Q also organizes events and podcasts characterized by a clear anti-Israel bias. For example, in 2021, it hosted the podcast “Israeli Environmental Apartheid: A Weapon Against Palestinians,” sponsored by the University’s Palestine Student Club and co-hosted by the Liberal Arts Program, whose main argument was that “the Israeli occupation of Palestine has been detrimental to the environment—destroying agricultural land and creating ‘water-apartheid.’”175

Additionally, in 2020-2021, NU-Q became the hub for the boycott of the Abraham Accords, with webinars and meetings that criticized the agreements between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain. For example, in October 2020, NU-Q hosted the podcast “The Future of the Question of Palestine,” in which Al Shabaka fellow Yara Hawari claimed that Israeli and American efforts towards implementing the accords were “a culmination of interventions that have ‘disregarded Palestinian rights and aspirations for sovereignty’ for decades.”176 Similarly, in March 2021, NU-Q hosted the webinar “Formalities and Normalities: Israel and Normalization,” in which normalization was identified as “normalizing colonialism in the 21st century, normalizing military occupation, normalizing the presence of an apartheid state in the midst of us, and a state that has been trenched in its law supremacy and control of one religious group over another.”177

Just one month after the October 7 Hamas attacks, NU-Q hosted the panel “Palestine in Wartime Media Narratives,” featuring faculty members with alleged terror ties, such as Khaled Al Hroub and Ibrahim Abusharif. Al Hroub blamed “the Western media camera” for being “frozen on one event, that is October 7th” and added that “Western media is complicit and part of the war crimes.”178 Meanwhile, Marda Dunsky justified Hamas’s attacks and minimized their responsibility for the atrocities they committed by claiming that “This [war] is not something that started on October 7th; it started with decades and decades of Israeli occupation of the Palestinians, [and] Western mainstream media narratives rarely depict the realities of occupation.”179

NU-Q also hosts the “Palestine Student Club”, which “aims to promote discussions on Palestine-related issues.”180 In NU-Q’s official “Clubs and Organizations” list, the club is identified as “Students for Justice in Palestine.”181 The organization is not simply devoted to organizing events, but also influences the academic agenda by hosting podcasts and lectures with local and international scholars to discuss topics in a classic anti-Israel perspective, such as “environmental injustice in Palestine,” “the Palestinian Resistance.”182 In 2020, it organized webinars to criticize the Abraham Accords and even urged NU-Q to “hold any NUQ member that normalizes relations with Israel accountable.”183 In October 2020, during a webinar with Sami Hermez and others about “The Future of the Question of Palestine”, panel member Dr. Tariq Dana said “armed struggle is a legitimate option by international law as we are a colonized population.”184 Former club member Jehad Al-Hallaq, who now serves as a Film Assistant Director, is known for being a PFLP supporter and promoted incitement against Israeli citizens.185

Institutionalizing Radicalism at NU-Q: The Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South

The Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South (IAS-NUQ), based at Northwestern University in Qatar, positions itself as an academic hub dedicated to advancing “knowledge production from a Global South perspective.”186 Launched in 2022 under the leadership of the current dean and CEO of NU-Q Marwan Kraidy, IAS-NUQ focuses on classic leftist academic tropes through programs such as Arab Information and Media Studies (AIMS) and a series of high-profile conferences and fellowships.187 At one of its 2023 conferences, aforementioned Marc Ownes Jones participated in a panel on “examining the global politics of information circulation with a focus on decolonizing data.”188

IAS-NUQ has received over $850,000 in grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to expand AIMS, a media and information research platform across Arabophobe, Anglophone, and Francophone regions.189 Funding from Carnegie Corporation may have been facilitated by the fact that IAS-NUQ director and NU-Q dean Kraidy, when he was at the University of Pennsylvania, was awarded a $200,000 grant by Carnegie Foundation to study ISIS’s use of media.190

IAS-NUQ’s claim to challenge “the hegemony of Western thought in the field” often masks a deeper alignment with Qatari state interests.191 Many of its events and publications emphasize critiques of Western power, settler colonialism, and global capitalism, while showing little tolerance for alternative or dissenting perspectives, particularly from within Israel or the Jewish diaspora.192 This selective framing raises legitimate concerns about academic bias, viewpoint suppression, and the politicization of scholarly inquiry under the guise of liberation discourse.193

IAS-NUQ’s new open-access press, launched in 2024, showcases work that reinforces rather than challenges the dominant ideological framework curated by the institution.194

Finally, IAS-NUQ’s close alignment with other Qatari-funded entities—including its partnerships with the Arab Council for the Social Sciences and its hosting of the Critical Security Studies Hub—suggests not only academic collaboration but also a convergence of political messaging.195 This convergence positions IAS-NUQ as less an independent research body than a vehicle for Qatar’s soft power strategy, using Western academic legitimacy to launder a state-sponsored, extremist worldview which does not always align with American, Israel, and Western interests and beliefs.

Conclusion

The relationship between Northwestern University’s Evanston campus and its Qatar campus (NU-Q) is much greater than a typical international satellite institution model.

The two campuses are deeply integrated, with shared faculty appointments, governance roles, and cross-campus ideological exchanges. This systemic connection is supported by substantial financial backing from the Qatar Foundation, which has donated over $700 million to the university, with more funds expected in the coming years.

Despite NU-Q’s modest academic offerings and campus facilities and amenities, these funds are strategically channeled into areas such as journalism, communication, and Middle East studies, raising serious concerns about transparency in the allocation of these resources.

The financial support from Qatar is not only used to support NU-Q, but is also exerting significant influence on the academic and political climate at Northwestern’s Evanston campus. This influence is evident in the growing ideological alignment between the two campuses, particularly in relation to anti-Israel and anti-American rhetoric. Many faculty members at NU-Q hold dual affiliations at NU, and their views—often sympathetic to U.S.-designated terrorist organizations such as Hamas and PFLP—are shaping NU academic discourse. The Qatar Foundation’s endowment of several academic chairs in MENA studies, journalism, and communications further solidifies this ideological direction.

The intertwining of the two campuses goes beyond academics, extending into institutional governance. NU-Q faculty members serve as NU faculty senators, giving them a direct role in shaping university policies, which raises concerns about the influence of foreign-funded individuals on domestic university decision-making. This governance overlap may have serious implications for transparency and academic independence.

Moreover, the deep integration between NU and NU-Q has contributed to a hostile climate for Jewish students at NU. Antisemitic incidents, including harassment and exclusion during protests and campus encampments, have been documented, with anti-Israel rhetoric being normalized by faculty and student organizations. The University’s response has been inadequate, and its failure to protect Jewish students has raised serious concerns under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in federally funded institutions.

In addition to these internal challenges, the influence of Qatar raises questions about the use of U.S. academic institutions as platforms for foreign soft power. Qatar’s extensive funding and influence are used to promote a geopolitical narrative favorable to its regime, using academic programs, faculty appointments, and events to further its ideological agenda. This includes the dissemination of anti-Western and anti-Israel perspectives, which are institutionalized through the university’s curriculum and faculty hires.

The partnership between NU and NU-Q is not just an academic collaboration, but a strategic effort by Qatar to influence U.S. higher education. Through substantial financial investment, faculty exchanges, and governance integration, Qatar is shaping both the ideological climate and policy decisions at Northwestern. This raises significant concerns regarding academic freedom, transparency, and compliance with civil rights protections and demands further scrutiny and potential legal action.

Recommendations

The following actionable recommendations can be considered within the U.S. legal frameworks—particularly involving the Department of Education (DOE), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of State (DOS), and Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA).

1. Title VI Compliance and Jewish Student Protections

a. Title VI Investigations (Civil Rights Act of 1964)

Goal: Ensure that Northwestern University meets its obligations under Title VI, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs or activities receiving federal funding.

Recommended Action: The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) should investigate whether the NU’s ties to Qatar and its ideological influences have fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students. This includes looking into incidents of harassment, exclusion, or threats faced by Jewish students, particularly following October 2023 when campus protests and encampments flourished and antisemitic rhetoric and actions were displayed and promoted. The investigation should assess whether NU has taken adequate steps to prevent and address this discrimination, as required under Title VI.

2. National Security Actions (DHS & DOJ)

a. Legal Demand for Northwestern’s Internal Documentation

Targets: Northwestern’s internal vetting files, foreign-funded stipends, and visa sponsorship documents.

Recommended Action: Determine if improper vetting, sponsorship fraud, or national security risks are present.

b. Open a FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) Investigation

Grounds: Qatar Foundation’s financial ties and ideological influence may trigger FARA obligations for NU or its employees.

Recommended Action: DOJ should assess whether NU or its faculty are acting on behalf of a foreign principal (Qatar) without proper registration.

c. Investigate Under INA §§ 219 & 1182(a)(3)(B)

Grounds: Alleged support or ideological alignment with U.S.-designated terrorist organizations (e.g., Hamas, PFLP).

Recommended Action: DHS and DOJ should investigate NU-Q faculty, visiting scholars, and invited speakers for potential material support or ideological sponsorship under terrorism-related provisions.

3. Accreditation Review (CHEA / Higher Learning Commission)

a. File Complaint with NU Accreditor (Higher Learning Commission)

Concerns: Potential breaches of academic integrity, lack of viewpoint diversity, and foreign influence over curricula.

Recommended Action: Request that the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and HLC investigate whether NU is violating accreditation standards on academic freedom and institutional independence.

4. Visa and Immigration Control (DHS & DOS)

a. Visa Revocation or Inadmissibility Reviews

Scope: Faculty or students affiliated with NU-Q who demonstrate ideological support for terrorism or engage in anti-American propaganda.

Legal Basis: Under INA § 212(a)(3)(B) for terrorism-related grounds of inadmissibility.

Recommended Action: DHS and DOS to conduct individual reviews, potentially leading to visa revocation or denial of future entry into the United States.

5. Philanthropic Accountability: Carnegie Corporation Review

a. Urge the Carnegie Corporation of New York to Reevaluate and Suspend Funding to the Institute for the Study of Global South at NU-Q.

Grounds: This use of philanthropic funding may contradict Carnegie’s stated mission of promoting democracy, knowledge, and peace. The ideological bias and alleged connections to extremist views risk reputational damage to the Corporation.

6. Lobbying Transparency and Policy Reform Oversight (House Oversight, Senate HELP Committee, GSA OGP)

a. Investigate Lobbying Activities and Potential Misrepresentation
Basis.

Grounds: Northwestern’s unprecedented increase in lobbying expenditures—over $750,000 in Q1 2025 alone—raises questions about potential attempts to influence congressional or executive action on antisemitism, DEI scrutiny, and Title VI compliance.
Recommended Actions:

The House Oversight Committee and Senate HELP Committee should request Northwestern’s lobbying records under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA), including issue briefs, client communications, and deliverables from outside firms.

GSA’s Office of Government-wide Policy (OGP) should assess whether any federal grant conditions were violated through unreported or undisclosed lobbying activities.

b. Audit Use of Federal and State Funds to Pay Lobbyists or PR Consultants.

Goal: Determine whether federal education grants, DEI-related earmarks, or Qatar-funded discretionary dollars were misallocated to fund lobbying efforts aimed at resisting Congressional oversight or masking Title VI violations.

Recommended Action: The Department of Education Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) should launch a joint financial and programmatic audit.

c. Enact Policy Reforms (DETERRENT Act & Foreign Influence Transparency)
Context.

Northwestern has reportedly lobbied aggressively against legislation designed to enhance university accountability (e.g., DETERRENT Act).

Recommended Actions:

Congress should scrutinize whether Northwestern’s lobbying stifled bipartisan reform efforts.

Federal agencies (DOE, DOJ, HHS) should include lobbying transparency benchmarks as part of any future settlement, funding reinstatement, or Title VI compliance plans.
7. Financial Transparency and University Governance Review

a. IRS Review of Nonprofit Status and Tax-Exempt Governance Practices
Basis.

If NU knowingly misrepresented funding sources, failed to properly disclose foreign influence, or subsidized discriminatory programs (e.g., DEI offices excluding Zionist students), it may have violated 501(c)(3) standards.

Grounds: Title VI violations and misuse of foreign and federal funds.

Recommended Action: The IRS Office of Tax-Exempt Organizations should conduct a review of Northwestern’s tax compliance, particularly around political activity, and donor disclosure.

b. Investigate Board Governance.

Grounds: Evidence suggests that Northwestern’s Chairperson exercises near-total control over presidential oversight. Faculty and student complaints have gone unaddressed, and federal pressure appears to be the only check on the institution’s power structure.

Recommended Action: Congress or the Department of Education could request Northwestern’s board governance records and bylaws. Consider recommending reforms to ensure independent oversight and internal compliance accountability.

8. Public Integrity and Whistleblower Protections

a. Ethics Review of University Legal Counsel and Outside Law Firms

Goal: Determine if Northwestern’s counsel engaged in misconduct at the Deering Meadow encampment harassment incidents.

Recommended Action: Refer ethics complaints to the Illinois Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission (ARDC) and the American Bar Association (ABA) if applicable.

9. Congressional and Interagency Coordination Mechanism

a. Establish Interagency Task Force or Working Group.

Goal: Coordinate parallel investigations at DHS, DOE, DOJ, and HHS.

Model: Use the framework of the DOJ-led Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.

Recommended action: Develop a public report assessing Title VI, foreign influence, and civil rights risks at NU as a national case study.

b. Schedule Public Oversight Hearings and Secure Transcribed Testimony.

Goal: Use NU as an example to advance new legislation, such as the DETERRENT Act, and to educate the public about foreign interference in American academia.

Recommended Action: The House Committee on Education and the Workforce and Senate HELP should hold follow-up hearings after President Schill’s August 5 Congressional interview to question NU’s board, DEI leaders, and finance officials.

Glossary of Acronyms

AIMS: Arab Information and Media Studies (IAS_NUQ)

AMP: American Muslims for Palestine

CAIR: Council on American-Islamic Relations

CATC: Chicago Arabic Teachers Council

CHEA: Council for Higher Education Accreditation

CPS: Chicago Public Schools

DEI: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

DHS: Department of Homeland Security

DOE: Department of Education

DOJ: Department of Justice

DOS: Department of State

FARA: Foreign Agents Registration Act

FTO: Foreign Terrorist Organization

GSA OGP: General Services Administration Office of Government-wide Policy

HHS: Department of Health and Human Services

HLF: Holy Land Foundation

IAP: Islamic Association of Palestine

IAS-NUQ: The Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South at Northwestern University in Qatar

MENA: Middle East and North African Studies

NU: Northwestern University

NU-Q: Northwestern University in Qatar

PFLP: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

QF: Qatar Foundation

QFI: Qatar Foundation International

QSO: Qatar Support Office

Senate HELP Committee: Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

SJP: Students for Justice in Palestine

JVP: Jewish Voice for Peace

USPCN: U.S. Palestinian Community Network

Disclaimer:
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Endnotes

1. Washington Free Beacon, “Northwestern’s Contract with Qatar Forbids School from Criticizing Regime,” published 09/05/2025, accessed 09/05/2025.

2. Justice Gov, “Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” accessed 07/07/2025.

3. FSA Partners, “Section 117 Foreign gifts,” accessed 06/19/2025; ABC 3340, “Northwestern University Grapples with Funding Scrutiny in Congressional Hearing,” published 05/24/2024, accessed 07/15/2025.

4. Minding the Campus, “I’m a Jewish Student at Northwestern. I Shouldn’t Have to Choose Between My Faith and My Future,” published 06/19/2025, accessed 07/07/2025; Daily Northwestern, “HHS launches investigation into Northwestern for alleged discrimination against Jewish students,” published 05/14/2025, accessed 07/07/2025.

5. National Review, “Northwestern University Anti-Discrimination Training Criticized as Biased,” published 01/16/2025, accessed 07/07/2025.

6. YouTube, “Northwestern University Anti-Discrimination Training,” published March 2025, accessed 07/07/2025.

7. The Washington Free Beacon, “Constitution of Jewish For Peace at Northwestern University,” published 10/17/2024, accessed 07/07/2025; Washington Free Beacon, “Northwestern Tells JVP: Change Your Constitution or Risk Discipline Under New Anti-Discrimination Policy,” published 04/29/2025, accessed 07/07/2025.

8. Program on Extremism, George Washington University, “Hamas’s Influence in US Campuses,” published 2024, accessed 07/14/2025; ADL, “Who is funding U.S. Anti-Israel Groups?,” published 09/26/2024, accessed 07/14/2025.

9. McCormick Northwestern, “Arthur Butz,” accessed 07/15/2025; The Hill, “Putting an end to Qatar’s antisemitic shadow at Northwestern,” published 05/26/2024, accessed 07/15/2025.

10. FSA Partners, “Section 117 Foreign gifts,” accessed 06/19/2025.

11. Ibid. – NB: The numerical amount was calculated extensively and meticulously by our researchers using the data that was found and provided.; News Northwestern, “Northwestern Extends Agreement for Programs in Qatar,” published 02/22/2016, accessed 06/19/2025; Washington Free Beacon, “Northwestern’s Contract with Qatar Forbids School from Criticizing Regime,” published 09/05/2025, accessed 09/05/2025.

12. Daedalus, “Northwestern University in Qatar: A Distinctive Global University,” published spring 2024, accessed 06/19/20265; Northwestern Qatar, “Record Number of Students Enroll at Northwestern Qatar,” published 09/09/2020, accessed 06/19/2025.

13. Northwestern Qatar, “Undergraduate Academics,” accessed 08/28/2025.

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29. Court Listener, “Boim v. Quranic Literacy Institute,” accessed 06/22/2025.

30. Northwestern, “Experts available on Israel-Hamas war,” published 12/04/2023, accessed 07/14/2025.

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32. Ibrahim Abusharif, LinkedIn, accessed 07/14/2025.

33. Ibrahim Abusharif, X, published 11/24/2024, accessed 06/30/2025.

34. Northwestern Qatar, “NU-Q students intern at Forbes, AJ+, Al Jazeera,” published 04/03/2018, accessed 07/14/2025.

35. AJ+ YouTube, “Why the U.S. and Russia Get Away with War Crimes,” published 06/29/22, accessed 09/04/2025.

36. AJ+ YouTube, “Israel & the U.S. Are No Longer Pretending,” accessed 09/04/2025.

37. AJ+ YouTube, “International Students vs. the Trump Administration,” accessed 09/04/2025.

38. AJ+ YouTube, “Black Hair is Getting Banned,” accessed 09/04/2025.

39. AJ+ YouTube, “How 5 Companies Are Keeping the World at War,” accessed 09/04/2025.

40. AJ+ YouTube, “How U.S. Corporations Sterilized Thousands Worldwide,” accessed 09/04/2025.

41. Press Freedom Tracker, “Al Jazeera,” published 09/14/2020, accessed 07/14/2025.

42. U.S. House Oversight Committee, “Comer Opens Probe into DOJ’s Failure to Enforce FARA Requirements,” published 02/08/2024, accessed 07/14/2025.

43. U.S. House Burgess Owens, “Owens To Northwestern: End Your Al Jazeera Partnership,” published 06/24/2024, accessed 07/14/2025.

44. Northwestern Qatar, “Evanston students engage the Qatar campus,” published 09/18/2016, accessed 07/06/2025.

45. Daily Northwestern, “In Focus: Community members say Northwestern is neither a safe nor free space for conversations about Palestine and Israel,” published 03/02/2023, accessed 07/06/2023.

46. The Washington Free Beacon, “Georgetown Places Staff Member on Leave After Anti-Semitic Posts Revealed,” published 11/03/2023, accessed 07/06/2025.

47. The Algemeiner, “‘They’re Dogs’: Georgetown University Places Staff Member on Leave Over Antisemitic Posts,” published 11/03/2023, accessed 07/06/2025.

48. Ibid.

49. Northwestern Qatar, “Northwestern Qatar faculty join Evanston campus seminars,” published 02/10/2021, accessed 07/06/2025.

50. Northwestern, “Roberta Buffett Elliott honored for gift of more than $100 Million,” published 01/28/2015, accessed 07/14/2025.

51. Northwestern Qatar, “Evanston Professor Concludes “Enormously Enriching” Experience at Northwestern Qatar,” published 08/30/2020, accessed 07/06/2025.

52. Northwestern Qatar, “NU-Q gathers top scholars from US and Qatar campuses to re-define MENA studies,” published 09/17/2012, accessed 07/06/2025.

53. Ibid.

54. G-City, “On The Ground,” published 2014, accessed 07/06/2025.

55. Daily Northwestern, “LTE: Open letter on NU leaders’ responses to war in Palestine and Israel,” published 10/16/2023, accessed 07/14/2025; Daily Northwestern, “NU faculty, staff, librarians, graduate students form Educators for Justice in Palestine chapter,” published 01/31/2024, accessed 07/14/2025; NU-Q, “NU-Q gathers top scholars from US and Qatar campuses to re-define MENA studies“, published 09/17/2012, accessed 07/15/2025.

56. Amcha Initiative, “Northwestern’s People Resolution,” accessed 07/14/2025.

57. Northwestern, “Elizabeth Hurd,” accessed 06/24/2025.

58. Daily Northwestern, “NU faculty, staff, librarians, graduate students form Educators for Justice in Palestine chapter,” published 01/31/2024, accessed 06/24/2025; JNS, “Northwestern University launches Educators for Justice in Palestine,” published 02/06/2024, accessed 07/06/2025.

59. SCRIBD, “NU Complaint HouseCommittee2024,” accessed 07/06/2025.

60. Ibid.

61. Chicago Business, “College faculty call on leaders to fend off actions by Trump,” published 06/23/2025, accessed 07/14/2025, Northwestern, “Experts available on Israel-Hamas war,” published 12/04/2023, accessed 07/14/2025.

62. Sites Northwestern, “Wendy Pearlman,” accessed 07/06/2025.

63. Jewish Onliner, “Northwestern Professor Revealed as Advisor for School’s Jewish Voice for Peace Chapter,” published 07/13/2025, accessed 07/14/2025.

64. Evanston Round Table, “NU faculty and staff launch Educators for Justice in Palestine,” published 01/31/2024, accessed 07/06/2025.

65. Daily Northwestern, “Live: Pro-Palestinian demonstrators continue to push for divestment on Deering Meadow following agreement,” published 04/25/2024, accessed 07/06/2025.

66. Jadalyya, “New Texts Out Now: Wendy Pearlman, Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement,” accessed 07/14/2025.

67. The Jerusalem Post, “Hamas wins student council election at Bir Zeit University“, published 05/24/2023, accessed 07/15/2025; Israel Hayom, “Security forces thwart Hamas terror plot directed from Turkey“, published 07/21/2024, accessed 07/15/2025.

68. Wendy Pearlman, X, published 11/25/2020, accessed 07/14/2025.

69. U.S. Department of the Treasury, “United States and Canada Target Key International Fundraiser for Foreign Terrorist Organization PFLP“, published 10/15/2024, accessed 07/16/2025.

70. ADL, “Masar Badil: What You Need to Know,” published 05/01/2025, accessed 07/15/2025.

71. Daily Northwestern, “Student groups host teach-in on Palestine’s past, present and future amid campus-wide discussion on Palestinian human rights,” published 06/15/2021, accessed 07/06/2025.

72. SCRIBD, “NU Complaint HouseCommittee2024,” accessed 07/06/2025.

73. Edition CNN, Opinion: “The conversation we can’t avoid about pro-Palestinian campus protests,” published 12/13/2023, accessed 07/07/2025.

74. Evanston Round Table, “NU faculty and staff launch Educators for Justice in Palestine,” published 01/31/2024, accessed 07/06/2025.

75. Northwestern MENA, “Affiliated Faculty at Northwestern University in Qatar,” accessed 07/03/2025.

76. Daily Wire, “Georgetown Qatar Conference Will Feature Terrorist-Linked Speakers,” published 09/19/2024, accessed 07/03/2025.

77. Class Description, “Topics in Political Science (242-0-70),” accessed 09/2025.

78. Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, “Qatar’s grip on education is causing an explosion of campus antisemitism,” published 02/27/2025, accessed 06/30/2025.

79. Khaled Al Hroub, Facebook, published 10/10/2023, accessed 06/30/2025.

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82. Khaled Al Hroub, Facebook, published 10/25/2023, accessed 06/30/2025.

83. CNN, “Palestinian analyst: Hamas had ‘no clear-cut political goal’,” published 10/19/2023, accessed 07/03/2025.

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85. Adam Sellers, X, published 01/06/2025, accessed 06/30/2025.

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88. Marc Owens Jones, X, published 05/22/2025, accessed 06/30/2025; Marc Owens Jones, X, published 04/29/2025, accessed 06/30/2025; Haaretz, “’They Weren’t Only Soldiers. They Were Lovers and Football Fans, They Were Human Beings,’” published 04/28/2025, accessed 09/05/2025.

89. Qatar National Library, “Israel’s Disinformation and Propaganda War: From Social to Institutional Media,” published 11/29/2023, accessed 06/16/2025.

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98. Northwestern, “Course Description,” accessed 07/06/2025.

99. Northwestern, “Course Description,” accessed 07/06/2025.

100. Q Views, “NU-Q Announces Its New Dean,” published 202, accessed 07/06/2025.

101. Northwestern Now, “Committee to search for new dean and CEO of Northwestern University in Qatar,” published 05/15/2019, accessed 07/06/2025.

102. The Peninsula Qatar, “Journalist, scholar joins NU-Q faculty,” published 09/20/2021, accessed 07/06/2025; Northwestern Qatar, “Founding Dean Dr. John D. Margolis Retires,” published 06/05/2011, accessed 09/25.

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104. Northwestern Qatar, “Celebrating the Class of 2025 graduation,” published 05/05/2025, accessed 07/07/2025.

105. Northwestern Qatar, “Celebrating the Class of 2025 graduation,” accessed 09/04/2025.

106. U.S. House Committee on Education and the Work Force, “Antisemitism on College Campuses Exposed,” accessed 07/14/2025.

107. Research identified at least 12 scholars currently affiliated with NU-Q who either pursued their studies, their Ph.D., or held a previous position at NU Evanston before joining the Doha campus: Larissa Buchholz; João Queiroga; Ibrahim N. Abusharif, Leila Tayeb; Kirsten Pike; Anto Mohsin; Marda Dunsky; Zachary Wright; Leila Tayeb; Craig LaMay; Sulafa Zidani.

108. Northwestern Qatar, “Marda Dunsky,” accessed 07/06/2025.

109. Columbia University Press, Pens and Swords. How the American Mainstream Media Report the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, accessed 07/06/2025.

110. Northwestern Qatar, “The Palestinian story in the shadows: The media’s role in covering the war in Gaza,” published 11/18/2023, accessed 07/06/2025.

111. Northwestern, “Current Senators,” accessed 07/03/2025.

112. Northwestern Qatar, “Haya Al Noaimi,” accessed 07/03/2025.

113. Ibid.

114. Ahram, “Volunteers look forward to Intercontinental Cup,” published 10/12/2024, accessed 07/03/2025.

115. Northwestern Qatar, “Conceptualizing the Everyday Life of Security Through Narrative and Affect,” accessed 07/03/2025.

116. Philevents, “Territories, Peoples, Nations: Decolonial Approaches to Foundational Concepts in Political Theory, “ accessed 07/06/2025; IAS NUQ, Instagram, published 01/16/2024, accessed 07/06/2025.

117. Haya Al Noaimi, X, published 10/7/2023, accessed 6/16/2025.

118. Northwestern Qatar, “Mohammed Ibahrine,” accessed 07/06/2025.

119. Ibid.

120. Mohammed Ibahrine, Linkedin, accessed 07/06/2025; NGO Monitor, “Open Society Foundations,” published 03/09/2025, accessed 07/06/2025, ADL, “Who is Funding U.S. Anti-Israel Groups?,” published 09/26/2025, accessed 07/14/2025.

121. Northwestern Qatar, “Northwestern Qatar and GCO collaborate to upskill national talent in crisis communication,” published 12/15/2024, accessed 07/06/2025.

122. Northwestern Univ. News Center, via Campus Watch, “Three Named to Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Chairs,” published 01/05/2010, accessed 06/09/2025.

123. MENA Northwestern, “Winter 2024,” accessed 06/09/2025; MENA, Northwestern, Winter 2022, accessed 06/09/2025.

124. MENA Northwestern, “Fall 2022,” accessed 06/09/2025; MENA Northwestern, “Spring 2022,” accessed 06/09/2025.

125. Northwestern, “Class Descriptions – Traveling While Muslim,” accessed 09/04/2025.

126. MENA Northwestern, “June 2022,” published 06/2022, accessed 06/09/2025.

127. USCPR, X, published 07/24/2023, accessed 06/09/2025.

128. Middle East Research and Information Project, “The AnthroBoycott Collective and Organizing Against Apartheid—An Interview with Daniel Segal and Jessica Winegar,” published 08/09/2023, accessed 06/09/2025.

129. Canary Mission, “Jessica Winegar,” accessed 07/06/2025.

130. Northwestern, “Experts available on Israel-Hamas war,” published 12/04/2023, accessed 07/14/2025.

131. Taylor and Francis Online, “Resistance to Repression and Back Again: The Movement for Palestinian Liberation in US Academia,” published 07/15/2024, accessed 06/09/2025.

132. Institute for Palestine Studies, “Jessica Winegar,” published 2022, accessed 06/09/2025; Facebook, “Facebook event,” published 02/27/2017, accessed 06/09/2025.

133. Static1, “Jessica Winegar CV,” accessed 06/09/2025.

134. Canary Mission, “Jessica Winegar,” accessed 09/2025.

135. Daily Northwestern, “LTE: Open letter on NU leaders’ responses to war in Palestine and Israel,” published 10/16/2023, accessed 06/09/2025.

136. Northwestern Now, “Experts available on the Israel-Hamas war,” published 10/12/2023, accessed 06/09/2025.

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138. Forward, “‘They need the patience’: Texts show tension between sympathetic university officials and students protesting Gaza war,” published 10/31/2024, accessed 06/25/2025.

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