Earlier this year, Texas A&M University’s Board of Regents voted to close its campus in Doha’s Education City by 2028.
At a United States congressional hearing this month, Northwestern University President Michael Schill said the home campus in Chicago is reviewing a contract with Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q).
“The review of that contract is being done,” Schill told lawmakers last Thursday, adding that the university agreement ends in the 2027-2028 academic year.
Speaking alongside the university presidents of Rutgers and UCLA, Schill testified before the House Education and the Workforce Committee on the subject of campus protests and antisemitism.
The college presidents all agreed that antisemitism is on the rise nationwide but pushed back against accusations of their universities favouring antisemitism.
The committee chair, North Carolina Republican Virginia Foxx, said Northwestern and Rutgers were summoned because of deals they made with pro-Palestinian protesters to clear encampments on their campuses.
“Each of you should be ashamed of your decision to allow antisemitic encampments to endanger Jewish students. You should be doubly ashamed for capitulating to the antisemitic rule breakers,” Foxx said in her opening address.
“Our job today is first and foremost to hold those who are supposed to be in charge to account,” Foxx added.
The encampments, part of a global student movement, have been set up in protest of Israel’s almost eight-month long war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians and wounded 80,000 more.
But there was no mention of that by Schill, who stated in his testimony that US universities are “on the front lines of the disturbing spike in antisemitism that accelerated following Hamas’s horrific terrorist attacks on October 7”.
“The open harassment and intimidation of Jewish people on the streets and social media has also infected our classrooms and campuses,” he added.
Republican Congressman Burgess Owens of Utah questioned Schill’s ability to be transparent about Qatar’s campus funding, pointing to the Gulf nation’s decision to host the political leadership of Hamas.
“We would like to have a complete and transparent accounting of how much is coming from this,” Owens said. “Are you aware this is the same Qatar government, which currently harbors leaders of Hamas and has given the terror organisation of Hamas about $1.8 billion? Are you aware of that?”
Schill said the money goes for the operation and management of the campus in Doha. The provost’s office reviews the Qatar campus, but Northwestern’s board of trustees ultimately decides on its future, he said.
Northwestern’s campus in Qatar was established in 2008 and offers academic programmes in journalism, media, and communication.
Earlier this year, Texas A&M University’s Board of Regents voted to close its campus in Doha’s Education City by 2028.
The university’s board voted to shut down Texas A&M at Qatar (TAMUQ) over what the Board of Regents Chair, Bill Mahomes, cited as “heightened instability in the Middle East” following an assessment of the regional situation in late 2023 after Israel began its war on the Gaza Strip.
An earlier report by the Texas Tribune said the decision came after Washington DC think tank, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), questioned the partnership between Qatar Foundation and Texas A&M in light of the ongoing war in Gaza.
In a statement, QF said Texas A&M’s decision “has been influenced by a disinformation campaign aimed at harming” its interests, and noted that the university’s board did not attempt “to seek out the truth from Qatar Foundation before making this misguided decision”.
“It is disturbing that this disinformation has become the determining factor in the decision and that it has been allowed to override the core principles of education and knowledge, with no consideration to the significant positive impact that this partnership has brought for both Qatar and the US,” QF said.
The Qatari organisation added that “it is deeply disappointing that a globally respected academic institution like Texas A&M University has fallen victim to such a campaign and allowed politics to infiltrate its decision-making processes”.
TAMUQ opened its campus in 2003 to join five other American universities operating in Education City, a hub for learning and research that has attracted international students, academics, and researchers.
Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Commonwealth, and Georgetown are also among the six US universities with campuses in Qatar’s Education City.
