In its report released this month, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America argues that “at minimum, institutions of higher education that operate branch campuses in Qatar or other designated high-risk jurisdictions … should be required to certify the absence of foreign-state control, access, or preferential rights as a condition of receiving federal research and development awards.”
The nonpartisan institute, whose founders and advisers have included prominent neo-conservatives such as Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, bases its report on nearly 900 pages of documents laying out Qatar’s relationships with two leading American universities — Georgetown and Northwestern.
Both universities have declined to comment on the report in response to questions from reporters, including campus newspapers the Daily Northwestern and the Georgetown Voice.
The documents, never before public, detail framework agreements, governance charters, intellectual property provisions, memoranda of understanding, confidentiality agreements, and the text of legal instruments governing the relationships, the report says.
Those documents, it says, “reveal the government of Qatar’s attempts to advance its own national security interests through the educational partnerships it has purchased.”
“It is clear from the documents that Qatar uses American education institutions as instruments of its foreign policy strategy funding politicized research on Islamophobia, acquiring access to intellectual property rights, and having access to the American credentialing system,” the report reads.
The 15-page report says the documents also show that Qatar “is trying to obscure its attempts to control U.S. universities, presenting the arrangement as a philanthropic investment in American academic excellence abroad.”
“While the architecture is not illegal,” the report continues, “it is adverse. It binds the intellectual output of American academic institutions, including output generated with American taxpayer funding, to the development strategy of a foreign state.”
America’s relationship with Qatar is complicated and nuanced. On the one hand, it has been designated as a major non-NATO ally, hosting the largest American military base in the region, and has been a key mediator in talks with groups like Hamas, the Taliban, and Iran.
On the other hand, it hosts or maintains relationships with extremist groups considered hostile to America including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood. It fully funds the Al Jazeera news network, whose reporting is highly critical of America and Israel.
The release of the documents in March by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce has already mobilized lawmakers, prompting the introduction last month of legislation that would ban federal funding to colleges that operate branch campuses in adversarial countries or accept research funding for sensitive fields like artificial intelligence, biotech, and quantum computing.
“America has enemies and we need to start acting like it. Countries like Communist China and terror-supporting Qatar should not be able to use America’s colleges and universities as outposts to spy on us, steal sensitive research and spread anti-American propaganda, but we’ve been letting them do it for years. This legislation is critical to America’s national security and the future of our higher education system, neither of which should be for sale,” said a Senate co-sponsor, Rick Scott, a Florida Republican.
The JINSA report urges passage of the bill along with other similar legislation.