Judicial Watch Sues Dept. of Education for Records on Funding of U.S. Universities’ Operations in Qatar

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on behalf of the Zachor Legal Institute against the U.S. Department of Education for records concerning Qatar’s funding and operations of five U.S. universities – Georgetown, Northwestern, Cornell, Harvard, and Univ. of Michigan (Zachor Legal Institute. v. U.S. Department of Education (No. 1:25-cv-00093)). The lawsuit was filed on January 14, 2025.

In February 2024, Texas A&M closed its campus in Qatar, following disclosures from a Judicial Watch lawsuit on behalf of Zachor that uncovered nearly half a billion in funding from the regime to the university.

Qatar has given or contracted nearly $6 billion to American universities since 2007, according to a February 2024 report. The money is said to have “enabled Qatar to have outsized influence in American politics and academia, efforts [that] have mainstreamed anti-Israel propaganda and silenced criticism about Doha’s longstanding ties to Hamas, the Iranian regime, and other terror groups.”

The lawsuit was filed after the Department of Education failed to respond to Zachor’s March 20, 2024, FOIA request for:

A. Inquiries, reports and memorandum of the Department of Education with regard to the funding and operations of Georgetown University’s campus in Doha, Qatar;

B. Inquiries, reports and memorandum of the Department of Education with regard to the funding and operations of the Georgetown Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in Washington, DC, Qatar, which is funded, in part, by grants from the United States Government’s Department of Education;

C. Inquiries, reports and memorandum of the Department of Education with regard to the funding and operations of Northwestern University’s campus in Doha, Qatar;

D. Inquiries, reports and memorandum of the Department of Education with regard to the funding and operations of Weill Cornell Medicine’s campus in Doha, Qatar;

E. Department of Education correspondence with Harvard College regarding grants, gifts and funding from Qatar Foundation and the government of Qatar; and

F. Department of Education correspondence with the University of Michigan, regarding grants, gifts and funding from Qatar Foundation and the government of Qatar.

Zachor is a U.S.-based advocacy group dedicated to combatting the spread of anti-Semitism and has engaged in substantial activities to raise awareness of Qatar’s influence in the U.S. and around the world.  Qatar controversially has aligned itself with Islamic terrorists and extremists which has placed it at odds with the United States, Israel and other U.S. allies in the Middle East. A March 2024 Judicial Watch Investigative Bulletin noted:

A metastasizing corruption scandal in Europe—dubbed “Qatargate” by the local media—has engulfed politicians from Greece, Belgium, and Italy, and shows no sign of slowing down. At the center of the case: allegations that Qatar steered $4.3 million in bribes to European Union officials to favorably influence policy toward the wealthy Mideast nation.

“The Biden administration was intent on hiding the truth about how the Qatari government funds and manipulates American universities,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The Trump Education Department should expose the details of this foreign influence operation as soon as possible.”

Marc Greendorfer, president of Zachor Legal Institute said, “While we were disappointed with the opacity and obstruction of the prior administration, which seems to have had a policy of preventing the American people from knowing what terror-supporting foreign actors have been doing in our schools, we are thrilled to be working again with the incredible team at Judicial Watch. We know that with the combination of Judicial Watch and a new administration we will finally have the transparency this issue needs.”

Judicial Watch and the Zachor – with the assistance of Jennifer S. Riggs of Riggs & Ray, P.C. in Austin, Texas – previously spent more than five years successfully fighting the Qatar Foundation in Texas courts for information about the funding of Texas A&M. The records that were produced showed that over $522 million was given by Qatar to the state university from January 1, 2013, to May 22, 2018, including more than $485 million from the Qatar Foundation.  In addition, because of Judicial Watch’s court victory, Texas A&M produced contracts that suggest Texas A&M provided an assignment of sensitive intellectual property to the Qatar Foundation.

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