Northwestern University quietly cut ties with the Qatari-run broadcaster, Al Jazeera, dubbed “the voice of Qatar’s regime,” over the summer, according to school officials. 

Northwestern’s campus in Qatar, which is funded by the state-run Qatar Foundation, established a partnership with Al Jazeera Media Network in 2013 to allow “students to engage regularly with leading media industry professionals.” The Doha campus, which includes a branch of Northwestern’s journalism school, has been in operation since 2008. 

“The agreement, which deepens ties between the two organizations that have worked together since NU-Q’s inception, will allow professionals and budding journalists from both sides to benefit from the combined expertise of the two institutions through joint research and strategic studies projects, training workshops, a co-designed lecture series, internships and faculty contributions as well as journalist-exchange programs,” a press release announcing the agreement stated at the time. 

However, in a statement to the Sun, the school says it ended its Memorandum of Understanding, an agreement which previously tied the two organizations, back in July. Details of the relationship have since been removed from the University’s website.

“Northwestern University-Qatar will continue to offer journalism students robust opportunities for academic engagement through its deep relationships with many media, strategic communications and others other agency partners,” the school said.

Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism still holds a studies program at the Doha campus and offers American students the option to spend a semester in Qatar. 

The confirmation comes as Northwestern students and alumni have made a concerted effort to pressure the school to cut ties with the controversial outlet, claiming that the partnership violates section 219 of the Immigration and Naturalization Act which bars American entities from aiding foreign terrorist organizations. 

According to a report written by the Coalition Against Anti-Semitism at Northwestern, Al Jazeera “quite clearly betrays basic standards of journalism by being the sanctioned and singular voice on behalf of its government, in clear alignment with Qatar’s national priorities and interests.” 

The report continued: “Northwestern should do so not only for the moral reason that it is aiding and abetting the mouthpiece of Hamas, thereby endangering Israelis as victims of Hamas atrocities and Gazan civilians who are cynically used as human shields.” 

The group also cited a study conducted by a pro-Jewish organization, the Canary Mission, which found that, since 2013, more than two thirds of the Al Jazeera employees who addressed Northwestern’s campus in Qatar had “either expressed support for terrorists, demonized Israel, or backed the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.”

Al Jazeera has long faced allegations of holding close connections with Hamas, and several of its journalists have been accused of participating in the October 7 massacre in Israel. Earlier in the summer, the Israel Defense Forces rescued three Israeli hostages held in the home of an Al Jazeera journalist, Abdallah Aljamal, at Nuseirat, Gaza.

Prior to the current flare-up in the Middle East, Al Jazeera was accused of being overly sympathetic to another terrorist group, Al Qaeda. The network was the preferred outlet for statements from Osama bin Laden both before and after the 9/11 attacks on America.

Further connections between Al Jazeera and Hamas are detailed in a letter written in June by the Chairman of the Higher Education and Workforce Development Subcommittee, Burgess Owens. Mr. Owens urged Northwestern’s president, Michael Schill, to terminate the school’s partnership with Al Jazeera, a press outlet which the congressman called “a safe haven for Hamas supporters.” 

“It is unacceptable for any American university that receives hundreds of millions of dollars in annual federal funding to partner with organizations whose members are terrorists or whose reporting incites terror on behalf of Hamas,” he continued. 

Mr. Schill later addressed the partnership before Congress as part of a House Committee probe into the university’s response to antisemitism.