Northwestern University in Qatar and the Qatar-based news organization Al Jazeera recently ended their partnership, marking a win for politicians who have called for the move for months. However, the decision is stoking division among the NU community.
At the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s hearing in May, Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) repeatedly grilled University President Michael Schill over NU’s collaboration with the Qatar-based media conglomerate.
Since Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Al Jazeera has drawn considerable criticism due to Qatar’s connections to Hamas. The attack on Israel killed about 1,200 Israelis, according to Israeli officials. Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has since killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian officials.
“America’s higher education system will never be a safe haven for terrorist supporters,” Owens wrote in a statement to The Daily. “It is unacceptable for any U.S. college or university — benefiting from hundreds of millions in federal funding — to partner with organizations whose members are terrorists or whose reporting incites terror on behalf of Hamas.”
But the recent move does not come as a surprise for some.
Medill Prof. Craig LaMay, the former acting dean at NU-Q, said there was not a “robust collaboration” between Al Jazeera and NU-Q.
LaMay pointed to students’ option to complete their journalism internships at Al Jazeera — and to participate in training or investigative reporting — but “that’s it,” he said.
“The idea that Al Jazeera and NU-Q have ended some major professional relationship is just an overstatement,” LaMay said. “If it was done because of pressure from the home campus or because of concerns there pushed back here, that wouldn’t surprise me. But to me, it’s still not more than symbolic.”
NU-Q’s partnership with the media conglomerate stretches back to the satellite campus’s inception in 2008. In 2013, both parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding to conduct joint research and strategic studies projects, training workshops, internships and faculty contributions as well as journalist-exchange programs.
Support for the move was echoed by the committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who criticized Schill’s testimony over his handling of antisemitism and negotiations with encampment organizers on NU campus.
“Northwestern’s decision to end its partnership with Al Jazeera following calls from congressional Republicans is long overdue,” Foxx wrote in a statement to The Daily. “However, this does not change the fact that under President Michael Schill’s failed leadership, Northwestern has enabled and rewarded antisemitic harassment, intimidation and violence, and that the institution’s satellite campus in Doha demands further scrutiny.”
Communication junior at NU-Q Bushra Heikel said she grew up watching Al Jazeera’s network and initially wanted to pursue journalism to one day work with the news organization.
She described the end of the partnership as “a massive loss,” saying that working at Al Jazeera was one of the most compelling opportunities of being an NU-Q student.
Heikel said the decision has led her to question the autonomy NU-Q has. She said she feels that their campus has lost its independence due to pressures from the University’s Evanston campus.
“Al Jazeera has always been that voice for us, the voice of truth. It has been the only news outlet actually showing us what’s going on without the propaganda,” Heikel said. “For them to cut the partnership just shows us that you have succumbed easily, and you do actually fear saying the truth despite the consequences that come ahead.”
A Medill student who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, said the decision was disappointing, calling Al Jazeera’s coverage in Gaza over the last year the “definition of the free press.”
The student said that backing away from “the politics” allows people to realize that Al Jazeera is a brave organization that stepped into a war zone, in their view.
“I’m sure Al Jazeera is biased,” the student said. “But so is The New York Times, so is every news organization. No news organization is 100% unbiased, and what I saw with this is cutting off a news organization based on this assumption that being generally more leaning the other way is objectively bad, whereas leaning the Western way, the pro-Israeli way, is objectively good.”
Heikel recognized that there could have been repercussions if the collaboration continued but she said feels the University could have navigated the situation in other ways.
“I think ending the partnership is something very telling of where NU-Q’s priorities lie,” Heikel said. “It’s contradictory to the message they want to send us as future storytellers, future journalists.”
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