On July 17, we issued a news release, “Georgetown’s Muslim Problem,” that addressed the legacy of one of its professors, Jonathan Brown. To say he has an animus against Jews and Israel would be a gross understatement: he exhibits a greater affinity to Hamas than to Catholicism.
Our response came two days after Brown drew the ire of a congressional committee. The interim president, Robert Groves, took the heat. He told the panel that after it was revealed last month that Brown expressed hope that Iran would bomb U.S. military bases in the Middle East, he was relieved from his post as chairman of the university’s department of Arabic and Islamic studies; he is currently on leave, pending an investigation.
Brown may be the most conspicuous anti-Jewish professor at Georgetown, but he is hardly alone. Mobashra Tazamal also teaches there and his specialty is “Islamophobia.” He is known for comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. Nothing phobic about that—it’s simply a malicious lie.
To understand why Georgetown has a Muslim problem, all we need do is follow the money.
In 1977, Libya bought an endowed chair for $750,000. This was done under the auspices of Muammar Gaddafi, the brutal dictator and ally of the Soviet Union. In 2005, Saudi Arabia gave $20 million to establish a Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. It is known for banning Christianity and oppressing women, two issues that are a flagrant violation of the mission of this Jesuit-run institution. But this is chicken feed compared to what Qatar has given.
The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy recently issued a lengthy report that is eye-opening. “Foreign Infiltration: Georgetown University, Qatar, and the Muslim Brotherhood.” It documents the incestuous relationship between the government and the university. To be exact, “it lays bare how Qatari money is systematically used to buy influence, compromise academic integrity, and embed Islamist ideologies at the heart of American education.”
Qatar has greased Georgetown to the tune of over $1 billion. These include funds to operate Georgetown’s Qatar campus. This has real-life consequences: everything from research to faculty hiring and curriculum development reflect the priorities of the Qatari regime. As a result, the report concludes that this is a campus where censorship is extant and academic freedom is severely compromised.
Georgetown professes to be a school that prizes liberty and equality, so why didn’t anyone object to the establishment of a Georgetown campus in Doha? Actually, some did. The Georgetown Voice registered a complaint in 2018. But this is a student newspaper and the administration and faculty simply ignored their plea to close the Qatar campus. Money talks.
It is not just at the Qatar campus where free speech is squashed. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) monitors free speech at American colleges and universities. In its 2025 report on 251 institutes of higher education, Georgetown ranked near the bottom; it was number 240. The majority of its students say they self-censor at least once or twice a month. This is no doubt due to many factors, but surely the Islamic connection is one of them.
At the D.C. campus, Brown was a beneficiary of Qatar generosity. The regime funded a post he occupied, the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service. But the real damage done by the Qatar-Georgetown nexus is not Brown’s chairmanship—it is the damage done by those who graduate from the university’s School of Foreign Service.
The report does not exaggerate when it says that this school “has produced more U.S. diplomats and ambassadors than any other institute. Many alumni have been shaped by ideologically slanted curricula and faculty with close ties to foreign leaders. These graduates go on to shape policy—often in ways aligned with the worldview of their financial backers.”
In short, Georgetown’s Muslim problem is a direct result of being bought by those whose values are about as anti-American and anti-Catholic as it gets. We will have more to say about this subject in due course.
