In a surprising turn of events, Northwestern University has announced that former President Henry S.
Bienen will be stepping into the shoes of outgoing President Michael Schill.
Bienen, who previously led the university from 1995 to 2009, is no stranger to controversy, having established the university's Qatar campus during his initial tenure. This move was marked by a contract with the Hamas-allied Gulf state that effectively silenced students and faculty in Doha from criticizing the Qatari regime.
Schill's tenure was notably marred by issues surrounding Northwestern's satellite campus in Qatar, especially following the October 7 terror attacks that spotlighted the foreign and domestic sources fueling campus anti-Semitism. It is therefore somewhat ironic that the man who initiated the Qatar campus venture has been chosen as his successor.
The Qatar Foundation, established by former emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, approached Bienen in early 2006, expressing interest in Northwestern joining the ranks of American universities establishing footprints in the Middle East. "I was getting a lot of e-mailsthere was a boom in the Gulf," Bienen disclosed to student publication North by Northwestern in October 2008.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, the Qatar Foundation generously donated over half a billion dollars to Northwestern between 2007 and 2024.
Bienen, recognizing the potential financial windfall, stated in 2007 that there were "no negatives for the university financially," as "whatever costs the university will incur will be reimbursed-plus." By February 2008, he had visited the fledgling campus in Education City, expressing his satisfaction with the Qatar initiative and praising the scale of the operations.
However, the university's agreement with the Qatar Foundation has raised eyebrows. The agreement stipulates that "NU, NU-Q, and their respective employees, students, faculty, families, contractors and agents, shall be subject to the applicable laws and regulations of the State of Qatar, and shall respect the cultural, religious, and social customs of the State of Qatar."
This includes a Qatari law that prohibits subjects from criticizing the country's government. When questioned about this, Schill admitted he had "no idea"though it was noted that a Northwestern Qatar student had been "arrested over a tweet."
Despite these concerns, Bienen maintained that a Qatar campus would be a positive development for Northwestern. He believed it would "expand the international aspects of the university" and enable students to "make an impact" and "improve the world."
However, the faculty at NU-Q includes individuals like Ibrahim Abusharif, who co-founded and served as treasurer of the Quranic Literary Institute, a nonprofit that faced a civil forfeiture action over allegedly funneling money to Hamas in 1999. Other NU-Q faculty members, like professor of Middle Eastern studies and politics Khaled AL-Hroub, have defended Hamas.
Northwestern initially condemned AL-Hroub's attempt to minimize or misrepresent Hamas's attack, but later revised its statement to remove his name.
Another NU-Q affiliate, joint advisory board member Rami Khouri, has defended Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, praised Hamas as representing "the bottomless arsenal of the human spirit," and excused the October 7 attack as being similar to how Jews "also fought back during their centuries of victimization in the West."
Bienen saw another reason to establish a Doha campus: Al Jazeera. NU-Q maintained a "partnership with Al Jazeera Media Network" that "enables students to engage regularly with media industry professionals." Much like the Qatari government, Al Jazeera has close ties to terror, with several of its journalists being members of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
In 2008, Bienen touted the propaganda network as a chief reason why he decided to work with the Qatar Foundation.
"If we can help bearing a set of standards so it's not just a political rat race ... I thought there was an advantage of doing that in the home of Al Jazeera," he said. "That's why they wanted to come to what they heard was the best journalism school in the country."
John Lavine, dean of the Medill School of Journalism at the time, echoed Bienen's assessment of the Qataris. "I remember along the way them saying first of all that we should remember that they started Al Jazeera," he said in 2008. "They knew what journalism was. And it was rough-and-tumble journalism."
Northwestern's media relations department defended the Qatar campus in a statement provided to the Free Beacon. "Academic freedom is core to Northwesterns mission, and the University is uncompromising when it comes to preserving it," the department's statement reads.
"Northwestern University in Qatar has provided international studentsover 70 percent of whom are womenaccess to an elite, western education and helped further the foreign policy interests of the United States government. State Departments under both Republican and Democratic presidents have supported the continued operation of the Northwestern in Qatar campus. Northwestern is in the process of its multi-year review to determine whether to continue operating in Qatar past the 2028 academic year, when its current contract expires."
The return of Bienen, the architect of the Qatar campus, to the helm of Northwestern University, raises questions about the future direction of the institution. Will the university continue to prioritize financial gain over academic freedom and integrity? Only time will tell.
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