The Zachor Legal Institute, a think tank and advocacy group focused on waging a “legal battle against anti-Israel movements in America,” is suing the Department of Education to access materials related to Georgetown’s campus in Qatar and the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.
Michael Bekesha, an attorney from Judicial Watch, a conservative activist group, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for D.C. on Jan. 14, days before President Trump, a fierce critic of the Department of Education, took office.
According to the complaint, the Institute submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for access to “inquiries, reports and memorandum” regarding the “funding and operations” of Georgetown’s Qatar campus and Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. They also requested information related to Northwestern University, Weill Cornell Medicine, Harvard College, and the University of Michigan’s campuses in Qatar.
The lawsuit claims that the Institute did not receive the requested records within the 30-day window required by FOIA. According to Bekesha, this lack of response “irreparably harmed” the Institute.
In addition to asking the court to compel the Department of Education to supply the records, Bekesha is asking that they be granted legal fees and other litigation costs as well as “other relief as the Court deems just and proper.”
Because only the Department of Education, and not Georgetown itself, is a named party to the suit, a university spokesperson declined to comment for this story.
A Department of Education spokesperson also declined to comment.
According to its website, the Zachor Legal Institute was founded in 2015 by attorney Marc Greendorfer with a focus on opposing the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and other challenges to the “legitimacy” of Israel.
Georgetown established its Doha, Qatar campus in 2005 in partnership with the Qatar Foundation, a nonprofit organization run by the state of Qatar focused on “education, scientific research, and community development.” The foundation is responsible for the development of “Education City,” a hub of research and academic institutes in Doha made up of eight universities including Georgetown.
This is not the first time a U.S. university has come under fire for its Qatar campus.
In 2023, a student at Carnegie Mellon University sued the school after alleging she “was subjected to pervasive anti-Jewish discrimination during her tenure at the university.” The lawsuit implied that the discrimination was the result of the Qatar Foundation’s heavy investment in the school.
In early 2024, Texas A&M announced that it will be closing its Qatar campus in 2028 following allegations from some right-wing groups including the Zachor Legal Institute and Judicial Watch that the university’s engineering program may be sharing nuclear research with the Qatari government.
Texas A&M has strongly denied these claims. The Qatar Foundation criticized the university’s decision, writing that they fell prey to a “disinformation campaign.”
Greendorfer presented a similar concern about the potential influence of Qatar over U.S. universities and students. His group focused on Georgetown, he said, because of its alumni’s ties to various government agencies.
“At the time the Biden administration was not taking action against the sources of antisemitism and we wanted to see if there was a connection between Qatar and the various programs that higher level government employees came from,” he wrote to the Voice. “Our suspicion is that those responsible for the anti Israel and antisemitic policies in the Biden administration have ties to foreign terror supporters like Qatar.”
There are no known ties between Georgetown University or its students and Hamas. Following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, Georgetown condemned the attacks and offered resources to students who may have been affected.
The House “Report on Antisemitism” released in December identifies 14 universities, but does not reference Georgetown. Similarly, on Feb. 3, the Trump administration announced that it is opening five new investigations into antisemitism on college campuses. Georgetown is not under investigation.
