US universities accepted millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia after Khashoggi murder

audi Arabia gifted close to $270m to 144 American universities in 2019, and a total of $440m since the death of Jamal Khashoggi, and these numbers do not include funds yet to be paid out.

“These figures don’t take into account contracts that started after Khashoggi’s murder but have not been paid out, a gargantuan figure that totals nearly $700m,” Responsible Statecraft, which analysed the data from the Department of Education, reported.

Jamal Khashoggi, a Middle East Eye and Washington Post columnist, was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018.

“These figures reveal that once the spotlight of Khashoggi’s murder had moved on, university administrators quietly continued taking the kingdom’s checks.”

The top university on the list is the University of Toledo, which was gifted $23,263,343 from October 2018 to now. Then comes George Washington University, which was gifted $19,033,137. Third place goes to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which was gifted a total of $16,885,405.

Middle East Eye reached out to all of the top 20 universities on the list, but only two responded in time for publication.

The list includes: University of Toledo; George Washington University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; California State University, East Bay; Oregon State University; The Catholic University of America; Boston University; Florida Institute of Technology; West Virginia University; Western Michigan University; University of New Haven; University of Colorado Boulder; University of Delaware; Northeastern University; Alfred University; California State University, Fresno; Eastern Washington University; Oklahoma State University; George Mason Unversity; and New York Institute of Technology.

"The Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission provides tuition scholarships for students studying abroad, including many universities in the United States, including Catholic University. That's what the funds are, which are reported by the University," a spokesperson at the Catholic University of America told MEE.

The Catholic University of America received $15,118,320 from the kingdom from 2018 to now.

A spokesperson for the New York Institute of Technology, which received $6,497,497 from Saudi Arabia, told MEE: "The Saudi payments are from the Saudi government for student scholarships for Saudi students studying at New York Institute of Technology in New York. The funding covers tuition and fees for the students. New York Institute of Technology does not have an agreement with any universities there."

According to Sunjeev Bery, the executive director at Freedom Forward, a US-based human rights group, there is no reason why universities should be accepting money from Saudi Arabia.