The Trump administration’s move to designate branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations abroad has been framed as a bold stand against ideological extremism. Yet the president may need to begin to look beyond Cairo or Beirut to find the Brotherhood’s intellectual and institutional footprint. That footprint sits far closer to home. It’s woven into the academic, policy, and funding networks of elite university-based Middle East Programs, including Washington, D.C.’s own Georgetown University.
In July 2025, the Middle East Forum, a non-profit organization founded in 1994 that promotes American interests and Western values in the Middle East, issued a research report labeling Georgetown University’s flagship Islamic studies center, “America’s ground zero for malign foreign influence from Qatar, Turkey and Malayasia.” Donor disclosures and program archives reveal that Georgetown has repeatedly hosted figures aligned with Brotherhood‑influenced movements, shaping the research and diplomatic pipelines that feed directly into Washington’s elite policy circles.
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While Georgetown has never taken donations directly from the Muslim Brotherhood, it has accepted major funding from organizations and governments widely described by researchers and investigators as aligned with or influenced by Brotherhood‑linked networks, especially the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and Qatar, whose government has historically supported Brotherhood‑aligned figures and institutions. According to the Institute for the Study of Antisemitism and Policy, IIIT, which was itself founded in the United States by leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, has donated more than $1 million to Georgetown. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s foreign funding database, Georgetown University has received just under $1 billion from the government of Qatar. The most precise figure published is $971.1 million in disclosed gifts and contracts, with a separate 2025 ISGAP report rounding this to “over $1 billion” over two decades.
These funds have enabled Georgetown to elevate figures and institutions aligned with members of the Muslim Brotherhood, including honored campus guest Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Once a regular presence on elite campuses across the United States and Canada — before multiple rape and sexual assault complaints against Ramadan emerged in France and a 2025 rape conviction in Switzerland halted his academic circuit — Tariq Ramadan had enjoyed the honor of a much heralded three‑day lecture platform at Georgetown’s flagship religion‑and‑world‑affairs center back in 2007.
Nor was Georgetown alone in elevating figures tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2004, the University of Notre Dame, another flagship Catholic institution, appointed Tariq Ramadan to a tenured professorship in religion, conflict, and peacebuilding. Ramadan ultimately had to resign the post after the Bush administration revoked his visa, citing a Patriot Act provision barring foreigners who “use a position of prominence… to endorse or espouse terrorist activity.” Officials pointed to his donations to a Swiss‑based charity later designated by the Treasury Department as a terrorist organization for funneling money to Hamas. Expressing disappointment about the visa denial, Notre Dame’s then-President Rev. Edward Malloy, told a campus reporter that “We have no reason to think that he’s a mole or an underground instigator. He seems to be an above ground, forthright advocate of what some refer to as moderate Islam and we see him as a really good fit for our peace institute,” said the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, where Mr. Ramadan was to have held a joint tenured appointment with the classics department.
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In 2010, the Obama administration’s Secretary of State Hilary Clinton “exercised her exemption authority” to enable Ramadan to return to the United States. According to a U S State Department spokesman, Darby Holladay, both Obama and Clinton have “made it clear that the U.S. government is pursuing a new relationship with Muslim communities based on mutual interest.” Ramadan’s celebratory return to the United States involved a series of public appearances, including a panel discussion at Cooper Union’s Great Hall, as well as more than a dozen campus speaking engagements, including those at Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Stanford, UC Berkeley, as well as others.
If President Donald Trump wants to take the Muslim Brotherhood’s reach seriously, he has to stop looking only overseas, as the threat isn’t just out there; it has been embedded in some of the country’s most elite U.S. universities. These well-funded Islam institutes cultivated on American campuses have been shaping diplomats, analysts and policymakers for decades. It may be time for the State Department to look more closely at how the ideas, advocates, and benefactors have been welcomed, legitimated and institutionalized in its own backyard. The real test is whether Washington is willing to confront the influence that previous presidential administrations invited in.
Dr. Anne Hendershott is a sociology professor and the Director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University.
