Harvard, Brown, IUP took $10M from foundations, donors in the ‘State of Palestine’: report

Several top universities across the US have accepted millions of dollars in donations from foundations and donors located in the “State of Palestine,” often to fund the education of Palestinian students at American colleges, according to a new report. The elite schools took $10 million from 2017 to 2023 from entities within the “State of Palestine,” according to the analysis by Open the Books , a Republican-owned nonprofit dedicated to revealing government spending. The “State of Palestine” is not a recognized entity by the United Nations or the US — though some 140 countries do officially recognize it and the UN Security Council recently voted 12-to-1 , with two abstentions, to support full UN membership for Palestine.

The US was the sole “no” in the April 18 vote. Brown University, Harvard University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania are among the schools to accept funding from donors located in the nation that technically doesn’t exist, at least by UN standards. Palestinians, who have long been fighting for recognized statehood, live in the Israel-occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank, which are controlled by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, respectively.



Brown University in February 2020 received a $643,000 gift from a foundation located within the “State of Palestine” to create a professorship in Palestinian Studies as part of the college’s Middle East Studies program, according to federal disclosures reviewed by Open the Books.