U.S. Universities and Foreign Terror Funding Sanctions

Fox News reports that Indiana University’s Muslim Philanthropy Initiative, part of the university’s School of Philanthropy, co-organized multi-day fundraising trainings with Turkish nonprofit Hayat Yolu, which the U.S. Treasury on March 12 sanctioned as a 'sham charity' accused of secretly funding Hamas and serving as a financial hub for the Muslim Brotherhood. According to a local outlet and LinkedIn posts cited in the piece, IU assistant professor Dr. Shariq A. Siddiqui led the sessions in Istanbul in July 2025 and Jakarta in January, training roughly 86 participants from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei and Singapore in 'systematic, professional, and scientific' fundraising and nonprofit management. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said Hayat Yolu is part of a covert global network that funnels money to Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades under the cover of humanitarian aid, vowing to continue targeting such entities. The article does not allege IU or Siddiqui knowingly supported terrorism, but the juxtaposition of the new U.S. sanctions and the prior partnership raises sharp questions about vetting of international partners by American universities and possible legal or reputational exposure. Fox says it has reached out to Indiana University for comment; no response is included in the story.