US academic withdraws from Qatar research project over racism controversy
An offensive blog post from 2008 and the subsequent outrage led to NU-Q s Jocelyn Mitchell stepping away from $700,000 study
People sit on a park bench along the corniche in the Qatari capital Doha (AFP) By Published date: 20 February 2021 09:15 UTC | Last update: 1 month 2 weeks ago
A US academic who became engulfed in controversy in Qatar has withdrawn from a $700,000 research project funded by a government-affiliated body following sustained criticism on social media.
On Tuesday, Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) professor Jocelyn Mitchell withdrew from the research team, whose aim was to study obstacles and successes of women entrepreneurship in Qatar with funding from the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF).
A professor at Northwestern University in Qatar has withdrawn from a $700,000 research project after members of the NU-Q community voiced concerns about a racist and sexist article she reposted online.
NU-Q announced in January that political science Prof. Jocelyn Mitchell and two of her colleagues had received a grant from the Qatar National Research Fund to study women entrepreneurs in Qatar. In 2008, two years before she began teaching at NU-Q, Mitchell reposted an email on her blog which said “the ratio of ugly women to not so ugly women (in Qatar) is 9:1.”
Screenshots of the post circulated online in November 2019, and Mitchell apologized in a community town hall and subsequently took part in anti-racism training under supervision of the University. After the post resurfaced online this month, NU-Q released a statement on Feb. 5 acknowledging that the incident “continues to cause pain in our community both within NU-Q and the wider Qatari community.”