The doctor who hired Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Brown University assistant professor and kidney specialist who was deported over the weekend to Lebanon after federal agents said she “openly admitted” to supporting Hezbollah, declined to say whether he would have hired her had he known about her support for terrorists. 

Dr. Douglas Shemin — the former chief of Brown Medicine’s Division of Kidney Diseases and Hypertension, who hired Alawieh in spring 2024 — told Jewish Insider that Alawieh “had a very good background” that included medical training at Yale University. 

Asked whether he would have hired Alawieh if he had been made aware of her glorification of Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, Shemin told JI he “can’t answer that question.” 

Upon her return from a two-week trip to Lebanon, Department of Homeland Security officials found photos of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike last September, and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Alawieh’s cellphone. Alawieh, who had a U.S. visa, told agents that she traveled to Beirut for Nasrallah’s funeral on Feb. 23.   

“Alawieh openly admitted this to CBP [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] officers, as well as her support of Nasrallah. A visa is a privilege, not a right — glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied. This is commonsense security,” DHS said in a statement.

As department chief, hiring decisions were made based on “medical background, training and our view of how well they will function in a clinical setting and teaching and clinical research setting,” said Shemin, who retired in July 2024 after 35 years at Brown Medicine.

“I spoke to individuals who trained her and they all said they never had a single complaint about her,” Shemin said. The vetting process, according to Shemin, included interviews with several faculty members and a research talk. “We were very impressed and based on that I offered her the position,” Shemin said. “I never once asked her about religion [but] she wears a hijab so it was obvious. And I never once asked about her political views. It’s the policy of Brown Medicine not to do that and I viewed it as irrelevant to her application.” 

Brown Medicine is a nonprofit affiliated with Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School but is not operated by the university. “Alawieh is an employee of Brown Medicine with a clinical appointment to Brown University,” a spokesperson for Brown University told JI, adding that the university “continues to seek to learn more about what has happened.” Brown Medicine did not respond to requests for comment.