Some Northwestern University faculty members are calling on campus leaders to stand up to President Donald Trump’s administration, which has frozen $790 million in federal research funding to the Evanston school amid allegations that campus leaders fostered antisemitism. They say they oppose dealmaking with a “lawless” president.
These Northwestern professors and some students have accused Trump of exploiting antisemitism in order to suppress First Amendment-protected speech and bring universities in line with his conservative agenda. Five Jewish senators have also directed this criticism at Trump.
The professors fear their school will follow the examples of Columbia University and Brown University, both of which have made deals in recent days with federal officials to regain hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and contracts following similar claims.
Columbia agreed to pay the federal government $200 million and adopt a controversial and broad definition of antisemitism that includes criticism of Israel. Brown agreed to pay $50 million to local workforce development programs and to restrict recognition of transgender students.
“We call on Northwestern’s leadership to resist the administration’s attack on fundamental democratic principles by refusing to ‘make a deal’ with the administration,” wrote Northwestern’s Concerned Faculty in a letter published this week.
The group includes professors from the schools of arts and sciences, education and social policy, engineering, law and medicine.
“Acquiescence to the administration’s tactics would make Northwestern complicit in an assault on institutions of higher education, which are an essential bulwark of civil society,” the professors wrote in the letter.
Northwestern’s spokesperson did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment.
“There is a clear, incontrovertible record that the highest legislative body of Northwestern faculty overwhelmingly opposes the sort of capitulation of Columbia University recently announced,” wrote Jackie Stevens, president of Northwestern’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, in a separate letter to campus leaders. “Complying with unlawful demands of government officials is giving into extortion, as our members have pointed out.”
Stevens cited an April vote in which a majority of Northwestern’s Faculty Assembly passed the following resolution: “The Board of Trustees, President, Provost, Deans, and the Faculty Senate shall actively defend academic freedom, including by publicly and steadfastly opposing an organized campaign that is bent on restricting our scholarly and public dialogues.”
In an interview with WBEZ, Stevens said she is disappointed Northwestern President Michael Schill and the university’s trustees have not pursued legal actions in the face of Trump’s attempts to control campus policies.
“The board [of trustees] is really prioritizing hoarding the funds in the endowment and hoarding the good relations with the federal government to fund contract research that is beneficial to their business interests,” Stevens said. “What they’re not interested in doing is preserving the university’s mission of education.”
Lisa Kurian Philip covers higher education for WBEZ, in partnership with Open Campus. Follow her on Twitter @LAPhilip.