Northwestern faculty and students say efforts to appease Trump chill free speech
Northwestern University students and faculty are sounding the alarm about a new anti-bias training video they say includes commentary characterizing criticism of Israel as antisemitic.
The training is an example of how university leaders are responding to immense pressure from the Trump administration to combat what Education Secretary Linda McMahon recently called “relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year.”
Concerned students and faculty say they understand the threats facing the Evanston school, but say the mandatory training puts student activists at risk by requiring them to sign off on language that they believe penalizes legitimate protest.
In one of the most contentious parts of the video, which students are required to watch, the presenter suggests that comments made by critics of Israel are as problematic as those made by David Duke, the infamous leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
“I've worked here for 24 years now at Northwestern, and I have never seen anything like this," said Beth Shakman Hurd, who chairs religious studies at the university and has supported student protesters on campus. “This is not only unscholarly — it is immoral. It strikes at the heart of the mission of our university. This is a university that values debate and discussion, not political propaganda.”
Shakman Hurd is among a group of faculty and students calling on Northwestern administrators to retract the training, which was put together in consultation with a pro-Israel group. But she said university officials most likely will not because of a fear of losing federal funding.
Northwestern is the target of multiple federal investigations. Federal officials say the university has failed to protect Jewish students. The stakes were magnified late last week when the White House announced $400 million in cuts to Columbia University over similar allegations.
“The fear of being targeted as an example of what happens to you as a university if you don't comply with our political agenda — 'we will punish you, we will derail you as an institution, we will destroy you' — the fear of that happening to Northwestern is very real,” Shakman Hurd said.
Northwestern President Michael Schill denied a request for an interview. University spokesperson Jon Yates said the new antisemitism training video was meant to help the campus community understand how it feels for Jewish students to hear certain words and experience certain actions.
Michael Simon, who directs the Jewish campus organization Hillel, said he has not seen all of the training. But he said it is important for all students on campus to have a baseline for confronting antisemitism.
“I look at these trainings not as an end point, but I hope that they'll be a starting point to enabling … a more broad and a more thoughtful conversation about these issues in all quarters of the university,” Simon said.
But Shakman Hurd and other faculty and students worry the video will have a chilling effect on pro-Palestinian speech, in particular.
“The imposition of one particular set of views about Israel onto our students and the suggestion that those who disagree or dissent, whether Jewish or non-Jewish, whether on religious grounds or political grounds, are to be silenced, are to be cast out of the community, are to be considered antisemitic — that is what's frightening,” Shakman Hurd said.
Some students, including Northwestern senior Isabelle Butera, are boycotting the training because they do not want to endorse its contents. She said the risks of refusing to comply feel bigger, at this moment, than not being able to register for classes next quarter — especially for international students.
Last Saturday federal immigration authorities detained and attempted to deport Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil over his pro-Palestinian activism.
“The threat is very real, it is very palpable, and it is very scary,” said Butera, a member of Jewish Voices for Peace. “I also think it feels deeply hypocritical that this training comes as a result of an executive order from a presidential administration that … has uplifted neo-Nazis.”
Butera said she understands that Northwestern is in a challenging position. But she said trying to appease the Trump administration will not get the school out from under its thumb. Columbia tried that strategy, she said, by ramping up disciplinary actions against pro-Palestinian activists.
“[Columbia] still had its funding frozen,“ Butera said. “So this is a moment where I would like to see from my academic institution, as well as others, some resistance and some strength in the face of … what is starting as an attack on pro-Palestine speech, but is going to continue as an attack on academia as a whole.”
Lisa Kurian Philip covers higher education for WBEZ, in partnership with Open Campus. Follow her on Twitter @LAPhilip.