The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, released a report Thursday morning calling Northwestern an “institution of particular concern” for creating a hostile environment for pro-Palestinian students, faculty and staff.
CAIR accused NU’s administration of attempting to suppress Palestinian, Muslim, Arab and Jewish voices, as well as other pro-Palestinian students, faculty and staff, in the report.
CAIR Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab told The Daily that the CAIR office has received dozens of complaints from Muslim students at NU.
“Northwestern University administrators’ anti-Palestinian activities are only part of an apparently embedded institutional culture where Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism are permitted,” the report stated.
The report claimed NU’s new demonstration policy silenced student activism, reaffirming NU’s “hostile culture.”
The new demonstration policy outlines new policies barring overnight demonstrations and limits protests that disrupt classes and other University activities.
The University has since vowed to investigate and discipline students who violated the policy at a Monday walkout at The Rock organized by Students for Justice in Palestine to honor lives lost in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria in the one year since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
“There is no place for hate of any kind at Northwestern, and we have enacted new policies designed to promote free expression and to protect all members of our community from intimidation, harassment or discrimination,” University spokesperson Jon Yates wrote in a statement to The Daily.
The CAIR report also referenced other instances of the University allegedly did not protect Palestinian, Muslim and Arab students in the past year, including a Title VI complaint against the Pritzker School of Law alleging a “hostile anti-Palestinian environment” and the dropped misdemeanor charges against four NU employees for their involvement in the April pro-Palestinian encampment on Deering Meadow.
University President Michael Schill told The Daily he believes NU’s campus is safe but not always comfortable for Palestinian, Middle Eastern and North African students.
“Many of the students who I’ve met with — who are students either from the Middle East or Muslim students — would probably say the same thing, that it’s uncomfortable,” Schill said Thursday. “And some of them would say that the surroundings are uncomfortable, that much of what has happened is happening off campus, as opposed to on campus, in terms of Islamophobic statements or anti-Palestinian statements, and that’s unacceptable to us too.”
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Related Stories:
— Northwestern will discipline pro-Palestinian students who protested by The Rock on Oct. 7
— Northwestern files motion to dismiss lawsuit on pro-Palestinian encampment response
— Palestine Legal files Title VI complaint against Pritzker for ‘hostile anti-Palestinian environment’
