Around 100 students protested in honor of lives lost in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine by The Rock on Oct. 7, 2024 around 1 p.m., using bullhorns and other sound amplifiers. The protest was in direct violation of a new demonstration policy established in the wake of April’s pro-Palestinian encampment.
The next day, some students who attended the protest received notices from the Office of Community Standards identifying them as participants and notifying them that OCS was reviewing the policy violation.
One NU student, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, said they did not participate in the protest on Oct. 7. Instead, they recorded the demonstration as a bystander while wearing a keffiyeh.
But one day after the protest, they — along with other students — received an OCS notice.
The student said they were identified because of their prominent identity as a leader of an affinity group on campus and past interactions with University administration.
“It feels very discriminatory to be identified on the basis of who I am and the fact that I’ve worked with administration before … not my role in the protest,” the student said.
The email notified the student that they had been identified as a participant in the demonstration, which violated University policy.
The student described the notice as “vague” with very few details.
“(The University) just said they would be in contact, and they took two full weeks to respond,” said the student. “For two weeks, everyone who got that email was freaking out because they didn’t know how worried they had to be, whether their future at Northwestern was in jeopardy.”
The University begins enforcing new demonstration policy
NU administrators implemented a new demonstration policy limiting when, where and how protests could be held on campus in September.
The Oct. 7 protest violated several parts of the new policy including a ban on organizing at The Rock before 3 p.m., using amplified sound before 5 p.m. and “failing to comply” with on-site officials, University spokesperson Jon Yates previously told The Daily.
Both faculty and students criticized the policy for what many said was an infringement on academic freedom and freedom of speech.
“Students should be praised for being socially conscious and taking responsibility for their society, not punished,” said English Prof. Sarah Schulman, who is the faculty advisor of NU Jewish Voice for Peace.
On Oct. 16, JVP NU set up a “Gaza Solidarity Sukkah” on Deering Meadow. Shortly after 9 p.m., University employees deconstructed the wooden structure.
Two days later, JVP NU set up a second “Gaza Solidarity Sukkah” at The Rock that the University subsequently removed. Soon after, some members of JVP NU received OCS notices. They were under review for both sukkot but were not notified of any impending investigation following the first demonstration.
“The punishment that undergraduates and maybe some graduate students have faced from the fall around the Sukkot observances betrays what’s really going on,” History Prof. Helen Tilley said.
A University spokesperson wrote in an email to The Daily that sanctions under the demonstration policy can range from a warning for minor offenses to suspension, expulsion or termination for major infractions. They declined to comment further.
For some students, hearings were long and stressful
The disciplinary review process was conducted by OCS, which enforces the Student Code of Conduct for “non-academic student conduct matters.” For alleged student violations of non-academic University policies, students have to go through the University Hearing and Appeals System.
When a report is received by OCS, the UHAS process begins with an initial inquiry where administrators review all available information related to a report. If a report is deemed to have “reasonable information to suggest a policy violation may have occurred,” the case is then referred for further investigation and a formal resolution.
Depending on a report, further investigation can involve reviewing documentation, speaking with the reporter, respondent and witnesses, and requesting written statements from anyone alleged to be involved.
“In each case, you get assigned an investigator. They’re like the judge, jury and executioner on your case,” the student who recorded the Oct. 7 protest said. “They interview you. They review all the evidence against you and they interpret the Code of Conduct.”
The NU Student Handbook states that the UHAS “is not a court, legal, or trial system,” so OCS resolutions are not “constrained by the rules of procedure or evidence” used in a court of law.
Students are allowed to bring in advisors who can provide support during the student conduct process. These advisors must be members of the University community, which includes faculty, staff and students.
UHAS prohibits family members of the student and attorneys from serving as advisors.
“I had to sit through hours of these meetings to defend myself for something I hadn’t done,” the student said. “It definitely felt like they had an agenda and thought I was guilty from the start just by being there.”
In the end, the student was issued an advisory but was not further disciplined.
Another student, who also requested anonymity for fear of retribution and received an OCS notice, said their meetings with University administrators discussed whether they broke University rules and their intent behind protesting.
“The reason I was in trouble was simply for the sake that I broke these rules that were created … and that I should have known better,” the student said. “There was no space for any kind of nuance or any kind of context.”
The student said part of the reason they were drawn to NU was because of its history of student activism and being a place of discourse.
Now, they said that since student demonstrations have been shut down and conversations with NU administrators are “accusatory,” they believe the University’s celebration of historical student activism is “hypocrisy.”
The University has intentionally made students feel like they were doing something wrong by protesting in support of Palestine, the student added.
“I don’t think I understood the meaning of the word repression until experiencing it, and it feels so isolating,” the student said. “There were so many people that I didn’t want to talk (to) about facing these sanctions, because, even if they’re my friends, will they agree with me ‘breaking’ the rules?”
The student described the meetings as “exhausting” since they required them to take time and attention away from their classes to prepare for and attend. Because of this, the student said they don’t want to be at NU anymore.
Ultimately, the student was placed on disciplinary probation and required to write a paper based on time, place and manner of free speech.
“Northwestern is trying to make an example out of anyone who violates the Code of Conduct,” the student said. “Not for reasons that the violations are actively inflicting any kind of harm onto the student body. They are doing it so that they can demonstrate their own power.”
Faculty raise academic freedom concerns
On Nov. 20, a little more than a month after the JVP NU protest, around a dozen NU tenured faculty members protested the University’s demonstration policy at The Rock between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. — a direct violation of the demonstration policy. Many faculty members who attended said they didn’t receive any disciplinary notices.
When vulnerable people are punished “selectively,” Tilley said, it is important to stand up with them. Tilley, who helped organize and attended the faculty demonstration, said she did not receive a disciplinary notice for protesting.
Art and Art History Prof. Rebecca Zorach also attended the protest. She said she did not receive a disciplinary notice.
“This group of faculty came together around the demonstration policy and the concerns about the chilling of speech for all of us,” Zorach said. “(We’re) thinking very much about students and (their) ability to voice their opinions on political issues and to do it in a way that’s visible and audible.”
NU states on its website that it is “committed to the ideals of academic freedom and freedom of speech.”
Academic freedom, as defined by the American Association of University Professors, is the freedom of professors or researchers to investigate, teach and publish findings on issues in their academic field without “interference from administrators, boards of trustees, political figures, donors or other entities.”
President of NU’s chapter of AAUP and Political Science Prof. Jacqueline Stevens said she considers the demonstration policy to not only be a means of deterring protests but a way for the administration to cause division among faculty members.
“Northwestern has had demonstrations for over six decades, and what does it tell us that when the subject of discussion is Israel-Palestine, suddenly the University feels it needs to impose new rules on demonstrations?” Stevens said.
Stevens said these new policies give the University authority that can be abused. There will be incentives for faculty and students to appease the University’s administration since the policy has been enforced arbitrarily, she said.
In a letter sent to NU administrators last September, NU’s AAUP questioned how the demonstration policy would allow for the expression of unpopular ideas.
“On what criteria will Northwestern rely when assessing which speech is ‘welcome’ for its unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints and which speech will be punished because it ‘intimidate(s)?’” the letter asked.
Stevens said the purpose of academic freedom is to protect democracy by allowing students to have a full and open education that is not deprived by administrators who want to limit which perspectives are taught.
“The University is supposed to be a place where people exchange ideas and are exposed to differences and have to grapple with things and work them out for themselves,” Schulman said. “If you repress oppositional speech, then you’re not fulfilling your social role as an educational institution.”
While academic freedom is a principle that universities claim to uphold, the freedom of speech on private college campuses can get complicated, said Ed Yohnka, ACLU of Illinois’ director of communications and public policy.
He added that private universities aren’t limited by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.
Because of this, even though students have routinely held protests in the past, private universities have restricted places of protest simply because members of Congress “declaimed and decried” the actions of students, Yohnka said.
“The idea of a lot of these new regulations that have been put in place is particularly troubling and frankly, undermines the educational process that the University is committed to,” Yohnka said.
In December, some faculty members — including Tilley and Zorach — said they met with University President Michael Schill to discuss issues of academic freedom as they relate to changes in University policy on campus, among other issues.
“(Academic freedom) is going to be actively under threat, and it has been actively under threat,” Tilley said. “We as a faculty need to defend our rights to debate on campus openly, fully and without discipline.”
During the meeting, Zorach said, the faculty members voiced concerns about University administration “capitulating” to those who work against academic freedom and freedom of speech.
She said she got the sense that NU administrators considered the demonstration policy and other policies as necessary, small concessions that could potentially “save” the University in the future.
“The faculty who were there did fundamentally disagree with that idea,” Zorach said. “We shouldn’t be obeying in advance. We should be mounting a strong defense of academic freedom and freedom of speech.”
In the end, Zorach said Schill acknowledged their fundamental disagreement in how the University approached these issues, but appeared unwilling to change any policies.
Higher education has long been a target of conservative scrutiny
For Tilley, conservative scrutiny of higher education is far from a new phenomenon. She said she has witnessed a “coordinated and contradictory strategy” for Republicans to attempt to “go after” universities.
“Going after small parts of the University and suggesting that there is rot within universities, it’s a tried and true strategy,” Tilley said.
In 2023, the House Committee on Education and Workforce — then chaired by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) — began an investigation into antisemitism on college campuses.
As part of that investigation, Schill was called to testify on Capitol Hill. NU’s president was grilled on antisemitism on his campus in the aftermath of the pro-Palestinian encampment on Deering Meadow.
“Over the course of years, decades even, universities gradually nurtured a campus culture of radicalism, in which antisemitism grew and became tolerated by administrators,” Foxx said during the hearing.
The Committee’s investigation wrapped up with the release of a report revealing internal communications of university administrators, including NU’s. In a press release, Foxx said the report’s findings demonstrated the need for the executive branch to enforce laws over college and universities.
A U.S. House of Representatives Staff Report on Antisemitism — released in December — echoed the Committee’s report’s sentiments, calling for increased oversight over American universities.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who announced the report last April, said in a press release that he intended to act on the recommendations stated in the report.
In the latest series of investigations, the U.S. Department of Education launched its own investigation of antisemitism into five universities, including NU, Monday.
In the first two weeks of the Trump administration, President Donald Trump has signed more than a dozen wide-ranging executive orders. Trump pledged to cancel the student visas of international students who participated in pro-Palestine protests.
“There are very vulnerable people who have taken real risks — whether they’re international students who have visas or students doing anything that is about human rights,” Tilley said. “This idea that we need the U.S. government to approve of our thoughts, of the words we use, should scare us all.”
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Related Stories:
— Tenured faculty protest University demonstration policies at The Rock
— Northwestern will discipline pro-Palestinian students who protested by The Rock on Oct. 7