Recent White House executive orders and other actions have made it clear that the Trump administration is targeting higher education. Alongside threats to federal funding, Northwestern is among five institutions named for investigations into “campus antisemitism.” NU’s leadership has largely stayed on the sidelines and not spoken out publicly against these attacks, a tactic of appeasement that imperils our community and our country.
Our administration has faced unusual challenges in recent years. We urge our leaders to adhere to their stated commitments to academic freedom and work alongside faculty, students and staff to devise solutions to the crises we now face. These crises include:
Freezing and Eliminating Federal Research Funding
The Trump administration’s strategy of slashing university funding is plain: bring the University to heel by cutting off its resources.
Investigating Campus Antisemitism by the Department of Education
NU is among five universities the Trump administration is targeting. The Department of Education is using a definition of antisemitism created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and adopted by the Department of State to punish individuals and institutions who criticize Israel under Title VI. The definition is highly contested within the scholarly community, with many arguing that the IHRA definition provides Israel a unique protection from accountability unavailable to other countries and violates the First Amendment.
Deporting Staff and Students Critical of Israel
The same executive order that singles out critics of Israel for punishment, and not other countries, orders Homeland Security and other agencies to create policies “so that such institutions (of higher education) may monitor for and report activities by alien [sic] students and staff relevant to those grounds and for ensuring that such reports about aliens lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”
Eliminating the Department of Education
Trump’s White House will bring to Congress a bill to eliminate the DOE. (It appears that legal enforcement of Title VI and other investigations would be turned over to the Department of Justice).
Taxing the Endowments of Wealthy Private Universities at 14% to 35%
President Trump is proposing to replace his 2017 endowment tax of 1.4% with one
of 14% to 35%.
NU’s response to a threat of lost federal funds has been to announce extreme budget cuts, including retroactive cutbacks on staff and research spending, even though the potential losses are a pittance of the endowment and reflect massive payouts due to NU’s antitrust and other legal violations unrelated to the recent cutbacks.
NU’s official response to the threats to deport our students? “The University is monitoring the situation.” NU’s response to Trump’s denunciation of DEI has been to roll back diversity initiatives without faculty consultation. Just today, we learned that department websites had been scrubbed of DEI references overnight, with most faculty in the dark about the erasures.
Bending to partisan, political attacks undermines the mission of education crucial for an informed and empowered citizenry and is the objective for NU and every university across the U.S. Alas, groups supporting U.S. foreign policy on Israel have won a settlement of lawsuits brought against Harvard University under Title VI.
One outcome is Harvard’s agreement to use a weaponized definition of antisemitism, thus rendering free and independent discussion of Israel punishable by Harvard or the U.S. government. We hope NU will not similarly cave to outside pressure.
The AAUP Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and Committee on College and University Governance recently raised the alarm about how anticipatory obedience threatens academic freedom. As the DOE rolls out its investigation into alleged antisemitism at NU, we call on all campus members and the Faculty Senate to join us in demanding that NU stands firm against the callous persecution of students, faculty and staff, reminiscent of the worst days of McCarthyism.
We call on President Michael Schill, the Board of Trustees, and the Faculty Senate to actively defend University values, including by publicly and steadfastly opposing an organized campaign that is bent on restricting our scholarly and public dialogues on Israel and other governments in the Middle East and elsewhere. This includes doing everything within their considerable power to protect campus community members by not expelling international and other students and refusing to turn over names and records unless obligated by court orders.
Finally, we call on the University to rescind peremptory and new retroactive cuts. As many recall, during COVID, NU withheld $23 million from faculty and staff retirement funds. Then, too, NU shortchanged education for the benefit of the stakeholders in its $14 billion endowment, only to discover an $83 million surplus.
What you can do:
1. If you are faculty — tenure-line, NTE, graduate instructors — join us! And let us know at nu-aaup@proton.me.
2. Circulate our statement, found –, to your NU contacts and community.
3. Speak up! Let us know what is happening in your corner of the University, wherever you are, including the Board of Trustees, staff and students at nu-aaup@proton.me.
4. If you want to sign our petition, head over to @_pro_se on X (formerly Twitter) and sign there.
Northwestern American Association of University Professors, Executive Committee
Jackie Stevens, President, Professor, Political Science
Jorge Coronado, Treasurer, Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Lauren Stokes, Secretary, Associate Professor, History
Linda Gates, Member-at-Large, Professor of Instruction, Theatre
Sam Weber, Member-at-Large, Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities
If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
