In this episode, The Daily summarizes major headlines covering Prof. Steven Thrasher termination, graduate student deferral and the Evanston Mayoral Election.
What is going on with Medill professor Steven Thrasher and his termination? Why are graduate students’ enrolment offers being deferred? Who won the Evanston elections? The Daily answers these questions and recaps other top stories from the last week.
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Students protest the University cancelling Medill professor Steven Thrasher’s classes.
Some graduate students’ enrollment offers are deferred until 2026.
Daniel Biss wins the Evanston mayoral election.
From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Dov Weinstein Elul.
[music]
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: First up today, I spoke to Campus Editor Isaiah Steinberg who has been reporting on the termination of (Medill) Prof. Steven Thrasher and the cancellation of his classes for the last few months. He most recently reported on a student-led protest against the termination of Thrasher at The Rock.
Why don’t you just start by explaining where the story really begin?
ISAIAH STEINBERG: So this all started at the encampment in April 2024. It was the first day of the encampment, April 25, 2024, Steven Thrasher and some other faculty members formed a protective line between students and the police.
They claim that their intent was to protect students, is how they’ve described it to The Daily in the past. Ever since then, some have claimed that Thrasher assaulted the police officers. He has claimed he was pushed by the police officers. So there have been conflicting claims on that.
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: So since then, what have been some of the fallout that has further kept him in the spotlight?
ISAIAH STEINBERG: Yeah, so one of the first things that happened was at University President Michael Schill’s congressional testimony in May before the House Committee on Education and Workforce, there was a House representative who specifically called out Dr. Thrasher by name and attempted to get Schill to take more punitive action against some of the people who played key roles in the encampment.
So Thrasher was kind of thrust into a broader spotlight by that hearing, then shortly after that, the University actually pressed charges against Dr. Thrasher for obstructing a police officer. Those charges were quickly dropped by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
In January of this year, the University concluded its initial investigation into Dr. Thrasher, that one, according to Thrasher, focused on his social media use and views on objectivity. They subsequently launched a second investigation into Dr. Thrasher specifically for his role at the encampment. And then, more recently in March, Medill Dean Charles Whitaker informed Dr. Thrasher that his contract would not be renewed after the 2025-2026 school year and his classes until then, including this quarter, Spring Quarter, would be canceled.
Now, Dr. Thrasher claims that was retaliation for his role at the encampment, whereas Dean Whittaker countered that it was actually due to Thrasher making publicly misleading claims about the reason for his tenure denial.
And then, most recently, 15 students gathered at The Rock to protest Dr. Thrasher’s classes being canceled and him being terminated. And that’s sort of the whole chronology of events boiled down, or most of the big events. And as far as we know, the second investigation into his conduct at the encampment is still ongoing.
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: What was this protest like, what did it look like? What kind of things were students saying?
ISAIAH STEINBERG: Yeah, it was certainly an interesting protest. There were about 15 students there. It was (co-)organized by Medill junior Luis Castaneda, and it was sponsored by the Queer Media Association at Northwestern. At the protest, Castaneda primarily read off of the syllabus for Dr. Thrasher’s spring class on LGBTQ+ reporting. He also read some of the correspondence between himself and Dean Whitaker, as well as Dean Whitaker and Dr. Thrasher. The general theme of the protest was demanding that Medill provide a more concrete reason for Thrasher’s termination.
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Has Thrasher said anything about his termination?
ISAIAH STEINBERG: He did. On Mar. 20, Thrasher put out a press release across multiple social media platforms, and in that press release he condemned the decision. He accused Dean Whitaker of making the decision. He called it a “political hit job,” specifically over his support for Palestine and for trying to protect student protesters, is the way he framed it.
Medill has not put out much about it. The University has repeatedly said that they don’t comment on personnel issues. However, Thrasher has emphasized that he will continue to speak out.
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: What do you see as the next progression of events in this situation?
ISAIAH STEINBERG: What we do know is that Dr. Thrasher plans to appeal this decision to terminate him. We don’t have a strict timeline for that, but that will be the next step in the case.
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Isaiah Steinberg, thank you so much.
[music]
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Next, I spoke to Managing Editor Jerry Wu who has been reporting on Northwestern’s decision to cap incoming graduate school class sizes by deferring enrollment for applicants who hadn’t accepted their offers yet.
What exactly is going on here? Why is this happening?
JERRY WU: Starting late last month, I got word from some folks in the graduate schools at Northwestern that officials from Northwestern had directed some graduate programs to defer the offers of students who had not yet accepted their offers and deferred their enrollments to the 2026 academic year. So, basically, they prematurely capped their classes at, you know, around the same class sizes that they’ve historically had, but they’ve just, you know, capped the class size in advance, which personally was, you know, seen as a move to cap budget uncertainty and made, you know, these federal funding cuts that have been threatened by the federal government in this new presidential administration.
So this move was enforced by the University’s administration, kind of spanned across the (Weinberg) College of Arts and Sciences, their graduate programs, McCormick, the School of Engineering, graduate program, and then also the Feinberg School of Medicine. Those folks who saw their enrollments deferred just basically had no option to accept their offers. They could only if they still want to enroll at Northwestern their only window would be for the 2026 academic year.
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: You mentioned this being amid the cuts — budget cuts, funding cuts — from the current presidential administration. I’m wondering, what other trends is it reflective of?
JERRY WU:I think obviously universities across the nation right now are at a critical juncture where they have to make preparations and enforce guardrails in the face of these federal funding cuts by the by the Trump administration at Northwestern specifically, you know, the the University has already announced a series of moves that we’ve covered.
But most recently, you know, we’ve seen direct cuts from the NIH that have targeted lots of research projects at Northwestern. These grants together are worth millions of dollars and honestly more grants are expected to be cut in the coming months.
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: How have students been reacting to this?
JERRY WU: I think there’s two sides of the story. I’ve talked to a lot of faculty members regarding these enforced measures, because, you know, they’re the ones who are leading these programs. They’re the ones who, you know, are responsible for these applicants and admitted students. So based on the conversations we have, they’re troubled. You know, on one hand, they’re aware that the University has, in a way, their hands tied behind their backs, and they have to resort to some of these precautionary measures in the face of research cuts.
But also, you know, they don’t these measures of deferred enrollments are unprecedented, so you know, it is a mixed response from them. But I think for students, this really was sprung on students last minute, to my understanding. From what I’ve heard, faculty received an email from NU officials the same day that they were told to defer the enrollment of students. So obviously this was very sudden for faculty members and for students who found out. So students have told me that this really is unprecedented. Before students could have almost two days until the deadline to decide whether or not they wanted to commit to Northwestern but you know now they’re only, honestly, have no option but to decide whether or not they want to enroll the year after next year.
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Jerry Wu, thank you.
[music]
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Last up, I spoke to city editor Hannah Webster to go over the Evanston 2025 election results.
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: As a city editor, you’ve been following the Evanston 2025 elections pretty closely. Why don’t you just start by giving me a recap of some of the results from this year.
HANNAH WEBSTER: So what we saw this year were most seats up for election. We had Mayor, city clerk, eight of the nine council seats and multiple school board seats up for grabs, and pretty much everyone faced an official opponent. Based on the results we had Tuesday night after polls closed, it seemed pretty clear that mostly incumbents were keeping their seats, although it does seem like we will have at least three new council members in the 3rd, 7th and 8th wards. It does seem like, in general, incumbents who ran will be keeping their seats.
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Who are the winners of this year’s election?
So for mayor, Mayor Daniel Biss won a second term. For city clerk, City Clerk Stephanie Mendoza also kept her spot against a write-in candidate.
In the 1st Ward, we’re still seeing a very tight margin between Alderman Clare Kelly and Stephen Hackney, who challenged her for the seat. So that’s a race that will be difficult to call for certain until we have official results.
In the 2nd Ward, Krissie Harris kept her seat. In the 3rd Ward, Shawn Iles won the seat, and that was one of the races where the incumbent wasn’t running. In the 4th Ward, Jonathan Nieuwsma kept his seat over a write-in candidate. In the 5th Ward, Bobby Burns kept his seat. And in the 6th Ward, it seems like Tom Suffredin will also be keeping his seat. In the 7th Ward, Parielle Davis seems to win the election. That’s another ward where there was no incumbent running.
In the 8th Ward, we saw the only incumbent lose, and that was Matt Rodgers winning over sitting council member Devon Reid.
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Other than the incumbents, are there any other notable trends you’re noticing?
HANNAH WEBSTER: I think one thing that was interesting is that just based off the numbers we’re seeing now, it does seem like turnout was a bit higher than most people predicted for a local election, and it does seem like it’s been higher than the last comprehensive local election in 2021. So for example, in the 6th Ward, we saw almost 50% of registered voters casting a ballot, which is a percentage that is really rare to see, especially in a local election.
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Hannah Webster, thank you so much.
[music]
DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Here are the other top headlines from the week:
The Trump administration has frozen $790 million in federal funding for Northwestern
Northwestern’s Dance Marathon raises nearly $200,000 for beneficiaries.
Junior forward Nick Martinelli declares for the NBA draft while maintaining his college eligibility.
And Northwestern’s admissions rate dips to just over 7% for Class of 2029.
[music]
From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Dov Weinstein Elul.
Thank you for listening to another episode of The Weekly. This episode was reported by Dov Weinstein Elul, Jerry Wu, Isaiah Steinberg, Hannah Webster and produced by Isabella Jacob.
The Audio Editor is Isabella Jacob. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Anavi Prakash, Misha Manjuran Oberoi, and Danny O’Grady. The Editor in Chief is Lily Ogburn.
Our theme music is “Night Owl” by Broke for Free, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License and provided by the Free Music Archive.
Follow us on X and Instagram @thedailynu.
Email: d.elul@dailynorthwestern.com
X: @dov_w_elul
Email: i.jacob@dailynorthwestern.com
Email: jerrywu2027@u.northwestern.edu
X: @Jerrwu
Email: i.steinberg@dailynorthwestern.com
Email: h.webster@dailynorthwestern.com
Related Stories:
— Students protest at The Rock, demand transparency after Prof. Steven Thrasher’s classes canceled
— Northwestern directs some graduate programs to cap class sizes, defer enrollments
— City Council likely to see three new members in light of April 1 elections
