Shortly before 10 a.m. on Monday, April 21, my colleagues and I seated in Scott Hall’s Guild Lounge shared nervous smiles. The Spring Faculty Assembly was about to be called to order.
We were attempting something that had never before been achieved: obtaining a quorum. Ten percent of full-time faculty, 455 professors, needed to be present for us to vote on 10 resolutions crystallizing the Northwestern University American Association of University Professors’ objections to NU’s enforcement of the Trump administration’s unlawful edicts, and specifying alternative solutions. Online participation was acceptable, but only Faculty Assembly staff knew the count.
The meeting opened with an announcement that University President Michael Schill was skipping the meeting he helped schedule — in violation of the Faculty Assembly bylaws — leaving Provost Kathleen Hagerty to defend the University’s embarrassing collusion with autocrats.
About a half hour into the meeting, Faculty Senate President and McCormick Prof. Jill Wilson announced that 467 faculty were present and a quorum had been reached, subject to verification of their status as full-time faculty. The room burst into applause.
“Today you have a choice,” I told my colleagues from the podium. “Do you want to work for an autocratic corporation, co-opted by an unlawful regime or do you want a democracy? Do you want to serve bosses who prioritize a capital fund for their investments, or a board that prioritizes expenditures on education? Do you want a leadership that refuses to stand up for colleagues who received letters imposing unconstitutional conditions on their receipt of grant funds and a threat for previously disbursed funds to be retracted? That goes along with the federal government’s termination of contracts for DEI projects and research on LGBTQ communities? That is silent about a recent stop work order in terms of protesting through litigation? That agrees to release confidential information without a subpoena?”
The last point referred to Board of Trustees’ Chair Peter Barris’ April 9 announcement of the Board’s intention to release to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce information about Pritzker Prof. Sheila Bedi and her clinic providing free legal representation to pro-Palestinian protesters.
Yet, the next morning, an attorney for the committee told a federal judge that Congress had withdrawn all of its requests. Bedi and Pritzker Prof. Lynn Cohn had sued Congress and Northwestern, and Congress had backed down.
“Do you want a general counsel who stands on the side of the inquisitors and against her own faculty and the First Amendment?” I asked the assembly.
The resolutions called for protections for free speech, restrictions on the University’s digital surveillance, support for faculty impacted by federal cuts and withdrawal from federal immigration data-sharing programs. They also demanded retractions of forced training modules and recent policies singling out one group for a specific definition of discrimination, noting the University’s unique response to alleged antisemitism on campus — there being no definitions of anti-Black, anti-Chinese or anti-Latino discrimination.
The 10th resolution mandated the creation of eight faculty visitor seats with full access to Board of Trustees’ meetings and records — a direct challenge to the Board’s long-standing evasion of its obligation to shared governance.
After my presentation and comments on both sides, we voted. Our ballots would be counted secretly, and the result released the next day. The next afternoon, we learned that 338 faculty voted to support the resolutions, with 83 “no” votes and 35 abstentions.
The faculty have spoken. This was not a letter or petition by a disgruntled minority, but an overwhelming rebuke of our administration.
The Faculty Assembly, “the ultimate legislative body of the faculty at Northwestern” according to its bylaws, put the administration and Faculty Senate on notice that faculty across the University have no confidence in Northwestern’s response to the crisis in education, and that we demand an immediate reversal — one that implements 10 specific resolutions.
As a result of this vote, we know that each email blast suggesting faculty support NU’s collaboration with the Trump administration are works of propaganda authored by those little different from the craven CEOs of law firms and corporations seeking to join the protection racket of Donald Trump.
Alas, my own Faculty Senate representative, Faculty Senate President-Elect and political science Prof. Ian Hurd, refused to conduct a straw poll of our political science department colleagues before speaking against the Rutgers Mutual Defense Compact in its original form at a May 7 Faculty Senate meeting.
Hurd warned the Faculty Senate about being swept away by symbolism and claimed that the compact’s initial operative clauses would have been implausible to implement, before he voiced support for an amended version that urged NU’s administration to formally coordinate with other Big Ten schools to respond to federal threats. The revisions drew criticism from colleagues who favored solidarity and worried the modified resolution would “forfeit the function of forming and constituting actually a compact” with the other university faculties, according to Faculty Senate Rep. Prof. Axel Mueller.
At that same meeting, Hurd supported a symbolic resolution thanking the Board for partial payment of some research tied to paused federal contracts. Hurd then informed our department that “NU faculty is united among themselves, and with the NU Administration,” despite the Faculty Assembly vote clearly indicating otherwise.
Now what? So far, the NU administration has ignored these resolutions and refused to meet with us. It is no surprise that a group working hand-in-glove with a dictatorship would disregard its own democratic procedures and policies.
The first sentence of the NU Faculty Handbook states, “Northwestern subscribes to the principles on academic freedom stated by the American Association of University Professors.” The handbook provides three paragraphs explaining this commitment, lines that are at present decorative at best and cynical propaganda at worst.
Our next essay will explain the meaning and significance of academic freedom at NU, and how we intend to enforce these passages through governance bodies at NU and beyond.
Anyone who seeks to rationalize anticipatory obedience is pretending as though the faculty have not spoken when they have, clearly and in overwhelming numbers.
Correction: A previous version of this article inaccurately described Prof. Ian Hurd’s stance on the Rutgers Mutual Defense Compact based on imprecisions in a previously published story in The Daily. Hurd expressed skepticism about an initial iteration of the resolution, but never called it “meaningless” and supported an amended version later in the May 7 meeting. The Daily regrets this error.
Jacqueline Stevens is a Professor of Political Science and the President of the Northwestern University American Association of University Professors. She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
