Last updated Sept. 4 at 2:53 p.m.
University President Michael Schill announced his resignation in a Thursday email to the Northwestern community following only three years in the role.
The announcement came soon after Schill returned to appear before the House Committee on Education and Workforce on Aug. 5 in a closed session.
“From the very beginning of my tenure, Northwestern faced serious and often painful challenges,” Schill wrote in the email. “In the face of those challenges and the hard, but necessary choices that were before us, I was always guided by enduring values of our University.”
According to the email, Schill will remain in his role until an interim president is appointed. After stepping down, he will return to the Pritzker School of Law as a professor after taking a sabbatical. The Board of Trustees will soon name an interim president, according to a Thursday press release.
The University declined a request to comment further.
“To me, the highest honor a person could have is being a member of our faculty and I look forward to nurturing our students and continuing to champion higher education, a cornerstone of American society that, despite its imperfections, is more important than ever to our nation’s future,” Schill wrote.
In a statement released after Schill announced his resignation, U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, lambasted Schill’s tenure, calling for the next president of NU to “protect Jewish students from the scourge of antisemitism.”
“President Schill will leave behind a legacy of not only failing to deter antisemitism on campus but worsening it,” Walberg wrote. “These students not only deserve better, but the law requires it.”
Schill — who previously served as president of the University of Oregon and dean of the University of Chicago Law School — took office in September 2022 after President-elect Rebecca Blank received a cancer diagnosis.
Schill was officially inaugurated as NU’s 17th president in June 2023. In his inaugural address, Schill alluded to some of the obstacles he would later face.
“Legislative efforts to constrain what we do in the classroom are antithetical to the fearless pursuit of knowledge, as well as the transmission of that knowledge to the next generation,” Schill said.
His tenure as president was marked by a series of challenges that drew national attention to the University.
Less than a year into his term, Schill was confronted with a hazing scandal in the football program. After initially suspending coach Pat Fitzgerald in July 2023, Schill terminated the longtime coach after a Daily report detailed the hazing allegations.
Fitzgerald then sued the University for wrongful termination for $130 million in October 2023. Two years later, Fitzgerald reached a settlement with NU on Aug. 21, with the University noting in a statement that “the evidence uncovered during extensive discovery did not establish that any player reported hazing to Coach Fitzgerald or that Coach Fitzgerald condoned or directed any hazing.” Neither party disclosed the specific terms of the settlement.
On April 25, 2024, Schill was met with another challenge when pro-Palestinian protestors set up an encampment on Deering Meadow that lasted five days. Protestors demanded the University disclose its investments and divest from institutions that allegedly supported Palestinian oppression.
Schill made headlines by striking a deal with encampment organizers, making NU one of the first schools to do so. The agreement included terms about the removal of the encampment, disclosure of NU’s holdings and additional support for Jewish, Muslim, and Middle Eastern and North African students.
This sparked scrutiny from the federal government that would largely define the latter half of Schill’s term. A month after the encampment, Schill testified in front of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, addressing allegations of antisemitism on campus and explaining the decision to negotiate with encampment organizers earlier that year.
The University later updated its demonstration policy and Student Code of Conduct, and introduced a new display and solicitation policy last September, which brought ire from students and faculty. In an email, Schill wrote that these changes were an effort to root out antisemitism, Islamophobia and other religious-based hate.
After President Donald Trump took office, tensions with Washington heightened.
In February, the U.S. Department of Education listed NU among five universities it planned to investigate as a result of alleged “widespread antisemitic harassment.” The Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism also identified the University as one of 10 campuses the task force will visit in response to reported “antisemitic incidents.”
At the same time, organizations and schools across the University scrubbed website pages related to diversity, equity and inclusion, in line with the Trump administration’s initiatives targeting DEI. In an interview with The Daily in June, Schill said the University was committed to complying with federal law while acknowledging the need to provide resources to students from varying backgrounds.
Tensions came to a head in April when the Trump Administration froze $790 million in federal funding for NU. Shortly after news broke of the freeze, a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson attributed it to federal antisemitism investigations into the University.
Since then, the University has announced cost-cutting measures, recently including plans to eliminate more than 400 staff positions. The cut came in an effort to reduce NU’s budget attributable to staff and in response to “mounting financial pressures,” according to the University.
In his resignation announcement, Schill acknowledged that “difficult problems remain, particularly at the federal level.”
“It is critical that we continue to protect the University’s research mission and excellence while preserving academic freedom, integrity, and independence,” he wrote.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated that 400 faculty positions were eliminated instead of 400 staff positions. The Daily regrets the error.
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