Absurd, arbitrary, authoritarian, buffoonery, corrupt, hypocrisy, pandering, and violent: my personal word cloud from headlines on the latest escapades of President Donald Trump and his minions. Alas, they’re not so different from the impressions conveyed by the actions and statements of the abruptly-departing former Northwestern President Michael Schill, the NU Board of Trustees, and those in their administration.

Schill likes to hold forth on behalf of truth and free inquiry. It’s not a stretch; actually, it’s not even a choice — the first words of the Faculty Handbook are: “Academic Freedom.”

The first words of the Bill of Rights are also about speech, freedom to exercise one’s religion, and a prohibition against the government establishing one. Like “academic freedom,” these words are not themselves effective. As a direct result of Trump’s attacks on higher education through nonsensical allegations of antisemitism, in violation of the First Amendment, academic freedom has not just been threatened, but curtailed — including at NU.

Whether Schill is “stepping down” because of his inability to move federal funds to NU coffers or because of his own goal in the recently announced settlement with a football coach, it is worthwhile to review new information he shared with the House Committee on Education and Workforce, facts of great consequence that Schill and the Board hid for over a year.      

Like Trump, Schill is feckless and dishonest. Perhaps his most egregious deception was about one of the most important incidents in NU’s recent history: the agreement to end the encampment at Deering Meadow.

Schill’s public account was that he negotiated to protect faculty and students. “Bring in police and we risk the physical safety of our students, staff, faculty and police for a result that is often unsustainable,” he wrote in an essay for the Chicago Tribune.

The truth came out over a year later —  released by the House Republicans, not Schill. It turns out Schill’s real concern was for the University Police.

In an interview with Congressional staff after being threatened with legal sanctions for lying, Schill explained his thwarted desire to use force.

“The mayor of Evanston called me and said he wouldn’t be sending in the police. I said to him, ‘We have a mutual aid agreement.’ He said, ‘You know, you can sue me if you want.’ … We talked again the next morning, and he was consistent, and the police chief was consistent. So, we lost the ability to use force to remove the tents.”

Schill could have ordered the 32 UP officers to remove the tents, but that might endanger them: “We weren’t going to send in a tiny police force.” Yet if Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and Evanston Police Department Chief Schenita Stewart had gone along with Schill’s preferred option, there would have been no Deering Meadow Agreement.

The August interview also revealed another contradiction. Schill wants to “expose our students to different viewpoints” and engage “respectfully across difference,” while promoting the Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement, except when it comes to defining antisemitism. Disagree respectfully with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism by simply refusing to sign off on the University’s mandatory “anti-bias” training, and Schill will not allow you to enroll in classes.

We now know that the mandatory Jewish United Fund training module includes statements NU’s own administrators thought should be excluded. “It was mostly [JUF’s] product,” Schill told the staffers in August. “They made some changes, you know, based upon our editorial suggestions and then there are some things that they decided they didn’t want to do and they left it in.”

In short, Schill handed the prerogative for defining antisemitism to the JUF —  “the major Jewish group in Chicago” by Schill’s description —  even though many Jews and scholars vehemently disagree with it. This is a flagrant violation of American Association of University Professors standards on academic freedom and shared governance, not to mention NU’s Charter.

In addition to Schill’s decision to block registration of students who reject the JUF definition of antisemitism being absurd, arbitrary, authoritarian, and so forth on its face, it also runs afoul of NU’s Charter, which states: “No particular religious faith shall be required of those who become students of the institution.” May only students whose faith as Jews includes a Zionist, ethnonational view of Israel attend NU?

I have shared with Schill my concerns about his double-speak, including his celebration of debate alongside his refusal even to attend the Faculty Assembly, where we discussed and passed 10 AAUP-sponsored resolutions challenging his leadership and policies. I also questioned his personal efforts to diminish the outcome by claiming the quorum, reached for the first time in history, was a small number of the total NU faculty. I pointed out turnout was higher than in many city elections, the vote was lopsided against him and that he never was concerned about the Faculty Assembly quorum until he was personally embarrassed by the outcome.

Schill’s response? Nada — similar to his response to AAUP requests for due process on behalf of our colleague Professor Steven Thrasher and others, NU is preventing faculty from even appealing adverse tenure decisions. This is similar to Schill’s lack of response to the AAUP chapter’s efforts to stop NU from sharing personnel and student information with the federal government and our questioning the rationale for cutting and freezing program budgets unaffected by federal funding.

In August, Schill told House staffers that of 300 conversations he’d had about the demonstration, no one gave him a better alternative than the path he chose.

To whom had he been talking? Not the AAUP leadership, who would have told him to stop allowing donors like cluster bomb magnate and Life Trustee Lester Crown, the money behind the JUF and the Israel Innovation Project, to run the university. Instead, NU should distribute funds based on faculty priorities established through our governance bodies.

NU’s stakeholders, especially faculty, must stand up and act like citizens. We need to create and spread immunities for resisting the charlatans and their cruel farces of politics and education, along the lines of the emerging and overlapping groups that episodically circulate letters and petitions, such as the Northwestern Concerned Faculty Group.

Democracy dies when left to someone else, as in, “someone should…” For example, make sure your representative to the Faculty Senate endorses the resolutions of the Faculty Assembly, the highest legislative body of the faculty; if they won’t, consider running for the position yourself.

I am ever hopeful, but not optimistic, that the Board at last week’s meetings was considering the Faculty Assembly resolutions, including removing the IHRA definition from NU policies and restoring academic freedom.

Regardless, we have lawsuits to file and laws to pass, including bolstering Illinois statutes to protect tenure and demand nonprofit accountability. For over a century, the AAUP has been on the frontlines of establishing academic freedom as a pillar of democracy. Please consider joining us. If you are a student or other NU stakeholder and want to support us, please write us and let us know your concerns and skills.

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 nu-aaup@proton.me. For more information about AAUP, visit aaup.org. 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.

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