Students who have not completed Northwestern-mandated bias training may soon face escalating penalties, including the loss of student affiliation, financial aid and access to on-campus housing, according to an email obtained by The Daily.
The email was sent Sept. 16 from the University to undergraduate and graduate students who have yet to complete the training titled “Building a Community of Respect and Breaking Down Bias.” The University stated that students who fail to complete the bias training and attestations will be barred from enrolling in classes needed to complete their degree.
First released in a Feb. 20 email, the training features modules discussing University policies, changes to the Student Code of Conduct, antisemitism and bias against Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities. The training has been met with a mix of backlash and approval from the NU community and beyond.
Over the summer, the University put registration holds on students who had not completed the training. These students can not add or swap classes until they have completed the training, according to another email sent in August.
During the fifth week of each quarter, the University will update academic records and discontinue the academic programs of students who are not registered, but expected to be, according to the Sept. 16 email.
Students who remain unregistered by Oct. 20 in Fall Quarter or by Feb. 2 in Winter Quarter will lose eligibility “to live in campus housing, access campus facilities or receive financial aid, including Federal Work Study allocations.”
Still, some students are holding out on completing the training.
A member of NU’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, has not yet completed the bias training and called it “explicitly Zionist” and “inaccurate.”
“It’s been put out there as though it protects me, like it’s explicitly like, ‘This is how to not be antisemitic,’ which is supposed to protect me as a Jewish student, and it is absolutely one of the most antisemitic things I’ve seen on campus,” the student said.
The student said it was “upsetting” that a bias training that “completely” misrepresented the Jewish community is threatening their position at the University.
In the Sept. 16 email, the University highlighted that only two sections require attestations: one to acknowledge that the student agrees to abide by the University’s Policy on Discrimination, Harassment, Sexual Misconduct and another that the student agrees to follow the Student Code of Conduct, including demonstration and display policies.
The email also noted that the sections on antisemitism and on bias against Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities do not require attestations.
“If you have been concerned about the policies you are required to attest to, we hope the clarifications above give you the information you need to make the best choice for you. If you intend to complete the required attestations, please do so now so your studies are not interrupted,” the end of the email stated.
Throughout the email, the University clarified that once students complete the bias training, they will be welcomed to enroll back at NU.
Student employees who hold jobs requiring student status, including teaching and research assistants, will not be immediately removed after termination of student status. However, those students will not be eligible to work beyond the Fall Quarter, according to the email.
Sixth-year environmental engineering Ph.D. candidate Laura Jaliff and fifth-year musicology Ph.D. candidate Vivian Tompkins also chose to hold off on completing the bias training due to its content.
Jaliff noted that the University has obfuscated the punishment for graduate students. Graduate research assistants, like her, need to enroll in a research class, Jaliff said.
“Obviously, if you have a registration hold, you can’t do that,” Jaliff said. “So part of what we’ve been told is that they’re going to follow historical precedent and not rescind research funding, essentially your paycheck, just because you haven’t registered for those credits, but it’s unclear how much of that has been communicated to departments.”
In a statement to The Daily, a NU spokesperson wrote that the University is working to soon provide answers to a “small number of graduate students.”
Tompkins described her situation as “in limbo,” saying that the registration hold threatened her ability to finish her work at the University.
The confusion surrounding the consequences of not completing the bias training causes a “climate of fear,” Tompkins said.
“With all of these emails we’ve been getting, the emphasis has really been on making us afraid, which maybe that sounds basic, but to me it’s disturbing that the University — as an educational institution — is functioning off making students afraid,” Tompkins said.
Faculty have to complete a similar mandatory training, which was released before the students’ training, religious studies and political science Prof. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd said. Yet, Hurd said she found the faculty training to be different “in tone and in tenor.”
“There are still issues within the faculty version of the training that people will disagree with,” Hurd said. “That’s normal. There are always going to be issues, but in general, it was much more balanced, measured, nuanced (and) historically careful in the kinds of claims it was making about the state of Israel, about Palestinians and so on.”
For faculty, their bias training was just “another in a series of trainings,” Hurd said.
After the students’ training came out, Hurd said “everything exploded.” She went on to claim that this isn’t the University she said she worked hard for in order to ensure students were exposed to a diversity of opinions and not “force-fed political propaganda.”
“I want to express my deep gratitude to all of the students who are staying the course,” Hurd said. “This is not easy. They’re fearful of losing the right to go to class and to be a student, and they can’t imagine anything more scary.”
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