Around a dozen graduate and undergraduate students gathered in front of Technological Institute on Friday to protest a controversial bias training required for all Northwestern students. The news conference was organized by NU Graduate Workers for Palestine.
As people walked past, protesters took turns speaking out against the training. The speeches were also livestreamed on Instagram.
Sixth-year environmental engineering Ph.D. candidate Laura Jaliff, who has yet to complete the bias training, was the first to speak. She noted that NU has given students the choice between doing the training or discontinuing their studies.
“Though the training is crude and perfectly un-educational, it does teach you the lesson of what kinds of politics allow you to live and work in America,” Jaliff said.
Entitled “Building a Community of Respect and Breaking Down Bias,” the training features videos that cover the Student Code of Conduct, University policies, antisemitism and bias against Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities. The training was first sent in a Feb. 20 email and has been met with both approval and boycotts from students.
Former University President Michael Schill touted the training in an Aug. 5 progress report as a method to combat a rise of antisemitism on campus alleged by the federal government.
In a Sept. 16 email, the University told students who have not completed the training they risk losing student affiliation, financial aid and access to on-campus housing. Some students are still holding out on completing the training.
On Friday, protestors held signs with messages condemning the training and the University. A couple other protestors handed out flyers.
After the speeches, the protestors staged a sit-in in front of Tech. A couple people came up to the protestors to tell them of their disagreement, including one student who had a heated discussion with some protestors and filmed them before walking off.
Communication sophomore Holly Simon was the only undergraduate student from the group to speak. They called on NU to refuse to comply with President Donald Trump’s “attempt to take over our bodies and our minds.”
Under the Trump administration, Simon said she does not feel safe being Jewish, noting Trump’s history of spreading antisemitic conspiracies and elevating Christian nationalist leaders. They added that when applying to colleges, they were constantly warned of antisemitism on campuses.
“The antisemitism in Northwestern is not where I was told it would be,” Simon said. “The students and faculty organizing for Palestinian freedom and against the ongoing genocide in Gaza have continuously welcomed me as my full Jewish self.”
Fifth-year philosophy and comparative literary studies Ph.D. candidate Micol Bez highlighted a letter sent to NU administrators in July calling for them to stop requiring the bias training and pointing out concerns within the training. Since then, the letter has accumulated over 200 signatures from the NU community.
In her speech, Bez described what she saw when she visited the West Bank in December 2024, saying she came back to a University that mandates a training that “erases the suffering (she) witnessed in Palestine.”
“At various points in history, universities have produced and normalized harmful ideologies, from justifications for slavery to the very ideological bedrocks of fascist regimes and apartheid systems,” Bez said. “Today, we have to wonder whether we are working for the kinds of institutions that actively constructed denialist and genocidal cultures in the past and what we are doing to prevent that.”
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