Two members of the Middle East Studies Association sent a letter Friday to Northwestern administration calling for the immediate rescindment of NU’s threat to block course registration, access to financial aid and “university resources” for students who have not yet completed the required bias training.
Over the summer, the University put registration holds on students who had not completed the training, preventing them from registering for new classes. NU escalated the consequences on Sept. 16 for not completing the training to include potential loss of student status, financial aid and in-campus housing, according to an email obtained by The Daily.
The training titled “Building a Community of Respect and Breaking Down Bias” was first released in a Feb. 20 email. It features modules discussing University policies, changes to the Student Code of Conduct made in 2024, antisemitism and bias against Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities. The training was met with both praise and boycotts.
MESA President and Yale Law School Prof. Aslı Bâli, as well as MESA committee chair on academic freedom and University of Southern California Prof. Laurie Brand, authored the letter, writing that the repercussions for not completing the bias training violate free speech and academic freedom.
The letter stated the “Antisemitism Here/Now” module in the training offers one-sided and inaccurate information, a “great disservice” to the intention behind the training.
“Viewers will learn nothing from the video about Israeli settlements on confiscated Palestinian land, militarized checkpoints, the separation wall or Israeli-only highways, all features of a regime that the International Court of Justice has ruled constitutes an instance of apartheid, a crime under international law,” the letter stated.
The training video references a “widely criticized” definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, according to the letter, which considers criticisms of Israel and Zionism as antisemitic. NU adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism last academic year, which received mixed responses.
In the antisemitism module of the bias training, a hand-drawn map that loosely depicts Israel’s borders is present. The letter stated the provided “contemporary map” contains inaccuracies that erase the “realities of an Israeli occupation that violates international law.”
Another bias training video, “Beyond the Headlines,” is a module about bias against Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities. The letter called the video a “set piece of evasion,” with no mention of the Palestinians in Palestine.
“Set to a muzak backdrop, the video offers a breezy narrative of ‘Islam’s’ contributions to the Enlightenment before ‘Western Christendom dismantled Muslim civilizations,’ a thoroughly unscholarly (indeed, bizarre) formulation,” the letter stated.
The letter stated that both videos in the bias training have no mention of what has been happening in the Gaza Strip and beyond over the past two years.
NU’s “coerc(ion)” of students, conditioning their enrollment on an “inaccurate” training, is a “feature of authoritarian regimes and corporate entities,” the letter affirmed. A university fostering independent thought should not be issuing this requirement, the letter stated.
The letter ends by urging NU to engage with criticisms of the bias training to then revise it so it “embodies genuine scholarly expertise.”
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