Over 20 members of the Evanston and Northwestern communities rallied to urge the University to refrain from making a deal with the Trump administration to restore $790 million of frozen federal funding.
The demonstration, organized by Indivisible Evanston, took place at The Arch midday Monday. Protestors handed out flyers and waved signs with messages such as “Stand Strong NU” and “NU Fight Fascism.”
Members led the group in chants, shouting, “We are unstoppable. Another world is possible!” As a group of demonstrators moved across Sheridan, they also sang a modified version of the University’s fight song with the lyrics, “Go Northwestern, win this game!”
For organizer and Evanston resident Nancy Bruski, the rally was a demonstration of support for the NU administration to stand strong against pressure from the federal government.
“If universities and colleges kowtow and cave to the Trump admin, they are supporting the authoritarianism that’s taking over our country,” Bruski said. “Cornell just caved, and so far Northwestern has not … we’re thanking them for standing strong, telling them not to cave in.”
In April, The New York Times first reported that the Trump administration froze $790 million of NU’s federal funding. A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson cited investigations into allegations of antisemitism at the University in an April email to The Daily.
In July, The Wall Street Journal reported that NU was actively in talks about settlements with the Trump officials, which have since slowed, as reported by The New York Times in September.
In an Oct. 17 interview with The Daily, interim University President Henry Bienen said NU has been met with silence from the Trump administration, though he said he was looking to make a deal with the federal government.
Seventh Ward resident David Bice criticized the University’s current response to the federal government, arguing that NU could do more.
According to Bice, the school administration is not “defending the rights of the institution well enough.”
“Harvard, for one, has decided to fight at least some of what they’re being asked to do, and I’m not sure they’re totally telling the administration just to go away, but the fact that they’ve actually gone to court to fight is much different than what Northwestern has done,” Brice said.
At an Oct. 15 Faculty Assembly meeting, 595 faculty members, with four against and eight abstentions, voted to pass a resolution that opposed capitulation to the Trump administration.
Psychology Prof. Ken Paller, who attended Monday’s rally, said the NIH funding freeze affected his research on sleep. Right now, his work is being supported with the University’s “bridge funding,” but the uncertainty makes it difficult to plan for the future, Paller said.
“I’m grateful that we have a community here in Evanston that wants to support the same values that many of us at the university hold as important,” Paller said. “I think the faculty and the students need to be clear about how we want the federal government to change — to support science and to support universities.”
Mary Jo Barrett (Weinberg ’76), a 7th Ward resident, said emphasis should be placed on what students are taught on a systematic level. She explained that this is what impacts students’ intrinsic values.
“I think the kind of people we’re trying to create (at Northwestern) are people who are generous and kind and believe in all human beings,” Barrett said. “If they give money or take money or fold to being paid by the oligarchy, I, for one, will never give a dime to the school again.”
McCormick Prof. Michael Peshkin attended the rally, holding a sign that read “No ‘Deal’ With Fascists.”
In a speech to the group, he said it was important and gratifying to see the community coming out, instead of letting NU treat this as a University-only issue.
“We have a responsibility that is more than just securing our funding,” Peshkin said to the group. “We have a responsibility to academic freedom, we have a patriotic responsibility to supporting and defending democracy.”
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