After Northwestern signed a deal Friday to restore $790 million in frozen federal research funding and close investigations into alleged antisemitism on campus, some students expressed mixed feelings and uncertainty about the components of the agreement.
The agreement requires NU to pay $75 million to the U.S. Treasury, as well as change and re-emphasize policies related to combating alleged antisemitism on campus, transgender students and health care, admissions, international students and hiring.
First-year chemistry Ph.D. student Lucas Hopkins said he was dissatisfied with the deal and wished the school “could have done more to fight back.”
Although he observed that the funding freeze was affecting research opportunities for many of his friends, he believes the University let students down.
“Obviously, that would have been best if we just got the funding back with no strings attached,” Hopkins said. “Capitulating on the civil rights demands is caving to what the administration wants.”
NU agreed to continue upholding policies the Trump administration defined as part of its campaign to influence elite universities, from mandating antisemitism surveys to prohibiting programs that promote “race-based outcomes.”
But as a Ph.D. student privy to the freeze’s impact on research, Hopkins said he was disappointed by NU’s concession to government oversight of its policies related to discrimination, harassment and demonstrations.
“Caving is a real issue,” Hopkins said. “It sets the precedent that the University won’t back students and organizations who might be speaking out about particular issues. If the institution you’re going to doesn’t support your rights, there’s a lot lost in that.”
Weinberg sophomore Emily Martinez said while the freeze concerned her, she felt conflicted after learning more about the deal, especially regarding issues of race and diversity that the administration has focused on.
“They caved, and now the deal benefits them as an institution but not the students,” Martinez said. “Especially as a person of color, I wonder how, in future years, without diversity measures, how our campus will look.”
Others were more accepting of the agreement. McCormick junior Samuel Feldman said the University should not be “held hostage” by the federal government, but he thought the deal was necessary in light of the financial burden of the freeze.
Feldman said he felt suspicious of federal overreach in the negotiations with NU, but said some greater oversight from state or local government might be warranted.
“If the University can’t enforce its own rules, some oversight is necessary,” Feldman said. “I don’t really know to what extent that is, but the University needs to figure out a way to enforce its own rules, and then it can figure out if the government needs a role in that or not.”
In accordance with the White House deal, NU also terminated the Deering Meadow Agreement, which was negotiated with student activists to end the five-day pro-Palestinian encampment last April.
While he said he did not object to any specific provisions of the Deering Meadow Agreement, Feldman supported revoking it.
“I’m glad it’s gone,” Feldman said. “The University shouldn’t have capitulated to the protesters for occupying their University property. I didn’t have any particular issues with the components of the deal. It was the fact that there was a deal struck in the first place, and they didn’t bring in NUPD on day one.”
Bienen freshman Camilo Ayadi said he was very familiar with the deal and read through it as soon as it was released.
He was not concerned about the abrogation of the Deering Meadow Agreement, which he said had already been effectively repudiated by the University’s controversial antisemitism training, now facing a lawsuit from Northwestern Graduate Workers for Palestine.
“The Deering Meadow Agreement is a forgotten piece of Northwestern lore,” Ayadi said. “A lot of people don’t even know what it was or haven’t read it. The Deering Meadow Agreement didn’t have as much of an impact as I think people thought it did on campus.”
Weinberg senior Damian Dobrowolski said the deal was “absolutely not” worth it, highlighting the provisions that bar NU and the Feinberg School of Medicine from providing gender-affirming care to minors and prevent the consideration of race in admissions decisions.
The University wrote on the Office of the President website that Feinberg has never performed transgender surgeries for minors and was already following the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling outlawing affirmative action in college admissions.
However, he believed the University was in a tough position, since other universities — especially Columbia — had already made deals with the Trump administration, he said.
“It’s a survival strategy,” Dobrowolski said. “Rather than risking any more backlash or things happening from the federal government, they’re just giving in to get this money back, for now.”
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