With a guitar and banjo in hand, a handful of students braved freezing weather at The Rock at noon last Sunday to sing protest songs against the University’s recent deal with the Trump administration to restore University funding.
“This land is your land, this land is my land,” they sang. “From California to the New York Island, from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters.”
The University agreed to pay $75 million in the Nov. 28 agreement, along with concessions focusing on antisemitism, transgender support and international students, among others. In return, the government ended a months-long freeze on hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research funding.
A 7-degree windchill did not stop Communication sophomore Holly Simon from showing up. They said the deal “directly endangers” students and communities close to them, such as transgender students.
“It also tokenizes Jewish students as pawns in the conflict over Zionism on college campuses,” Simon said. “As a Jewish student myself, I am so sick of my community being tossed around like a tool for greater powers.”
The campus community needs to revitalize protest culture, Simon said, and they hope to see “resistance” from students, faculty and staff alike, some of whom have been “testing the boundaries of how far this University is willing to go to crush our voices.”
Singing a slightly modified version of “All You Fascists” by Woody Guthrie, Communication senior Emerson Steady said she chose to play folk music from antifascist musicians in the ’60s because she is trying to build a similar movement.
“I truly feel like this school betrayed me. This school I’ve gone to for almost four years has just turned its back on me as a trans student,” Steady said.
Steady added that she wanted to raise awareness against the Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern, whose name she called “a complete lie.”
She accused CAAN of being “mostly outside forces,” including parents, alumni and external groups, working with “very few campus groups” and the federal government to come to the agreement’s terms — and then pushing NU to take the deal.
“Those are the people that are actually on the ground at Northwestern that have been pushing for this deal,” Steady said.
However, a University spokesperson told The Daily that “no external parties were involved in the negotiations.” The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
The songs also highlighted health care and federal immigration enforcement concerns, with protesters singing, “Don’t tell me to stay quiet when ICE is taking kids, and Kathleen takes your health care,” referring to Provost Kathleen Hagerty. Earlier lyrics also named interim University President Henry Bienen and NU Board of Trustees Chair Peter Barris.
Sixth year environmental engineering Ph.D. candidate and NU Graduate Workers for Palestine member Laura Jaliff carried a poster saying “reject the biased ‘anti-bias’ training” and sang along to “This Land Is Your Land,” among other tunes. As a part of the agreement to combat alleged antisemitism on campus, the University has promised to continue to provide mandatory antisemitism training for all students, faculty and staff.
“Anyone who’s read the deal can see that Northwestern is entering a new formalized stage of surveillance and reporting political speech to the government,” she said. “And part of that is the enshrinement of some form of this training.”
SESP sophomore Chase Bell said he hoped to get out of his comfort zone by attending the protest. He held a sign that read, “Pay Profs, Not Pedos.”
Bell emphasized that there’s now the issue of whether people feel safe voicing their concerns on campus, a situation that he called a question of power.
“I don’t think people feel safe to express their opinions here,” Bell said. “I don’t think anybody feels that way. So I think (the protest) is just a step towards that safety.”
Nineth Kanieski Koso and Ashley Dong contributed reporting.
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