In the wake of Northwestern’s Nov. 28th agreement with the Trump administration to restore frozen federal funding, members of NU Graduate Worker Union expressed concerns over discrimination of transgender and international students, free speech limitations and research impacts the stipulations could present for the union.
NU agreed to pay $75 million to the United States Department of the Treasury and enforce policies providing single-sex facilities for women, complying to federal information requests of international students, enforcing federal anti-discrimination policies and terminating its commitment to the Deering Meadow Agreement among other terms.
The agreement ends the months-long freeze on federal funding and federal antisemitism investigations for the University.
Fifth-year comparative literary and philosophy Ph.D. candidate Micol Bez, a NUGW divisional chief steward, said the union has been organizing since the federal government temporarily terminated NU student visas in April, calling for University administrators to reject the Trump administration’s demands.
“We find ourselves with this agreement that gives up so much of the power of what we think a free university is,” Bez said.
Discrimination against trans workers
NU’s commitments in the agreement include providing “single-sex housing for any woman” and “all-female sports, locker rooms, and showering facilities” as “defined on the basis of sex,” according to Executive Order 14168.
While the University stated on the Office of the President website that the agreement places no restrictions on transgender students or staff, third-year art history Ph.D. student and NUGW Local Steward Amanda Alvarez expressed concerns over using such definitions.
“(The inclusion) seems like an easy way to control people’s and student bodies’ to be introduced,” they said.
Alvarez explained that the agreement’s redefining of sex and gender would go against provisions under NUGW’s collective bargaining agreement with NU, which prohibits discrimination by factors including sex and gender identity.
These new definitions, Alvarez worries, could allow the University to rebut potential cases filed by transgender or gender non-conforming members to not classify under Title IX protections.
Discrimination against international students
NUGW members also voiced worries of the potential scrutiny international students will face under NU’s agreement to review “international admissions practices” and develop “training materials to socialize international students to the norms of a campus dedicated to free inquiry and open debate.”
“Our campus is in large part populated and activated by the contribution of international students and workers,” Bez said. “It’s so worrisome that this specific targeting of international students are as these people who would not be already socialized to be on a campus.”
Alvarez said the agreement’s stipulation for the University to examine and potentially decrease its “financial reliance on foreign student admissions” overlooks the work international students do for the University.
NUGW members, 41% of whom are international students, work as graduate student instructors for professors alongside working in labs and projects within the University.
“These points essentially diminish the presence of international graduate workers to threats against national security and financial prosperity of the University when the University relies on their labor for that same financial prosperity,” Alvarez said.
The University’s stipulations in the agreement also include reporting immigration information of international students under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program alongside student information present in NU Office of Civil Rights reports alleging discrimination of Jewish ancestry since Oct. 7, 2023.
Fourth-year anthropology Ph.D. candidate and NUGW president Mounica Sreesai said she worries that handing over these names to the government could pose security risks for members, especially for international students.
“Given the climate today that’s been scrutinizing activists for a certain beliefs or principles, we’ve seen a lot of like detainments and deportations in the beginning, especially on campuses of international workers, so that’s very concerning,” Sreesai said. “It’s making many people feel very surveilled.”
Restrictions in free speech and research
NU’s deal with the Trump administration retracted the Deering Meadow Agreement and reversed its policies, which were agreed upon in April 2024. The agreement, reached with student protesters from the pro-Palestinian encampment, created a temporary space for Middle Eastern and North African and Muslim students with promises of a future permanent house and made commitments to answer questions about endowment investments.
Third-year sociology Ph.D. student Salma Moustafa, a member of NU Graduate Workers for Palestine, said the Deering Meadow Agreement had felt “very reasonable” and the reversal alerted her to the University’s alignment with the Trump administration.
“We didn’t even ask for divestment,” Moustafa said. “All of these were very basic requests and very bare minimum deal between us and the administration and so for even that to be reversed sends us a very strong signal.”
Bez expressed disappointment in the University’s reinforcement of February’s bias training in the agreement’s stipulations, saying the training’s framing of anti-Zionism as anti-semitism “suppress(ed) anti-Israel speech on campus and critiques.”
Sreesai described that NU’s agreement to maintain “merit-based admissions policies,” removing diversity in admissions based on “race, color, or national origin” would limit the diversity of NUGW members and the diversity of research they produce.
She explained that barring mentions of race could prevent applicants from sharing personal experiences that influence their expertise in a field.
“We believe in knowledge production also based on social location because they bring the diversity and the perspectives that are necessary to advance certain kinds of research,” Sreesai said.
Email: [email protected]
Related Stories:
— ‘Mob-like extortion’: Democrats slam Northwestern deal, clashing with GOP praise
