Politics
Advocates Call for ‘Solidarity and Resistance’ From Northwestern Officials as University Faces ‘Attacks’ by Trump Administration
(Courtesy of Northwestern University)
More than 1,000 faculty members, alumni, students, attorneys and local community members have signed letters expressing their support for Northwestern University’s academic freedom and First Amendment rights as it faces accusations of civil rights violations from Washington.
A day after the Trump administration announced plans to freeze nearly $800 million in federal funding that had been earmarked for the university, advocates submitted several letters calling for “solidarity and resistance” to Northwestern Board of Trustees Chair Peter Barris during a Wednesday meeting of the Faculty Senate.
“The brazen, anti-democratic recent attacks on the legal profession have few precedents in American history,” one letter submitted by nearly 1,000 law professors stated.
“We urge this administration to uphold the principles of legal education and academic integrity in the face of abject hostility and intimidation,”
Those letters come as the Evanston university faces investigations from the U.S. Department of Education and the congressional Committee on Education and the Workforce into its “response to antisemitism on its campus.”
The Department of Education last month informed Northwestern and dozens of other universities across the county they faced a potential funding freeze as part of its investigation into potential Title VI violations stemming from what it called “antisemitic harassment and discrimination.”
That investigation comes months after pro-Palestinian protests were held on campuses across the country amid the Israel-Hamas war.
The Committee on Education and the Workforce in a March 27 letter said it was looking into the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic at Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law after it provided free legal representation to pro-Palestinian protest organizers who temporarily shut down highway traffic to O’Hare last year.
Claiming that doing so raises “serious questions,” the committee has asked that Northwestern turn over budgets and a list of funders from the university’s legal clinics, as well as the personnel file of Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic director Sheila Bedi, no later than Thursday.
Letter writers referred to this as an “Illegitimate” inquiry and claimed that complying would set a “dangerous precedent” for government interference, opening the door to “politically motivated investigations across the nation.”
“The Committee finds it ‘troubling’ that clinical students work with ‘collectives and community organizers’ on ‘creating a more just Chicago,’” hundreds of alumni wrote in another letter submitted Wednesday. “We do not. What we find troubling is that the federal government would target legal scholars who have dedicated their careers to upholding Constitutional liberties.”
“The very foundation of our legal system is the right to legal representation,” 81 students and alumni of Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law wrote in another letter. “To punish or scrutinize a lawyer for fulfilling this obligation is a direct assault on the principles of advocacy and the rule of law.”
The White House on Tuesday also announced it would be freezing $790 million in federal funding that had been directed to Northwestern.
University spokesperson Jon Yates said Northwestern was informed of this by members of the media and has received no official notice from the Trump Administration. He also said the university has fully complied with investigations by both the Department of Education and Congress.
“Federal funds that Northwestern receives drive innovative and life-saving research, like the recent development by Northwestern researchers of the world’s smallest pacemaker, and research fueling the fight against Alzheimer’s disease,” he said in an emailed statement. “This type of research is now at jeopardy.”
