BY JACKIE STEVENS
Northwestern University’s Interim President Henry Bienen announced on Friday the university had violated commitments to its faculty and students in order to appease an autocrat. Bienen claimed the agreement was signed to restore federal funding but has withheld the appendices indicating the affected grants and contracts. The scope of restored funding and programs thus remains unclear.
The Resolution Agreement Between the United States of American and Northwestern University (Resolution) extends NU’s assault on faculty rights to academic freedom and shared governance initiated in February 2025. Faculty have reported that they may no longer teach subjects as their expertise dictates for fear of censure and punishment.
The Resolution reiterates a key hypocrisy of similar compacts signed by other universities. The Resolution states that “protections of Title VI apply to all individuals equally, and that no groups or classes of people receive more or less protection under Title VI for their particular identity, classification, or status.” And yet the Resolution goes on to single out Jewish students for a special, disputed definition of their group membership (“shared ancestry”) and special protections.
The Resolution commits Northwestern to an “Advisory Council to the President on Jewish Life to provide input on the quality of Jewish life on campus and the University’s policies, procedures, training, and programming.” Northwestern also is promising to continue to compel students to agree to statements about Israel, Zionism, and Judaism that are at best controversial.
The Resolution also states that “Northwestern shall terminate the ‘Deering Meadow Agreement’ of April 29, 2024, and reverse all policies that have been implemented or are being implemented in adherence to it.” This would appear to mean abandoning a student and faculty Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility (ACIR) meant to provide oversight, including on investments in Israel and to renege on a “house for MENA/Muslim students that is conducive to community building.”
The 2024 agreement, crafted and defended by then-President Michael Schill, Provost Kathleen Hagerty, and Vice President Susan Davis, has been not only revoked, but also disappeared from Northwestern’s website. NU withheld from ACIR information NU promised to release and is also asserting ACIR will remain, further exemplifying NU doublespeak.
Bienen justified the Resolution by claiming, “Litigation initiated by the University would have taken a long time to work its way through the legal system.” In April 2025, the faculty assembly overwhelmingly passed several AAUP-sponsored resolutions, including to initiate the type of litigation Harvard pursued. Harvard’s funding largely was restored, as was pointed out to Bienen in our last faculty assembly. He did not refute this and yet reiterates a falsified talking point.
Our members’ academic freedom already has been severely harmed by the new protocols, including AAUP chapter member Steven Thrasher, denied the right to teach and tenure by a dean whose judgment was deemed improper by a Northwestern faculty appeals panel.
“Northwestern has abdicated its duty to uphold principles crucial for higher education. We encourage concerned alumni to withhold from NU money to pay off Trump’s extortion and to donate to the AAUP Foundation, which is successfully supporting litigation in defense of academic freedom,” said Jackie Stevens, president of the NU AAUP chapter.
Jackie Stevens is president of the Northwestern University AAUP chapter.
It is shame it took arm-twisting from the Trump administration to convince NU to revoke the ill-conceived pro-Jihadist former policy.
Professor Stevens maintains, “The Resolution states that ‘protections of Title VI apply to all individuals equally, and that no groups or classes of people receive more or less protection under Title VI for their particular identity, classification, or status.’ And yet the Resolution goes on to single out Jewish students for a special, disputed definition of their group membership (‘shared ancestry’) and special protections.” She doesn’t say, however, what is the supposed “disputed definition of their group membership” (‘shared ancestry’).
A case may be litigated in courts all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States and be decided there 9-0, that is unanimously by the justices. Since that is the highest court in the land, few would insist that the decision was “disputed,” though it may not be to everyone’s liking. The present state of Title VI law is the present state of Title VI law, largely settled after a good deal of decided litigation in recent years. Whether Professor Stevens agrees or not with the law is her business, but she ought to be able to support her factual contentions about it, which she hasn’t and can’t. While intimating that Jewish members of the Northwestern community stand to receive a greater amount of Title VI protection than members of other groups or classes (e.g., Muslims or those of Palestinian ancestry?), she cites nothing at all in support of her claim.
BTW, did Professor Stevens object to the Deering Agreement with pro-Palestinian protesters, which included commitments to provide dedicated space for Muslim and North African students?