Metal arch with the name Northwestern University sits atop white stone columns with a backdrop of trees with green and orange leaves.

Why I am Suing Northwestern University—and the United States House of Representatives, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy

BY STEVEN W. THRASHER On July 20, I filed a lawsuit against Northwestern University and—in his official capacity as Chairman of the US House of Representatives House Committee on Education and the Workforce— Michigan Congressman Tim Walberg.  The suit is also against various actors in the federal government who have pressured Northwestern, including Secretary of Education…

AAUP Legal Update

BY VEENA DUBAL The following report by AAUP General Counsel Veena Dubal, Professor of Law at the University of California at Irvine, was delivered to the AAUP’s biennial meeting in Chicago on June 13 by AAUP Council member Samuel Bagenstos, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, and received a standing ovation. I’m grateful…

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When A Scientist Must Litigate to Investigate

BY MINOLI PERERA This piece was first published in The Daily Northwestern. At the beginning of 2025, my lab and my science were flying high. We had recently been awarded a R01 grant by the National Institutes of Health to study genetic predictors of cardiovascular drug response in Puerto Ricans. I knew as a scientist…

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What a Federal Court Brief Can Teach Us About How to Defend Higher Ed

BY KATHY ROBERTS FORDE AND THE MEMBERS OF THE STAND TOGETHER FOR HIGHER ED LEADERSHIP TEAM* In a rare act of institutional solidarity, twenty-four universities have filed a joint amicus brief supporting Harvard in its lawsuit against the federal government’s attempt to cut research funding. The lawsuit challenges the federal government’s politically motivated suspension of…

Saving the NEH

BY WILLIAM D. ADAMS The following first appeared on Medium and is republished with the author’s permission. April 11, 2025 Only days after launching its attack on the Smithsonian Institution, the Trump administration and its DOGE shock troops came for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).  Last week, NEH grant recipients were notified that all…

Cowardice or Collaboration?

BY HANK REICHMAN Given the daily fire hose of mostly unconstitutional (if not simply illegal) assaults by the Trump regime on the rights of immigrants, on “DEI,” on trans people, on the legal profession, on the judiciary, on social security and the Veterans’ Administration, and, of course, of most direct concern to readers of this…

A Statement from Constitutional Law Scholars on Columbia

POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following extraordinary statement was published today in the New York Review of Books and is reposted here with their permission.  The statement’s signatories include virtually every leading First Amendment scholar in the country, conservative and liberal.  Among the signatories are Eugene Volokh and Michael McConnell, arguably the two most prominent…