Northwestern University has agreed to a controversial settlement with pro-Palestinian protesters encamped on its campus this week, including a commitment for scholarships for Palestinians, Palestinian faculty appointments, and special housing for Muslim students. The protesters will also be allowed to continue their protests while agreeing to stay in a particular area of campus. It will also put the students and supporting faculty on bodies to review any university investments and purchases, a major demand from supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Previously, protesters had reportedly prevented some students and faculty from entering buildings and engaged in property damage.
The Daily Northwestern reported the details of the deal and noted
“the University has committed to provide a conduit for students to engage with the Investment Committee of the Board of Trustees. It will also re-establish an Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility this fall, which will include students, faculty and staff.
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In addition, the University committed to some support for Palestinian students and faculty in the agreement. NU will ‘support visiting Palestinian faculty and students at risk,’ and will provide the cost of attendance for five Palestinian undergraduates to attend Northwestern.
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The University also committed to providing an ‘immediate temporary space for MENA/Muslim students’ — a longtime demand from students on campus — and will provide and renovate a house for MENA/Muslims students as soon as possible. The final house is expected to come in 2026.”
It also includes a commitment of the university to intervene with employers to guarantee that students suffer no consequences for participating in protests in their jobs and internships.
Northwestern (my alma mater) has always chosen the path of least resistance when it comes to protesters, including at times surrendering core academic functions. I have been particularly critical of the loss of freedom of speech and academic integrity on campus.
Students previously succeeded in cancelling a speech by former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Student Zachery Novicoff embodied the rising intolerance to free speech on campus. He is quoted as saying “There’s a limitation to free speech. That ends at overtly racist old white dudes.”
I criticized former Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro for his lack of support for free speech on campus. Schapiro denounced what he called “absolute” free speech positions and endorsed speech sanctions, including treating speech as a form of assault.
During his tenure, the university often seemed a mere pedestrian to mob action taken against dissenting voices. For example, we previously discussed a Sociology 201 class by Professor Beth Redbird that examined “inequality in American society with an emphasis on race, class and gender.” To that end, Redbird invited both an undocumented person and a spokesperson for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It is the type of balance that is now considered verboten on campuses.
Members of MEChA de Northwestern, Black Lives Matter NU, the Immigrant Justice Project, the Asian Pacific American Coalition, NU Queer Trans Intersex People of Color and Rainbow Alliance organized to stop other students from hearing from the ICE representative. However, they could not have succeeded without the help of Northwestern administrators (including Dean of Students Todd Adams). The protesters were screaming “F**k ICE” outside of the hall. Adams and the other administrators then said that the protesters screaming profanities would be allowed into the class if they promised not to disrupt the class. Really? They were screaming profanities and seeking to stop the class but would just sit nicely as the speaker answered questions?
Of course, that did not happen. As soon as the protesters were allowed into the classroom, they prevented the ICE representative from speaking. The ICE official eventually left and Redbird canceled the class to discuss the issue with the protesters that just prevented her students from hearing an opposing view.
The comments of the Northwestern students were predictable after being told by people like Schapiro that some offensive speech should be treated as a form of assault. SESP sophomore April Navarro rejected that faculty should be allowed to invite such speakers to their classrooms for a “good, nice conversation with ICE.” She insisted such speakers needed to be silenced because they “terrorize communities” and profit from detainee labor. Here is the face of the new generation of censors being shaped by speech-intolerant academics like Schapiro:
“We’re not interested in having those types of conversations that would be like, ‘Oh, let’s listen to their side of it’ because that’s making them passive rule-followers rather than active proponents of violence. We’re not engaging in those kinds of things; it legitimizes ICE’s violence, it makes Northwestern complicit in this. There’s an unequal power balance that happens when you deal with state apparatuses.”
Last year, the Northwestern student body banned press from meetings to protect students from the harm of media coverage. The students also have previously frozen funds of conservative groups.
The Northwestern journalism faculty is little better. Steven Thrasher, the Daniel H. Renberg Chair of social justice in reporting at Northwestern, who trashed a reporter who waited for the facts before reporting on a police shooting.
Of course, it is not just conservative speakers that the students want to ban. In 2021, they called for the removal of the President of the Board of Trustees. Despite being a major donor and supporter of the school, J. Landis Martin was denounced as a Republican who donated money to former President Donald Trump.
The university issued a statement that “This path forward requires the immediate removal of tents on Deering Meadow, cessation of non-approved use of amplified sound and a commitment that all conduct on Deering and across campus will comply with all University rules and policies. Compliant demonstration can continue at Deering Meadow through June 1.”
The university has long lacked the fortitude to stand up to students engaging in disruptive protests.
The danger of such passivity is evident on our campuses. As Henry David Thoreau warned, “all rivers and most corrupt men follow the path of least resistance.”
Here is the Northwestern agreement.
Shocking and pathetic. I feel fortunate not to have any kid at Northwestern, because I would yank them out of there so fast. There is no way that school would get a penny from me.
The so-called “administrators” at Northwestern would not earn a living in the real world! Can anyone imagine a supervisor or manager sucking up to a subordinate with hateful, discriminatory, nonsensical demands … in the real world? (Such as … I no longer wish to work with anyone other than another Moslem or two. Yep, that is the real world equivalent of dorms in which only Moslems will live.)
Northwestern has a campus in Qatar so I have to wonder if this influenced their position – how much money does this relationship generate for NU? And remember top Hamas leaders were (if not currently) living luxuriously and protected in Qatar.
Reading about the pro-Hamas protesters at UCLA and their violence against police as the police try to take down their illegal barriers.
Hopefully these students AND the faculty who joined them will get arrested, suspended, and or fired.
This is an example of our extreme educational ignorance and predominantly flaunted prestigious schools that are turning out, dare I say, Excrement in place of learning that advances societies!
A movement should take place. Every conservative who graduated and now contributes to Northwestern University should be contacted and made aware of the schools position. Especially every Jewish person who graduated and now contributes to Northwestern University should be made aware of the schools position. Every Jewish lawyer, Jewish stockbroker and Jewish CEO of a large corporation should be made aware that Northwestern University has become a member in good standing of Hamas. Maybe finally the wise old Jews will stop voting for the party that harbors their avowed enemy and agrees with Northwestern University that all Jews must be murdered. This fact has now become not only a part of the Hamas Charter but has now become a part of the Northwestern Charter as well. Yet somehow the Jew continues to vote for his own demise. The Jew has put down his David’s sling and if he will not pick it up again he will be deserving of his fate.
The Jewish students at Northwestern should threaten to stage an encampment on Deering Meadow unless Northwestern grants them the same rights and benefits they granted to the proHamas students. They should also demand that Northwesten should close its Qatar campus because Qatar harbors Hamas’ top leadership.
“The university has long lacked the fortitude to stand up to students engaging in disruptive protests.
The danger of such passivity is evident on our campuses. As Henry David Thoreau warned, “all rivers and most corrupt men follow the path of least resistance.”
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You know we excoriated Nixon when he said “education strengthens the mind but weakens the backbone.” Tricky Dicky was so right. We’re going through a revelation today like England did in the late 30s. Our ruling class are a feckless, corrupt, craven, twittering mob of timorous men and pigeon-livered women who have no moral courage or even moral sensibilities. They need to be deposed – by force if necessary – if we have any chance at maintaining our civilization. They are the Stanley Baldwins of our age and as Churchill so eloquently indicted him and them, [they are]“decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent. ” They are in short a living treason against their country and a bain for those of us who love our country.
“bane”
Note to self.
Not hiring a Northwestern grad. (And yes, I’m in Chicago…)
In fact I’m probably not going to hire anyone who isn’t at least 10yrs out of school.
Don’t need a crybaby who can’t handle the stress and pressure of the job.
-G
Universities as Tentacles of the Police State
“Have you no sense of decency?”
By: Michael Hudson – April 29, 2024
https://michael-hudson.com/2024/04/universities-as-tentacles-of-the-police-state/
The Northwestern University administration caved faster and harder than House Speaker Mike Johnson in a foreign aid bill negotiation (snark). The reason that university administration gave into the mob is that so many of their faculty and staff agree with the tactics and objectives of the mob (looking at you Bernadine Dohrn).
All government funding of Leftist Indoctrination Entities (formerly knowns as “colleges” and “universities”) must be permanently cut off. Additionally, the IRC Section 501(c)(3) status of LIEs must be immediately revoked, as they are no longer educational institutions. They only promote Marxist ideology and train their attendees to hate America, hate Israel, and to hate civilization as a whole.