Three Northwestern University students filed a class-action breach-of-contract lawsuit against the University, claiming the school violated its duty to abide by its own policies by allowing a climate of antisemitism on its campus. The filing includes examples of antisemitism experienced by the plaintiffs, referred to in the suit as “Jane Doe,” “John Doe 1,” and “John Doe 2.” It also states the plaintiffs “expected Northwestern to fulfill a modest core promise it made to them and all other similarly situated, tuition-paying students: the conduct of your student peers and faculty will be governed by rules, and — once you enroll — you will be free to safely move about and avail yourself of our beautiful campus in accordance with those rules.”
National Review writes that the lawsuit comes after Northwestern leaders offered concessions to anti-Israel activists who violated university policies, including setting up tents and occupying a campus lawn. On Monday, the university announced an agreement with the encampment’s organizers, and unveiled, among other items, a promise to offer full-ride scholarships to Palestinian students and guaranteed faculty jobs for Palestinian academics. Legal experts say the promised full-ride scholarships may not be lawful.
“Rather than conduct the business of the campus in accordance with the clear rules of conduct that everyone signed up for,” the attorneys wrote, “Northwestern ignored those rules, opting instead to facilitate, encourage, and coddle a dystopic cesspool of hate in the school’s lush green center, Deering Meadow.”
Incidents addressed in the suit include: a student wearing a sweatshirt with an image of a Hamas member on the front demanding that passersby state whether they speak Hebrew; a sign bearing a drawing of university president Michael Schill, who is Jewish, with devil horns and drops of blood; and another with a struck-through Star of David, the attorneys described the antisemitism that has been allowed to flourish on campus. They also noted that Schill acknowledged antisemitism at Northwestern in an April 30 video message to the university community.
“Rather than enforce its express and implied promises to Plaintiffs that Northwestern is a place of civility where free expression is governed by transparent, content-neutral codes of conduct, Northwestern twisted itself into a pretzel to accommodate the hostile and discriminatory encampment, legislate around it, and ultimately reward it,” the attorneys wrote. “But Northwestern may not suspend its rules just because student organizations prefer to pitch tents and sleep on the central campus lawn, promoting discriminatory, terror-supporting ideologies until their ‘demands’ are met.”
National Review cites Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits entities receiving federal funding from allowing discrimination, exclusion, or denial of benefits on the basis of race, color, or national origin. The promised full-ride scholarships could pose Title VI concerns for Northwestern, given that, according to Schill’s press release, they have been earmarked for students of a particular national origin, the lawyers said.
So far, at least two organizations have filed Title VI complaints against Northwestern.
The Equal Protection Project, a nonprofit organization that describes itself as being “devoted to the fair treatment of all persons without regard to race or ethnicity,” submitted its complaint to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Wednesday. The nonprofit’s founder and director, Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson, told National Review that he believes the scholarship and Northwestern’s declaration that it will “provide and renovate a house for MENA/Muslim students” violate the Civil Rights Act.
“The university is giving ethnic, national-origin, and shared-ancestry preference to what it described as ‘Palestinian’ and ‘MENA/Muslim’ students. I think that’s a clear violation,” Jacobson said. “They need to be called out on it and to have legal consequences. The hope is that the department of education will take this seriously, and I think they will. There is already an open investigation on the antisemitism problem on campus, and while this is not necessarily part of that, we think the [Office for Civil Rights] will take it seriously because Northwestern has problems that they’re already investigating.”
I find it difficult to express in words, the disgust, the anger toward Northwestern, that I feel. On top of all the hatred that Palestinians and Muslims are allowed a free ride. Nicely played.