Northwestern commits to new task force on antisemitism after previous one dissolved amid protests

Northwestern University President Michael Schill vowed on Thursday to recreate a school antisemitism task force after the previous one disbanded because seven of its members resigned in protest of the school‘s capitulation to pro-Palestinian protester demands.

Schill, along with Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway and University of California, Los Angeles, Chancellor Gene Block, testified before the House Education and Workforce Committee regarding their schools’ responses to major protests on their campuses. Republicans piled on Schill in particular during the hearing, slamming the agreement Northwestern made with protesters, as well as the lack of discipline anyone involved has received.

“You and your administration have cited the creation of this committee as proof you are working to counter antisemitism,” Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) said to Schill. “The three faculty members you appointed to it had objected to the committee’s very creation in a letter that downplayed antisemitism and defended the phrase ‘From the river to the sea [Palestine will be free].’ At least two of them have supported [boycott, divestment, and sanctions] efforts against Israel.”

Walberg asked why Schill believed “it was appropriate to appoint faculty members who have defended and made excuses for antisemitism and oppressed and opposed the committee’s purported mission of combating antisemitism?”

Schill would not commit to ensuring those same faculty members would not serve on the to-be-reconstituted antisemitism task force but said he would appoint those “who I believe are committed to fighting antisemitism and as committed to fighting antisemitism as I am.”

The university president also consistently refused to answer questions about specific staff and students, including anthropology professor Jessica Winegar, whom Walberg pointed to as “a leader of academic boycott efforts against Israel” despite her being on the antisemitism task force.

“She has also referred to ‘Zionist media’ and condemned ‘white liberal dialogue politics,’ and she signed a petition defending a Palestinian terrorist who murdered two Israeli college students in a bombing,” Walberg said, asking if Schill would say that Winegar is “grossly unfit” to be serving in a role meant to combat antisemitism.

Schill said that he does not believe in the BDS movement but would not discuss Winegar directly or her ideology indirectly.

To date, Northwestern has not suspended or expelled any students related to the pro-Palestinian protests, but Schill said that there are open investigations and stressed the importance of “due process” when asked about the status of those investigations. He explained that cases are under review at the conduct and Title VI offices, which was an inadequate answer for Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who told the Northwestern president that “this is why you earned an F” rating from the Anti-Defamation League.

Stefanik later called for Schill’s resignation, as she has done with other university leaders who have testified before Congress.

Schill did say the school was revising its code of conduct, but did not get into specifics. However, he did stress the importance of freedom of speech and academic freedom as “core values” and noted in his opening remarks that “the line between protected speech and harassment or discrimination can be very thin.”

He also said making concessions to protesters to end the encampment was preferable to calling in police, as he argued the police and students’ safety could have been at risk if the university involved law enforcement.

Rutgers University also made concessions to protesters, something which Holloway was slammed for during the hearing as well.

Rutgers accepted eight of 10 concessions from the protesters, including setting up plans for an Arab and Muslim student center and developing training sessions focused on anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) noted that the Rutgers agreement with protesters included admission for 10 displaced Palestinians. Grothman asked whether that was a quota system and if it violated anti-discrimination law.

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“We have existing programs to support refugee students and scholars, and we would lean on those programs,” Holloway replied. “We actually don’t believe in quotas.”

Grothman said the agreement was rewarding pro-Palestinian actors for “trouble they are causing and the hate they are encouraging.”