Students who boycotted the course can lose financial aid, access to on-campus housing, and even their status as a student
Northwestern University can strip students’ financial aid, access to on-campus housing, and even their student status for refusing to complete a mandatory anti-Semitism training, a federal judge ruled Monday.
The ruling represents an early blow to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the lawsuit it filed against Northwestern on behalf of the school’s Graduate Workers for Palestine, alleging the training violates federal civil rights law and bans “expressions of Palestinian identity.” The plaintiffs had asked the court for a temporary restraining order to stop the school from punishing students who boycotted the training while the case played out, but Judge Georgia Alexakis rejected that request.
“Because the plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden in this threshold inquiry, we do not move on to conduct a balancing of the harms,” Alexakis said, according to the student paper, the Daily Northwestern. “For that reason, I have to deny the motion.”
CAIR’s suit focuses on a training video produced by the Jewish United Fund that shows quotes from Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke alongside those from anti-Israel activists to make the point that “you can’t tell the difference.” CAIR, a terror-tied pro-Hamas group, argued the video “equates critical engagement with Zionism with anti-Jewish statements by the Ku Klux Klan” and discriminates against “the University’s Palestinian and other Arab students by branding their ethnic and religious identities, cultures, and advocacy for the rights of their national group as antisemitic and subject to discipline.”
Northwestern barred students who didn’t complete the training from registering for classes and gave them until Monday to view the video. After that, they would face escalating penalties, including the loss of financial aid, access to on-campus housing, and even the revocation of their student status, effectively booting them from the university and forcing them to reapply. Northwestern attorneys have identified 16 students who have not completed the training, the Daily Northwestern reported.
While rejecting CAIR’s request for a temporary restraining order, Alexakis cast doubt on the plaintiffs’ claims that Northwestern discriminated against them on the basis of race, essentially questioning whether they could win the case.
“I find that the plaintiffs have established irreparable harm, but I also find that the plaintiffs have failed to establish the likelihood of success on the merits of the claims that they advance,” Alexakis said. She noted students aren’t required to endorse the video to complete the training, let alone watch it—they could simply allow it to play until the end.
Elsewhere in the suit, CAIR alleges the “training course is replete with political commentary which restricts Northwestern students from advocating for Palestinian liberation, equal rights, an end to apartheid in Palestine, and for the rights of Palestine’s indigenous people (Jewish and non-Jewish).” The plaintiffs also described the spring 2024 Deering Meadow encampment as home to “nonviolent protest, display of signs, speeches, dancing, prayer and other overtly Jewish religious activities, and community building.”
Students walking past the illegal encampment, however, reported they endured slurs like “dirty Jew” and “Zionist pig” by those inside, according to the Forward. Northwestern is facing a separate lawsuit brought by a student who alleges a protester accosted her friend with a sign as others jeered for her to “burn in hell” as they chased her from the encampment area.
The CAIR lawsuit represents a sharp turn in the relationship between the extremist organization and Northwestern. The university faced criticism for partnering with CAIR on an anti-discrimination training earlier this year that relied on separate data sets to show anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes. For anti-Semitic attacks, it cited official FBI data, but for anti-Muslim attacks, the training showed unverified figures from CAIR without citing the source. As a result, the training falsely suggested there had been five times more attacks against Muslims than Jews.
Anti-Israel activists plagued Northwestern this spring, vandalizing the building that houses the school’s Holocaust center with, “Death to Israel,” “Intifada Now,” and Hamas triangles, the Washington Free Beacon reported. The campus Students for Justice in Palestine chapter also hosted an anarchist training session that included materials from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group to urge students to “build an Intifada” and “destroy amerika.”
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