Free Republic

Northwestern University near Chicago has rewarded anti-Israel protesters by striking a heavily criticized deal reached between the two groups that has now come under congressional scrutiny, critics have said. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., the chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, sent a letter to Northwestern University leaders on Friday, demanding answers on an agreement reached with anti-Israel agitators to end an illegal encampment on campus. Under the agreement, the university said it will cover the full cost of attendance for five Palestinian students who attend the school for the duration of their undergraduate careers. The agreement also provides...

Seven members of Northwestern University’s committee to fight antisemitism resigned in the wake of the capitulation of the university administration to many of the demands of anti-Israel, antisemitic activists earlier this week. As Breitbart News reported, Northwestern agreed to provide $2 million for Palestinian students and faculty; to provide a special house for Muslim students; and to allow activists to meet with the university’s investment advisors. In return, the activists dismantled their tents and returned to daily protests on university property. There were no other consequences for the activists who scared Jewish students, vandalized property, and disrupted campus life.

Northwestern University has capitulated to the demands of pro-Palestinian protesters who set up an encampment last week, offering scholarships for Palestinians, Palestinian faculty appointments, and special housing for Muslim students. In return, the students agreed to take down their tents and to protest during daylight hours in Deering Meadow, the common space that they had occupied since last week and decorated with radical and antisemitic signs and slogans. As Breitbart News noted, the activists in the encampment not only physically barred other students from entering, but also stole an American flag from peaceful pro-Israel counter-demonstrators and vandalized university buildings. ewish...

Northwestern University officials announced Monday that they have reached an agreement with students and faculty protesting against the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, outlining a plan intended to allow demonstrations to continue while preventing the chaos and occasional violence that has engulfed other campuses across the country. The deal — believed to be the first between a major U.S. university and Pro-Palestinian protesters —comes five days after demonstrators established an encampment in Deering Meadow, a popular common area on the Evanston campus. Administrators responded to the protest by banning tents and temporary structures, but they did nothing to enact the new...

GAZA — Israel announced its complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip after learning this morning of a protest from a 19-year-old Fine Arts major at Northwestern University named Roxy Barnett. "Oh my goodness -- we've upset Roxy," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he was briefed on the protest. "I feel so foolish! The war is over, boys. Let Hamas stay in power, forget the hostages, everybody out of Gaza, immediately!!" According to Israeli intel, Barnett had made a small sign out of cardboard and skipped class to walk around campus chanting. "When I learned of this 19-year-old in...

A team of researchers from Northwestern University says they have developed a cutting-edge, power-generating fuel cell that runs on dirt by capturing the electricity generated by microbes that live in soil. Previous attempts at microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have been stymied by low power outputs and unreliable performance, but the Northwestern system seems to have conquered these issues. The inventors of the dirt-powered fuel cell believe it can revolutionize precision farming, while lessening the use of batteries that often contain toxic chemicals and rely on lithium and heavy metals that are a limited resource and can damage crops and soil....

Northwestern State University canceled the remainder of its football season Thursday and announced the retirement of head coach Brad Laird in response to the shooting death of one of its players earlier this month. The university announced the decision, citing concern for the "mental health and well-being" of its student-athletes after the Oct. 12 death of defensive back Ronnie Caldwell. "Ronnie was a beloved member of our community, and we miss him dearly," NSU President Dr. Marcus Jones said in a statement provided by the school. "While our instinct was to return to the field of play following his death,...

Penn State head coach James Franklin had a hilarious way of preparing his undefeated Nittany Lions for a road game at Northwestern this Saturday: turning the music down. Yes, you read that right. Franklin told reporters after practice Wednesday that the team has spent time practicing with the music off to prepare for a quieter road atmosphere at Ryan Field in Evanston. Northwestern is averaging just 17,500 fans per game this season, by far the lowest mark in the Big Ten. For reference, Penn State’s Beaver Stadium has a capacity of 106,572, more than six times higher than Northwestern’s average...

Northwestern has fired coach Pat Fitzgerald amid allegations of widespread hazing within the football program, university president Michael Schill announced Monday. "The head coach is ultimately responsible for the culture of his team," Schill wrote in an open letter to the school community. "The hazing we investigated was widespread and clearly not a secret within the program, providing Coach Fitzgerald with the opportunity to learn what was happening. Either way, the culture in Northwestern Football, while incredible in some ways, was broken in others." Defensive coordinator David Braun is expected to be named the Wildcats' acting coach, sources told ESPN.

Northwestern University has long been a school hostile to free speech. My alma mater was ranked 197 out of 203 universities for free speech in a major survey by FIRE. (Fortunately, my other alma mater, the University of Chicago, was ranked number one for free speech). This month showed why Northwestern developed a reputation for speech intolerance and a lack of ideological diversity. Northwestern University’s Associated Student Government suspended the funding for the College Republicans due to objections to posters for an event featuring writer and critical race theory critic James Lindsay. The justification was a poster featuring a skull...

I’m a college professor, which is one of those jobs that people outside the profession love to ask you about. For the better part of a decade, most of those conversations have been about one thing: free speech. Are universities, once sites of pure, open intellectual discourse, no longer so pure? What is the future of this endeavor I’ve dedicated my life to, if my peers and I are afraid to speak our minds? In one way, this interest makes sense. An enormous amount of high-profile media coverage has been dedicated to what is said, or not said, on certain...

Report exposes anti-Semitic, anti-Israel postings from Qatar-Northwestern program The Qatari government and Northwestern University are "training a new generation of journalists who will legitimize anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American positions," according to a report by a watchdog group. "Qatar's Multimillion-Dollar Plan to Influence American Media," a report authored by Canary Mission, a watchdog group that documents anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses, focuses on administrators, professors, lecturers, graduates, and students at Northwestern's satellite campus (NU-Q) in Doha, Qatar's capital, who were found to have made at least 750 "anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American" social media postings. This number includes posts endorsing terrorism, touting...

A twisted Northwestern University professor accused of murdering his boyfriend in 2017 pulled a knife on a man he met on Grindr a year earlier while asking if he could pretend to stab him as they had sex, according to court testimony. Jeremy Zaloun, testifying Thursday before a Cook County judge in the first-degree murder trial of former professor Wyndham Lathem, said he denied the frightening request by the renowned microbiologist and told him he wanted to leave, the Chicago Tribune reported. “He told me I would leave when he said I could,” the 46-year-old military vet told jurors. “I...

Lathem is charged in the July 2017 killing of Trenton James Cornell-Duranleau, a 26-year-old hair stylist from Michigan who was stabbed dozens of times in Lathem’s Chicago high-rise condominium. Lathem, a renowned microbiologist, and Andrew Warren, an Oxford University financial officer who authorities say flew to Chicago from England to participate in the killing, were arrested in Northern California after an eight-day manhunt. Prosecutors said that the two planned the killing to fulfill an apparent sexual fantasy.

When I first got to Northwestern, I wondered why walking around on campus could be so frustrating. Even when sidewalks were relatively empty, I would often have to walk way around people to pass without bumping into them. At first, I chalked it up to the geographic diversity of the school; maybe the people that came to this school were used to different ways of moving through a public place. But after talking to my Black friends about my experience, they echoed it: people at this predominantly White school would not move out of our way on the sidewalk. This...

...Northwestern University received more than $340 million from the country of Qatar from 2012 to 2019 as it operated a campus in the Middle Eastern country and continued a years-long collaboration with Al Jazeera, a media outlet owned by the Qatari government. That’s according to a 2019 Clarion Project report, which found that Al Jazeera and Northwestern University formed a relationship in 2008 when the Qatar Foundation, which the Clarion Project alleges of being linked to terrorism, funded a Northwestern campus in Qatar. Northwestern, one of the top journalism schools in the U.S., partnered with Al Jazeera in an agreement...

Northwestern law faculty refuse to explain why they introduced themselves as racists Northwestern University law school faculty called themselves racists as they introduced themselves in an online townhall recently, according to a screenshot of the event. The screenshot was obtained by conservative writer Rod Dreher, who noted in his tweet the meeting took place August 28. “Everybody began w/ a ritual denunciation of themselves as racist. Reader: ‘Prof. Speta is not a racist. He is a wonderful man universally loved by students. It makes me sad that he is forced to say otherwise,’” Dreher tweeted. The College Fix has reached...

History prof debunked central claim in Pulitzer-winning New York Times essay Jon StreetManaging Editor @JonStreet on May 05, 2020 at 9:57 AM EDT A Northwestern history professor called into question the historical accuracy of a New York Times Magazine essay.The essay, which claimed that American colonists sought independence from Great Britain to maintain the institution of slavery, won a Pulitzer Prize Monday. A Northwestern University history professor called into question the accuracy of a New York Times Magazine essay that won a Pulitzer Prize. The Pulitzer Prize Board announced Monday that Nikole Hannah-Jones had won a Pulitzer Prize for her...

At a time when faith in the integrity of the media is at an all-time low, it is interesting to note that certain factions of the American left seem to be opposed to the very idea of established journalism norms and ethical press practices entirely. Just last week, the student government at Harvard voted to condemn the university’s student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, for daring to follow basic journalism guidelines. For a September story on student protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, the offending news organization merely reached out to the agency for comment, as would be standard practice...

EVANSTON, Ill. — Jeff Sessions, President Trump’s former attorney general, was speaking to a packed lecture hall on Northwestern University’s campus last week, but the real action was unfolding offstage. Student protesters were pushing through a back door of the building. Police confronted them and tried, unsuccessfully, to block their entrance. Colin Boyle, a student photographer for The Daily Northwestern, the campus newspaper, captured it all. After the event, Ying Dai, one of the students, saw a photo of herself on his Twitter feed — sprawled painfully on the floor — and addressed him directly. “Colin please can we stop...