Jewish faculty members at Northwestern sent a letter to the House Committee on Education and Workforce Thursday challenging U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg’s (R-Mich.) letter to University President Michael Schill, which alleged the University has not done enough to combat antisemitism on campus.
The letter, sent by a group of six Jewish faculty members, seeks to challenge “the Majority’s ongoing assault on higher education under the false pretense of combating antisemitism.” It includes a statement originally sent to NU’s Board of Trustees last week that condemned the Trump administration’s attacks on NU “in the name of Jews.” The original statement was signed by more than 100 Jewish faculty members.
Faculty members sent Thursday’s letter in response to Walberg’s Monday letter, which said the Committee hasn’t seen a strong enough response to antisemitism from the University since Schill’s testimony at a committee hearing in May 2024. During that hearing, Schill defended the University’s response to the pro-Palestinian encampment on Deering Meadow and outlined steps the University was taking to combat antisemitism.
Walberg’s letter called for Schill to participate in a transcribed interview with the Committee and address the University’s “apparent failure to protect Jewish students.” The letter pointed to a “disturbing climate of antisemitism at Northwestern,” citing incidents including “hateful” vandalism that occurred outside University Hall and Kresge Hall on April 14.
Jewish faculty, meanwhile, challenged these claims in both Thursday’s letter and last week’s statement.
“As Jews who walk the campus every day and teach in its classrooms, we can reliably report that this depiction bears little resemblance to life at Northwestern,” faculty members wrote in the statement.
NU released a progress report at the end of March on its efforts to combat antisemitism. The report claimed an 88% decrease in reports of discrimination or harassment against Jewish students between November 2023 and November 2024.
In Thursday’s letter, the faculty members acknowledged the presence of antisemitism in the U.S. and said they “welcome serious efforts to combat threats to the Jewish community.” However, they called on the Committee to stop issuing “unwarranted threats” to the University on behalf of Jewish people.
A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson previously told The Daily that NU’s $790 million federal funding freeze is a result of ongoing federal antisemitism investigations into the University. NU has yet to be officially notified of the freeze by the Trump administration.
“Our Jewishness must not be used as a cudgel to silence the vigorous exchange of ideas that lies at the heart of university life,” the faculty members wrote in both Thursday’s letter to the Committee and last week’s statement. “To punish Northwestern financially or to limit academic freedom in the name of protecting Jewish students could itself spark antisemitism — and would be an injustice to those very students and an injury to American society at large.”
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