* Crain’s…
A group of Jewish organizations that includes the the Anti-Defamation League Midwest are calling for Northwestern University President Michael Schill’s removal, saying he failed to prevent the spread of antisemitism on campus after agreeing to a deal with encampment protesters demanding the school end all ties with Israel.
In a joint press release, the ADL Midwest, StandWithUs and The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law said the calls are coming “in response to the reprehensible and dangerous agreement reached between President Schill and leaders of the university’s encampment protests.”
“We call on President Schill to resign immediately and trust that, if he fails to resign, the Board of Trustees will step in as the leaders the University needs and remove him,” a joint statement read.
“For the last seven months — and longer — Jewish Northwestern students have been harassed and intimated by blatant antisemitism on campus, worsening since Oct. 7. Yesterday, President Schill signed an agreement with the perpetrators of that harassment and intimidation, rewarding them for their hate.”
JB and MK Pritzker donated $100 million to Northwestern’s law school in 2015 and its name was changed to Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.
Isabel and I talked it over and decided it was a good time to ask Gov. Pritzker about the Northwestern situation. Isabel is an NU alum as well.
* Here’s Isabel’s question and the governor’s response…
Q: Do you support the Jewish organizations’ call for Northwestern’s president to step down?
Pritzker: I support the Jewish organizations. I’m not about calling for people to step down. What I support is the fact that we need to protect not just Jewish students but all students on campuses where there are protests. And so that’s why I’ve been in regular communication with our state universities, their presidents and Jewish organizations on those campuses.
Somebody else interrupted her so she wasn’t able to get in a follow-up. But somebody else did ask a question about the topic…
Q: The Northwestern protests, all the college campus protests have to do with pushing for a divestment from universities and these companies. I wonder what your thoughts are on just the merits of these protests. Does that accomplish what the protesters hope it would? Is that a reasonable call for them to be making in this time?
Pritzker: I don’t think that’s the reason that you’re seeing the protests. I think you’ve seen people protest for a variety of reasons. Let me be clear. There are anti-war protesters out there. There are people who are anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian, which is different than just being anti-war. And there are some bad actors, too. There are people who are yelling anti-Semitic epithets and are, and have forever been bigoted. And we want to make sure that we’re keeping everybody safe on campus. That’s my focus, keeping everybody safe on campus. We want to protect free speech rights but not hate speech rights. [Crosstalk] And protesting is fine, impeding academic operations is not.
OK, everybody take at least two deep breaths before commenting. And stay on topic. This is a state blog. Remember that.
