When Northwestern announced its deal with the Trump administration last week to restore nearly $800 million in federal research grants in exchange for a $75 million payout and a list of conditions, Interim President Henry Bienen insisted that the university had “several hard red lines we refused to cross.”
“We would not relinquish any control over whom we hire, whom we admit as students, what our faculty teach or how our faculty teach,” Bienen wrote to the school community.
“Northwestern runs Northwestern. Period,” he added.
But in signing the agreement — which resolves several federal investigations or reviews into allegations of antisemitism on campus, the use of race in admissions policies and its compliance with anti-discrimination laws — the university realigned several policies to formally conform with the administration’s interpretation of civil rights laws.
Under the three-year deal, the Trump administration agreed to restore $790 million in funds frozen in April. The university has been footing an “unsustainable” bill to keep some research going “at a cost of tens of millions a month,” Bienen said. Northwestern can renew existing grants and compete for new federal research funding.
Professors interviewed by the Sun-Times disagreed that the university remains autonomous. They decried the agreement as a violation of academic freedom and free speech.
“I’m disappointed that we have capitulated,” says Laura Beth Nielsen, a sociology professor. “I’m gobsmacked at the idea that anyone can say with a straight face that this isn’t an invasion into our academic freedom.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker also criticized the university’s decision on Tuesday.
“I don’t think that universities should be capitulating to the extortion that’s being brought upon them by the federal administration,” Pritzker said at an unrelated Downtown news conference. “I am of the belief that every time a university signs an agreement based upon this extortion, that they’re whittling away just a little bit at the democracy that I think we’ve all relied upon.”
And he said he told as much to Bienen.
“He expressed what I think most people in his position might say, which is [that] the pressure that’s being put on universities today is massive,” said Pritzker, who accused the Trump administration of “holding the university hostage.”
Nielsen added that inking a deal instead of keeping up the legal fight was also a let down to other schools, including Harvard, resisting the Trump administration’s efforts to control American universities. Several other elite universities also reached deals with the administration in recent months.
“We asked a million ways, ‘can we please join forces with other universities and defend the concept of education, science and knowledge,’” she said. “And Northwestern chose not to do this.”
Prominent student groups had contrasting reactions.
In a statement, Claire Conner, president of the Jewish student organization Northwestern Hillel, said she looks forward to “continuing Hillel’s work with the University to combat antisemitism and ensure that Jewish life continues to flourish on campus.” The school chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace criticized Northwestern’s decision, saying in a statement that the deal defies the vast majority of students, faculty and staff.
“This deal is an assault on freedom of speech and the right to protest, and will endanger many in our community,” the statement reads. “We absolutely oppose this deal and reject bad-faith actors, including Trump and the NU administration, who invoke Jewish students as justification to dismantle civil rights.”
Some key points in the agreement:
- It terminates the deal university officials reached last year with pro-Palestinian student protesters to peacefully end campus encampment.
- Northwestern will maintain the Advisory Council to the President on Jewish Life and conduct a survey to “evaluate the campus climate for Northwestern students, including Jewish students.”
- As of the start of the agreement, Northwestern provided the federal government with anonymized admissions data on applicants, admitted students and enrolled students broken down by race, ethnicity, GPA and standardized test scores. (Northwestern says the government already has authority under Title VI to request this data.)
- Northwestern agreed to continue using a merit-based admissions process, rather than one that preferences applicants based on race, color or national origin. (This has been required of all universities since the Supreme Court ended race-conscious admissions practices in 2023.)
- Many of the points in the deal focused on the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX. For example, all hiring, promotions, tenure decisions and pay raises can only be made based on “individual qualifications and academic and professional merit.” The university must also make available single-sex dorms and locker rooms for “any woman, defined on the basis of sex, who requests such accommodations.”
- The university can no longer “maintain programs that promote unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes, quotas, diversity targets, or similar efforts.”
- The university must now ask international students why they wish to study at Northwestern and in the U.S. and develop “training materials” to “socialize” international students. The university will also “examine its business model” to determine if it can reduce its financial reliance on “foreign student admissions or partnerships with foreign entities.”
- The university and the Feinberg School of Medicine “shall not perform hormonal interventions and transgender surgeries” on anyone under 18 years old. (Northwestern and other Chicago hospitals have already cut back care for trans youth under pressure from the Trump administration.)
Nielsen, who has served on the admissions committee for her department, worries the admission decision-making process will no longer be independent since the federal government can access admissions data.
“If we admit someone with a lower-than-average SAT score, will the government come asking for information about that student?” she said.
Paul Gowder, a Northwestern law professor, said the unfrozen federal research funds was met with relief by some colleagues.
“But a lot of my colleagues know that this is a limited, short-term relief,” he said. “No one will be surprised when Trump turns around threatening their research again.”
Gowder worries the deal gives “the federal government more ammunition to come back and attack again.”
Several elite universities reached similar deals with the Trump administration in recent months over allegations of antisemitism and racial discrimination on campus. Some have resulted in cash payments directly to the federal government, including Columbia University’s $200 million payment to the federal government.
Contributing: Mitchell Armentrout