Northwestern College President Michael Schill introduced Thursday that he’s resigning, after a three-year tenure marked by campus protests and funding cuts from the Trump administration that prompted a hiring freeze and lots of of layoffs.
“As I mirror on the progress we’ve got made and what lies forward, I consider now could be the correct time for brand new management to information Northwestern into its subsequent chapter,” Schill mentioned in a message on the college’s web site. “Due to this fact, I’ve determined, in session with the management of the Board of Trustees, that I’ll step down as President.”
Schill will keep on board till the college’s board of trustees names an interim alternative to make sure a clean transition. After stepping down, he’ll take a sabbatical earlier than returning to Northwestern Pritzker College of Legislation to show and conduct analysis.
He additionally mentioned he’ll proceed to work with the board of their efforts to struggle to revive federal funding that was frozen by the Trump administration.
“I additionally acknowledge that tough issues stay, significantly on the federal stage. It’s important that we proceed to guard the College’s analysis mission and excellence whereas preserving educational freedom, integrity, and independence,” Schill wrote.
Final yr, Schill testified earlier than Congress at hearings about antisemitism on school campuses, and he defended the college’s negotiated finish to a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on campus.
Schill has famous that in reaching an settlement to take down the encampment, Northwestern flatly denied protesters’ calls for that the college divest from firms with ties to Israel, and finish a tutorial program that centered on Israeli innovation.
“We didn’t give in to any of the protesters’ calls for, and the commitments we made are in keeping with our values,” Schill mentioned.
The committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina, chastised Schilll and the presidents of two different distinguished universities – Rutgers and UCLA – for the way they dealt with demonstrations on their campuses in opposition to the warfare in Gaza.
She particularly criticized Northwestern for negotiating with demonstrators whose views she known as “antisemitic.”
“Mr. Schill, you chop a disgraceful cope with the encampment that prompted seven Jewish members of your personal antisemitism advisory committee to resign in protest,” Foxx mentioned.
Schill, who mentioned he’s a Jewish descendant of Holocaust survivors, defended the negotiated finish to the protest encampnent, relatively than have police forcibly take away the protesters.
“The police resolution was not going to be obtainable to us to maintain folks protected, and likewise is probably not the wisest resolution as we have seen at different campuses throughout the nation,” Schill mentioned.
Negotiating with the protesters, Schill mentioned, allowed Northwestern to defuse the state of affairs peacefully with out conceding to their calls for to sever the college’s enterprise ties with Israel.
Weeks earlier than his testimony to Congress final yr, three Northwestern college students filed a lawsuit in opposition to the college, accusing directors of enabling the harassment of Jewish college students by pro-Palestinian protesters.
This previous April, the Trump administration froze $790 million in federal funding at Northwestern. The freeze affected grants from companies like protection, agriculture, and well being and human companies.
Northwestern was considered one of a number of universities subjected to what the Division of Training calls “explosions of antisemitism” on school campuses within the wake of the Israel-Hamas warfare. The preliminary report cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which protects people from discrimination primarily based on nationwide origin and applies to colleges and establishments of upper studying that obtain federal funding.
In Might, the Trump administration opened an investigation into Northwestern for alleged discrimination in opposition to Jewish college students.
The Trump administration has accused Northwestern and different elite universities – together with Harvard and Columbia – of failing to guard Jewish college students from acts of antisemitism within the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, assault by Hamas on Israel, and the Israeli army response in Gaza.
Following the federal funding freeze, the college in June introduced a hiring freeze, and different reductions to administrative and educational budgets. In July, greater than 400 employees positions have been eradicated on the college.
PhD college students at Northwestern mentioned the federal funding freeze underneath the Trump administration has impacted their work within the classroom, particularly relating to experimental analysis.
“This has been affecting the campus, each campuses, and it has been actually impactful on all of our analysis progress; and simply as a graduate scholar, it has been actually difficult to attempt to hold pushing tasks ahead when there is no funding to have the ability to try this anymore,” PhD scholar Jack Sumner mentioned.
“I suppose particularly as a PhD scholar, funding cuts has positively been an anxiousness that I’ve had. And I think about that lots of people which were right here longer have additionally felt, and I think about that with these cuts, if there was lots of … displeasure with the truth that a persons are not safe of their funding, particularly for PhD college students, that that may have been a major purpose as to why they may have resigned,” PhD scholar Mekhi Williams mentioned.
Final month, a bunch of school at Northwestern wrote an open letter to highschool management, asking them to not make a cope with President Trump concerning the frozen funding.
Within the letter, the Northwestern Involved School Group mentioned they consider the college shall be “pressured to succeed in a ‘deal’ with the Trump administration” to launch the funds.
“We name on Northwestern’s management to withstand the administration’s assault on elementary democratic rules by refusing to ‘make a deal’ with the administration,” the college wrote. “Acquiescence to the administration’s ways would make Northwestern complicit in an assault on greater schooling, which is an important bulwark of civil society.”
The letter got here days after Columbia College in New York Metropolis reached a $200 million settlement with the Trump administration to be paid over three years, together with an extra $21 million to settle investigations from the U.S. Equal Employment Alternative Fee. The settlement restores $400 million in federal grants that the Trump administration has been withholding since March.
