“Mistakes Have Consequences” – Colleges Pay the Price for Abandoning Jewish Students

By FrumNews.com

Chicago, IL — Northwestern University is the latest college to pay up for its “mistakes” during the college encampments and wave of attacks against its Jewish students in 2024.

Northwestern University and the U.S. federal government reached a three-year agreement announced on Friday, restoring federal research funding, ending investigations into alleged anti-Semitism and Title IX violations at the college, and requiring the university to pay $75 million to the U.S. Treasury as part of the settlement.

As FrumNews reported at the time, Northwestern, along with Harvard—and most infamously Columbia—among other universities, was ground zero of pro-Hamas protests and unlawful discrimination against thousands of Jewish students at these colleges, who reported harassment and assaults fueled by anti-Semitism, to a blind eye and deaf ear by college administrators.

After a few days of encampments on campus, cowardly, Northwestern literally gave in to the “demands” of pro-Hamas demonstrators, including hiring a professor, who allegedly holds positions in groups linked to Hamas, who is a “professor” at Al-Azhar University of Gaza.

After the government froze funding in April, the Trump administration halted about $790 million amid Education Department probes due to the college turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism, causing over 100 stop-work orders and political pressure from congressional Republicans.

Now the university is reversing course, but only because funding was pulled.

The new deal between Northwestern and the Trump Administration binds the university to antisemitism training, clearer protest policies, an international admissions review, termination of the Deering Meadow agreement, a Board of Trustees compliance committee, quarterly verifications by the president and chair, and real adherence to Title IX obligations.

“Today’s settlement marks another victory in the Trump Administration’s fight to ensure that American educational institutions protect Jewish students and put merit first,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Institutions that accept federal funds are obligated to follow civil rights law — we are grateful to Northwestern for negotiating this historic deal.”

The deal joins similar settlements at Columbia University, Cornell University, and Brown University, with Attorney General Pamela Bondi saying, “Institutions that accept federal funds are obligated to follow civil rights law. We are grateful to Northwestern for negotiating this historic deal.”

“The Northwestern agreement is a huge win for current and future Northwestern students, alumni, faculty, and for the future of American higher education,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said. “The deal cements policy changes that will protect students and other members of the campus from harassment and discrimination, and it recommits the school to merit-based hiring and admissions. The reforms reflect bold leadership at Northwestern and they are a roadmap for institutional leaders around the country that will help rebuild public trust in our colleges and universities.”

Colleges and Their Failures To Serve Jewish Students

As we extensively reported at the time, the now ousted president of Columbia University, Minouche Shafik, testified before Congress that it wasn’t their responsibility to deal with the hotbed of Anti-Semitic vitriol, endangering the lives of the students on college campuses.

Almost immediately, a mass pro-Hamas encampment broke out at college campuses—including Columbia and Northwestern. At Columbia, which arguably saw the worst, an American flag on the tentpole was destroyed and replaced with the green flag of Hamas terrorists. Jewish Columbia students were physically blocked and assaulted trying to enter the buildings, and posters of vicious Anti-Semitic slang and threats were put up.

As the protest wore on, and days turned into weeks, it became clear that the pro-Hamas and Anti-Semitic rhetoric was not only by radical students, but was being encouraged by the Columbia Leadership and a large portion of Columbia faculty staff and radical professors.

Undoubtedly, university administrations from coast to coast who have allowed this behavior in 2024 are squarely to blame. It is their lack of leadership and moral clarity that is causing a mass crisis at Ivy League universities across the country—which caused their Jewish students to flee the colleges and apply to YU and Tuoro, among others.

After the 2024 election, the new Trump Administration came down with the hammer at these liberal administrations, who have allegedly been literally breaking the Title IX laws against Jewish Students by turning a clear blind eye to the problems on campus.

And now the colleges are being asked to pay up for their “mistakes.”

“Universities that receive federal funding have a responsibility to comply with the law, including protecting against racial discrimination and antisemitism,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division explained.