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Northwestern University Announces Programs on Antisemitism, Islamophobia After Backlash Over Encampment Response
Northwestern University president Michael Schill looks on during a US House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing on anti-Israel protests on college campuses, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, May 23, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades
Northwestern University in Illinois has announced the creation of new educational programs on antisemitism, Islamophobia, and the Middle East, initiatives it hopes will cool a scorching campus climate.
In a message to the school community President Michael Schill said the programs include one on “religious literacy,” the aim of which is an “integration of antisemitism and Islamophobia.” It will be led by the Institutional Diversity and Inclusion Office. Other programs which focus exclusively on antisemitism will be mandatory for all new and returning students. Additionally, the university will host a series of lectures on both antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as “the history and politics of the conflict in the Middle East.”
Schill addressed the conflagrations of last academic year, in which pro-Hamas demonstrators vandalized memorials to victims of the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel, threatened to assault Jewish students, and occupied the Deering Meadow section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and refused to leave unless officials launched a boycott of Israel.
“We need to ensure every member of our community feels safe. Activities that lead to intimidation and impede an environment where dialogue and education can flourish cannot occur again,” Schill said. “Free expression and academic freedom are the lifeblood of our university, but they must not be used as an excuse for behavior that threatens the core of our mission — a search for enlightenment and knowledge. There is no room on our campus for antisemitism; there is no room for Islamophobia; there is no room for racism and other forms of identity-based hate. Northwestern will not tolerate behavior or speech that harms members of our community.”
Schill added that updates to the school’s disciplinary code are forthcoming.
Northwestern University has struggled to correct an impression that it coddled pro-Hamas protesters and acceded to their demands for a boycott of Israel in exchange for an end to their May encampment. Schill denied during a US congressional hearing held in the spring that he caved. However, critics noted, as part of the deal to end the encampment, Schill agreed to establish a scholarship for Palestinian undergraduates, contact potential employers of students who caused recent campus disruptions to insist on their being hired, create a segregated dormitory hall that will be occupied exclusively by Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim students, and form a new advisory committee in which anti-Zionists students and faculty may wield an outsized voice.
Following Schill’s testimony before Congress, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called for his resignation, citing the agreement and his confessing to appointing accused antisemites to a task force on antisemitism that ultimately disbanded after its members could not agree on a definition of antisemitism.
In July, a Jewish civil rights group implored Schill to “nullify” the agreement, calling it an “outrageous capitulation to accommodate the demands of antisemitic agitators — who openly espoused vicious antisemitism, assaulted, spat on, and stalked Jewish students and engaged in numerous violations of Northwestern’s codes and policies.”
It added, “Accordingly, this purported agreement not only unlawfully rewards antisemitism but has severely and perhaps irreparably damaged Northwestern’s reputation, but it has also exposed Northwestern to potential liability and jeopardizes it access to federal and state funds.”
Writing in a column published in The Chicago Tribune in May, Schill defended the claims by arguing that the deal struck with anti-Israel activists precluded the possibility of boycotting Israel.
“This resolution — fragile though it might be — was possible because we chose to see our students not as a mob but as young people who are in the process of learning,” Schill wrote. “It was possible because we tried respectful dialogue rather than force. And it was possible because we sought to follow a set of principles, many of which I would argue are core to the tenets of Judaism.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Northwestern University Announces Programs on Antisemitism, Islamophobia After Backlash Over Encampment Response first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.