Northwestern University has paused course enrollment for an unspecified number of students who refused to participate in anti-discrimination seminars which emphasized antisemitism prevention.

According to a statement the university shared with The Algemeiner, the students had advanced notice that their declining to complete the course, as well as other “mandatory student trainings,” in a manner consistent with “the policy on Discrimination, Harassment, and Sexual Misconduct,” would precipitate “action, including a registration hold.”

It added, “Students are not required to agree with the training modules but must attest that they will abide by the Student Code of Conduct … Students have received regular reminders of this requirement over the last several months.” Northwestern also said that it is “committed to maintaining education, work, and living environments in which people are treated with dignity and respect.”

Protesting the seminar appears to have followed a premeditated plan involving older adults, including alumni and professors. Following the acts of defiance, the administration received a letter signed by over 200 anti-Israel activists which fired a volley of political attacks against the antisemitism training — lamenting that it does not delegitimize Zionism and the struggle for Jewish self-determination in Israel.

“As a group of students and graduate workers who stand united against racist, antisemitic, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian discrimination, we cannot abide by these trainings which reinforce, rather than reduce, the proliferation of discriminatory bias in our communities,” the letter said. “Furthermore, the severe consequences imposed for disagreement with this morally and intellectually objectionable content presents an extremely dangerous and unethical threat to the academic freedom of our scholarly community that may itself give rise to illegal discrimination.”

Registration holds pose grave risks to the students on which they are imposed, including academic backsliding, restricted access to important documents, and the potential squandering of tens of thousands of dollars in tuition fees. It is not clear how long the students Northwestern punished plan to continue their demonstration. As of Monday, the anti-Israel letter to the administration is being circulated as a petition, although it seems unlikely to change the university’s policy regarding the seminar.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Northwestern University’s handling of antisemitism after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel is being investigated by the federal government, which recently impounded $790 million worth of taxpayer funds previously appropriated to it, for potential civil rights violations. The issue is also being closely watched by concerned Jewish parents and advocacy groups. Withdrawing the university’s support for the seminar could prompt catastrophic legal and political consequences.

Earlier this year, after months of opprobrium, Northwestern University issued a report on its enactment of a checklist of policies it said has meaningfully addressed campus antisemitism.

“The university administration took this criticism to heart and spent much of last summer revising our rules and policies to make our university safe for all of our students, regardless of their religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, or political viewpoint,” the university said. “Among the updated policies is our Demonstration Policy, which includes new requirements and guidance on how, when, and where members of the community may protest or otherwise engage in expressive activity.”

Northwestern added that it adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and begun holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend.

Parents of students attending Northwestern University rejected the report as an attempt to manufacture positive headlines and mislead the public, most of all the Jewish community.

“The problems at Northwestern are deep. Deep and institutional,” Lisa Fields, founder of Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern (CAAN), told The Algemeiner during an interview in May.

Earlier this month, Michael Schill resigned as president of Northwestern, just days before the start of fall semester.

The embattled former executive testified last May before the US House Committee on Education and Workforce, where he faced a firing line of conservative lawmakers, such as Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Burgess Owens (R-UT), who placed him in their crosshairs after identifying him as one of the dozens of college presidents who allegedly did far too little to combat the nationwide surge in campus antisemitism following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities.

Schill’s gravest transgression, lawmakers charged, was the Deering Meadow Agreement, reached after a pro-Hamas group commandeered a section of campus and established what they called the “Northwestern Liberated Zone” on April 25, 2024. For five days, over 1,000 students, professors, and non-Northwestern-affiliated persons fulminated against the world’s lone Jewish state, trafficked antisemitic tropes, and intimidated Jewish students.

By the morning of April 29, Schill and the group finalized the infamous deal — a first of its kind accord which became a model for 42 other schools who emulated it. It committed Northwestern University to establishing a scholarship for Palestinian undergraduates, contacting potential employers of students who caused recent campus disruptions to insist on their being hired, hiring two Palestinian professors, and creating a segregated dormitory hall to be occupied exclusively by Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim students. The university — after days of hearing the activists shout phrases such as “Kill the Jews!” — also agreed to form a new investment committee in which anti-Zionist students and faculty wield an outsized voice.

Fields told The Algemeiner that Schill’s resignation should be the first of a series of major changes at the university.

“As both a parent and CAAN’s national chair, I know the fear and frustration Jewish families have felt watching Northwestern fail to protect its students,” Fields said. “President Schill’s resignation is a necessary first step, but it cannot be the last. The board’s catastrophic governance shows how far Northwestern has drifted. Chair Barris should step aside, and the board must be restructured. Only sustained federal oversight, dedicated civil rights enforcement, structural reform, and a president with integrity and vision will restore accountability and integrity at Northwestern.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.