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Northwestern University Still Teems With Antisemitism, Parents and Students Say
Pro-Hamas protesters at the Deering Meadow section of Northwestern University’s campus in Evanston, Illinois, United States, on April 25, 2024. Photo: Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect.
Antisemitism remains palpable and severe at Northwestern University over one year after President Michael Schill signed the “Deering Meadow Agreement” which granted pro-Hamas demonstrators a windfall of concessions they had demanded in exchange for ending an unauthorized encampment, parents and students told The Algemeiner in a series of interviews.
The 2023-2024 academic year was unlike any seen in the history of American higher education since the 1960s. Following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, colleges across the US erupted with effusions of antisemitic activity, which included calling for the destruction of Israel, cheering Hamas’s sexual assaulting of women as an instrument of war, and several incidents of assault and harassment targeting Jews on campus.
This held true at Northwestern University, where the Jewish experience was remade by the forces of anti-Zionism and the administrators who allegedly yielded to it. On April 25, 2024, the Northwestern Divestment Coalition (NDC) — a group of pro-Hamas activists linked to National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) — commandeered the Deering Meadow section of campus and established what they called the “Northwester Liberated Zone.” For five days, over 1,000 students, professors, and non-Northwestern-affiliated persons fulminated against the world’s lone Jewish state.
The encampment dwellers argued that Israel is committing a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza as retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks while questioning the severity of Hamas’s atrocities — or denying them altogether. Northwestern University, they added, is complicit for holding investments in armaments and aerospace manufacturers which do business with Israel, a fact which they said necessitated that the school “boycott” and “divest” from the Jewish state.
“There were signs everywhere,” Lisa Fields, who was on campus at the time and founded the Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern (CAAN), told The Algemeiner. Fields is the parent of a Northwestern student whose emotional phone call during the middle of the demonstration prompted her to fly from her home in New York City to the university’s campus in Evanston, Illinois. What she saw there disturbed her.
“There was a Hitler sign and another depicting Schill with horns, just to mention some of the antisemitic tropes on display there,” Fields recounted. “The protesters were loud, aggressive, and banging on things. It was impossible to walk through the campus. None of the student attending class could focus because you could hear everything inside the classrooms.”
Northwestern University police attempted to uproot the protesters, who had pitched tents on the Deering Meadow, after Schill placed an “interim addendum” in the code of conduct which proscribed setting up the temporary shelters on school property. They were unsuccessful, however, as the protesters, faculty included, formed a “human blockade” to block their advance into the space. An impasse followed for the next four days in which NDC raised $12,000 and students staged “artistic performances,” delivered speeches, and appealed to the public for more money and support.
Meanwhile, Schill and a group of NDC delegates were busy hammering out a settlement which would end the demonstration and restore a semblance of normalcy to campus. By the morning of April 29, they reached what would infamously be remembered as the “Deering Meadow Agreement” — 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-Zionists students and faculty wield an outsized voice.
Not a year later, Northwestern claimed to have turned a corner. On March 31, amid US President Donald Trump’s confiscations of federal funds from higher education institutions deemed soft on antisemitism or excessively “woke,” the university issued a progress report containing a checklist of policies it said were enacted in response to Schill being upbraided by members of Congress over his handling of the Deering Meadow crisis.
Among other things, the university said that it had adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and began holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend. The so-called progress report’s most controversial assertion boasted that antisemitic incidents on the campus have fallen by 88 percent.
Geri Cohen, another Northwestern parent and member of CAAN, had heard it all before in a meeting with Schill that was held during move-in weekend 2024, the first time Cohen would drop off her daughter, who was then an incoming freshmen, at the university. During the meeting, she and other parents, many of whom are also CAAN members, were regaled with speeches proclaiming Northwestern’s regard for its Jewish community and its foolproof plans to prevent another surge of pro-Hamas activity.
According to Cohen, however, Schill was most comfortable engaging with parents when they refrained from asking tough questions. Cohen did not, and her inquiries perturbed him, as they proceeded from the premise that the Deering Meadow Agreement canceled out any policies the university might enact to plausibly claim that it is combating antisemitism.
“He is a profound legal mind, so he knew exactly what I was asking, and he was defensive about the line of questioning,” Cohen told The Algemeiner. “He just pointed to the mandatory antisemitism training, offering a veneer of a reasonable explanation which fell short of saying anything real. I pushed him a little bit, asking follow up questions when he insisted that there is no issue, but he deftly avoided being cornered.”
Schill’s equivocations, Cohen said, primed her for news that was revealed earlier this month by the Washington Free Beacon. Per the Deering Meadow Agreement, Northwestern University hired at least one Palestinian professor, Mkhaimar Abusada — but, as reported by the Free Beacon, Abusada holds ties to both Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) through his memberships in two groups which cooperate with the US-designated terrorist organizations and award their fighters leadership positions.
“At the end of the day, we all knew that they made the deal and that they were hiring these professors,” Cohen said, commenting on the report. “I’m not surprised whatsoever about who they hire, what they believe, who funds them, what other organizations to which they are linked — all of that was already in my head when I decided to let my daughter make her own decision about where she was going to go in this world.”
Fields concurred.
“The problems at Northwestern are deep. Deep and institutional,” she said. “And what makes it so interesting a case study in campus antisemitism is that it isn’t a calm campus like Vanderbilt, but it also did not see the fires which raged at Columbia, Harvard, and UCLA. But what happened there was unique and worse because of the precedent that was set and the lesson Northwestern taught the community when it decided to surrender to the radical people who took over the Deering Meadow everything they wanted. And Schill would do it again. He is proud of that deal.”
Northwestern University students also tell a story that is at odds with what the institution believes about itself.
“The university has done a great job covering up the actions of its students, and that is my perspective as a Christian and a student leader. I personally have not seen a reduction in antisemitic incidents,” pre-law student Jeanine Yuen told The Algemeiner. “One example I can think of is a Jewish student who was punished for peacefully counter-protesting a pro-Palestinian walkout and picket on the anniversary of Oct. 7. The university said he violated time and place policies, but none of the pro-Palestinian protesters who did so too were punished, and the university blamed the inconsistency on its being unable to identify the protesters, who were masked.”
Additionally, according to a new Spring Campus Poll conducted by The Daily Northwestern, the school’s official campus newspaper, 58 percent of Jewish students reported being subjected to antisemitism or knowing someone who has. An even higher 63.1 percent said antisemitism remains a “somewhat or very serious problem.” Only weeks earlier, during the Jewish holiday of Passover, someone graffitied Kregse Hall and University Hall with hateful speech calling for “Death to Israel” and an “Intifada,” alluding to two prolonged periods of Palestinian terrorism during which hundreds of Israeli Jews were murdered. The vandals also spray-painted an inverted triangle, a symbol used to express support for the terrorist group Hamas and its atrocities.
In April, the Trump administration expressed its skepticism of a quick turnaround at Northwestern by impounding $790 million of its federal funds. As of the publication of this article, they have not been given back.
“We have received 98 stop-word orders, mostly for Department of Defense-funded research projects, in addition to 51 grant terminations that were mostly received prior to the news of the funding freeze. In addition, we have not received payments for National Institutes of Health grants since March. These now appear to be frozen,” Schill said in a May 1 statement addressing the government’s funding cuts. “This is deeply troubling, and we are working in many ways to advocate on behalf of the university and to resolve the situation.”
Northwestern University did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Northwestern University Still Teems With Antisemitism, Parents and Students Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Documents Reveal Hamas Uses Gaza Hospitals for Military Purposes, International NGOs Complicit in Operations
Israeli soldiers inspect the Al Shifa hospital complex, amid their ground operation against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in Gaza City, Nov. 15, 2023 in this handout image. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
Internal documents from Hamas’s Ministry of Interior and National Security dating back to 2020 reveal the Palestinian terrorist group has long used Gaza’s medical facilities for military purposes, according to a new report.
On Wednesday, NGO Monitor — an independent, Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations — released two documents declassified by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), revealing how Hamas has weaponized Gaza’s hospitals for years to shelter its operatives and leaders.
Translated from Arabic, the documents also reveal that international organizations — including the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders — are aware of Hamas’s presence in Gaza’s medical facilities, even as they publicly deny or downplay it.
“While repeatedly echoing Hamas allegations and condemning Israel’s operations to end the exploitation of hospitals for terror, these groups clearly knew that Hamas exploited these facilities and chose to remain silent,” Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, said in a statement.
BREAKING: Leaked docs show Hamas admits to using Gaza hospitals as terror infrastructure, in files authored by its Interior Security Mechanism and obtained by NGO Monitor. Hospitals served as command hubs while NGOs went along under Hamas rules.
Here’s what they reveal
pic.twitter.com/HXI6hULYTG
— NGO Monitor (@NGOmonitor) September 10, 2025
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Hamas’s exploitation of hospitals has drawn heightened attention, with Israel facing international criticism for its operations near medical facilities as it seeks to crack down on the terrorist group.
According to NGO Monitor, the internal Hamas documents show a deliberate strategy of “embedding its military infrastructure, fighters, and leadership within hospitals and medical facilities in Gaza … thereby violating international law and endangering civilian lives.”
The documents also show that foreign NGOs have not only been aware of Hamas’s presence in Gaza’s medical facilities but also have sometimes worked alongside them.
For example, one internal memo notes that the Red Cross occupied a wing in the Al-Shifa medical complex directly adjacent to offices used by Hamas.
Despite international claims to the contrary, the documents show that the Palestinian terrorist group views medical facilities not as neutral spaces but as integral parts of its infrastructure.
“These facilities are considered to be of interest to hostile security parties and an important source for intelligence gathering, especially in times of war, since these health facilities are a place of gathering for the wounded during times of escalation, and these wounded cases hold sensitive positions in the resistance,” one of the internal memos reads.
“Furthermore, these health facilities are a place of gathering for numerous leaders of the movement and the government during times of escalation,” it continues.
The documents also reveal how Hamas closely monitors and controls foreign NGOs working in hospitals due to fears that they might serve as channels for Israeli intelligence.
“Do not let these associations have their own locations to work inside health facilities. When a location is allocated for these associations, it shall be outside the main building of the clinic or hospital, and far away from movement locations, and following security authorization,” one of the internal memos reads.
“Medical members from the Gaza Strip must join incoming delegations, whether the delegations work in hospitals or their own locations,” it adds.
Under this structured oversight, NGO Monitor explains that foreign organizations had to operate according to Hamas’s rules, “making them complicit in a system” that exploits medical centers for terrorist purposes.
“The internal Hamas documents reviewed in this report expose a systematic Hamas strategy to militarize Gaza’s health-care system, using hospitals and medical facilities as extensions of its military and security apparatus,” NGO Monitor says.
“This arrangement is fundamentally inconsistent with the principle of medical neutrality in Gaza, transforming humanitarian spaces into dual-use facilities that serve both medical and military purposes,” it continues.
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Mamdani Maintains Comfortable Lead in New York City Mayoral Race, Despite Jewish Opposition
Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS
Zohran Mamdani maintains a substantial lead in New York City’s mayoral contest, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Tuesday, as discontent with City Hall continues to rattle the electorate.
The survey of likely voters found Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, taking 45 percent in a four-way matchup, well ahead of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo at 23 percent, Republican activist Curtis Sliwa at 15 percent, and embattled incumbent Eric Adams at just 12 percent.
If Adams were to exit the race, Mamdani’s margin would narrow, with 46 percent support compared to Cuomo’s 30 percent. Sliwa would hold 17 percent of the electorate.
The poll underscores Adams’s strong standing among certain demographics, particularly Jewish voters, who make up a crucial bloc in several boroughs. Among Jewish voters, Adams receives 42 percent support, while Mamdani and Cuomo are tied at 21 percent each. Moreover, 75 percent of Jewish voters view Mamdani unfavorably, according to the poll, highlighting a key vulnerability for the progressive candidate.
The results came days after another poll showed similar results.
Mamdani holds a commanding 22-point advantage over his chief rival in the mayoral race, Cuomo, 46 percent to 24 percent, according to the poll by the New York Times and Siena College. Sliwa polled at 15 percent, and incumbent Adams polled at 9 percent among likely New York City voters.
Perhaps most striking, the survey found that Mamdani would still beat Cuomo in November’s election, 48 percent to 44 percent, if the other candidates dropped out and it was a one-on-one matchup.
Adams and Cuomo are both running as independents.
A little-known politician before this year’s Democratic primary campaign, Mamdani is an outspoken supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination.
Mamdani has also repeatedly refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, falsely suggesting the country does not offer “equal rights” for all its citizens, and promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York.
Mamdani also initially defended the phrase “globalize the intifada”— which references previous periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels and has been widely interpreted as a call to expand political violence — by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II. However, Mamdani has since backpedaled on his support for the phrase, saying that he would discourage his supporters from using the slogan.
Mamdani’s overall strength appears to rest not only on name recognition among progressives but also on enthusiasm. Approximately 91 percent of his supporters say they’re enthusiastic about their choice, far outpacing backers of other candidates, the Quinnipiac data found. Cuomo, despite his experience and political legacy, is hurt by a 56 percent unfavorable rating.
Voters rank crime — 30 percent — and affordable housing — 21 percent — as the most pressing concerns, with inflation a distant third.
Moreover, Mamdani’s adversarial and combative rhetoric aimed at President Donald Trump seems to help him in the race.
“The name not on the ballot but seen having influence on this race is President Trump. And likely voters in New York City make it clear they want the next occupant of Gracie Mansion to stand up to Trump when it comes to issues inside New York City,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Assistant Director Mary Snow.
The findings paint a picture of a fractured electorate, with Mamdani consolidating left-leaning voters while Adams maintains strongholds among more moderate constituencies, including Jewish neighborhoods, and Cuomo tries to galvanize support among voters as various scandals loom over his campaign. Sliwa remains in the mid-teens but could play spoiler if the race tightens.
Mamdani has also sought to distance himself from some of the most radical policies he previously advocated for, such as defunding the police. Mamdani’s attempt to strike a more moderate tone seems to be paying dividends thus far. Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), a Democrat from a swing district, endorsed Mamdani on Wednesday.
“@ZohranKMamdani fights for the PEOPLE. Andrew Cuomo is a selfish POS who only fights for himself and other corrupt elites. I know whose side I’m on. I’m with the people. I’m with Zohran,” Ryan posted on social media.
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‘Pro-Hamas Terror Ties’: US Sen. Tom Cotton Warns of CAIR’s Push Into Philadelphia Schools
CAIR officials give press conference on the Israel-Hamas war. Photo: Kyle Mazza / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has warned in a letter to the Department of Education that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a nonprofit advocacy group long accused of having ties to terrorist organizations including Hamas, is seeking to infiltrate the city of Philadelphia’s public education system.
The letter was dated Tuesday, about two weeks after the Philadelphia chapter of CAIR announced that it was partnering with local schools.
“CAIR-Philadelphia is partnering with schools this year to make sure every student feels seen, safe, and supported,” the group said in an Instagram post. “Invite the CAIR Philly staff for a training to educators and staff on cultural competency, anti-bullying, and inclusive practices.”
“The CAIR Philadelphia staff works not only with staff and administration, but also directly with students!” the post continued. “We can visit classrooms as guest facilitators to lead student-centered discussions.”
Given CAIR’s controversial history, the federal government should act to prevent such a program from becoming reality, according to Cotton.
“It is well documented that CAIR has deep ties to pro-Hamas terrorist organizations and publicly supports Hamas’s terrorist activities,” Cotton wrote in the letter to US Education Secretary Linda McMahon. “As I noted in a previous letter, the Department of Justice listed CAIR as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee in the largest terrorism-financing case in US history. Further, CAIR-Philadelphia’s executive director, Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, stated that Israeli ‘occupation’ was the reason for the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel.”
Cotton’s letter cited materials which CAIR distributes across the city and promotes in its programming — notably its “American Jews and Political Power” course — and other attempts to revise the history of Sharia law, which severely restricts the rights of women and is opposed to other core features of liberal societies.
One of CAIR’s most controversial documents demands that teachers omit key facts about the 9/11 terrorist attacks which, in addition to destroying the World Trade Centers and severely damaging the Pentagon, claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 Americans.
“Avoid using language that validates the claims of the 9/11 attackers by associating their acts of mass murder with Islam and Muslims,” CAIR insists in the material. “For example, avoid using inaccurate and inflammatory terms such as ‘Islamic terrorists,’ ‘jihadists,’ or ‘radical Islamic terrorists.’”
Additionally, since the Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, CAIR-Philadelphia has lobbied the state government to enact anti-Israel policies and accused Gov. Josh Shapiro of ignoring the plight of Palestinians.
In a 2023 speech following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, CAIR’s national executive director, Nihad Awad, said he was “happy to see” Palestinians “breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim, despite government trial exhibits indicating its founders participated in meetings with Hamas supporters in Philadelphia. The organization has asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
“Such an organization should never have access to our nation’s children,” Cotton wrote in his letter, urging the Education Department to “ensure” that CAIR is not able to push its ideology on American schoolchildren.
“Sen. Cotton’s comments bring much needed scrutiny to the alarming trend of unchecked outside groups influencing public school curricula. CAIR, with their ties to Hamas, should have no involvement with the Philadelphia School District,” said Steve Rosenberg, Philadelphia Regional Director for the North American Values Institute (NAVI). “This raises serious concerns about balance, transparency, and educational integrity, not to mention basic decision making. Parents and taxpayers deserve assurance that their children aren’t being exposed to ideologically driven lessons — especially from groups with dangerous political affiliations.”
CAIR’s pushing into K-12 education comes at a time of rising antisemitism in public schools.
In August, for example, the Education Department promptly opened an investigation into allegations of antisemitism in Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) following the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) filing a complaint regarding the matter.
Jewish students allegedly experienced relentless bullying in BCPS, where students pantomimed Nazi salutes, treated campuses as a canvas for Nazi-inspired and antisemitic graffiti, and sent text messages threatening that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas will be summoned to kill Jewish students the bullies do not like, the ADL complaint said, noting that teachers behaved even worse than students. At Bard High School, an English teacher allegedly performed the Nazi salute three times and later admitted to administrative officials that he did so intentionally to harm “the sole Jewish student” enrolled in his class. Following the incident, he suggested that the student unregister for his class because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be discussed in it.
“The allegations that Baltimore City Public Schools tolerate virulent Nazi-inspired antisemitic harassment of its Jewish students is at once appalling and infuriating. When a teacher allegedly directs a Nazi salute toward a Jewish student, or non-Jewish students harass their Jewish contemporaries by saying ‘all Jews should die,’ we are not simply talking about contemptible bullying; we are talking about a shocking abdication of educator responsibility that constitutes unlawful antisemitic harassment under Title VI,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
Last month, The Algemeiner reported that the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California, which stands accused of refusing to address antisemitism, ruled that a teacher who allegedly showed her students antisemitic, discriminatory, and biased content violated policy when she screened an offensive video about the Holocaust in her classroom.
The move came without the prompting of the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, with which two Jewish civil rights groups, StandWithUs (SWU) and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition (BAJC), filed a complaint against the district in April.
Among other things, SWU and BAJC alleged that an SCUSD employee, Wilcox High School teacher Kauser Adenwala, screened a documentary produced in Turkey which compared the war in Gaza to the Holocaust. The graphic film at one point “displays a picture of a young Jewish child who was branded with a number by the Nazis during World War II and then suddenly shows an untraceable image of children with Arabic writing on their arms,” according to the complaint, which alleged the teacher’s conduct violated numerous district policies and potentially state law.
She remains employed by the district to this day.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.