A few notes on Northwestern's deal with the Trump admin, beyond the headline of extorting $75m in exchange for reneging on the deal that led to the end of the encampments 🧵 tldr: The deal is a big step backward, in a few respects the worst one so far

after the quick capitulations of columbia and brown last summer, trump's attack on higher ed seemed to stall a bit with the harvard/uc court victories, the compact getting no takers, and cornell's relatively favorable deal. northwestern represents a big step backward.

Alarming and insane. Northwestern will snitch to DHS if any international students get suspended. Pretty sure this goes way beyond legal requirements (Columbia deal also has this provision).

Like other schools, NU will hand over data on antisemitism complaints. It doesn't explicitly say names will be shared but the deal lets govt access full case files. The other deals feigned balance by covering all 'shared ancestry' allegations, this one is just for antisemitism

Northwestern has to maintain a 'security infrastructure' -- including cooperation with feds -- that can investigate violations of university policy (!). Extremely disturbing mixing of policing and campus discipline. This goes way beyond the other agreements.

The deal includes a whole raft of speech restrictions that run afoul of the First Amendment. It lets Northwestern draw an area the size of a postage stamp, designate it as the only place on campus where flyers can be posted, and call it a day.

The deal requires DOJ approval for NU to revise its anti-discrimination policies -- essentially federalizing control over key part of a private institution. Silver lining: the deal basically creates a new basis for a First Amendment suit!

The deal in at least two areas goes significantly beyond that anti-discrimination law requires. It recasts the obligation to respond to alleged discrimination into an authoritarian flex and lowers the standard for what counts as discriminatory harassment

A few notes on Northwestern's deal with the Trump admin, beyond the headline of extorting $75m in exchange for reneging on the deal that led to the end of the encampments 🧵 tldr: The deal is a big step backward, in a few respects the worst one so far

Needless to say, this letter, issued in 2004, did not lead to investigations of anti-Muslim discrimination. But it was followed within weeks by the opening of the first antisemitism investigation against Palestine protesters, at UC Irvine.

The first step in weaponizing antisemitism was counting discrimination against religious groups under civil rights laws that covered only “race, color, and national origin.” So the architect of this policy, Kenneth Marcus, invoked … anti-Muslim violence after 9/11 🫠

"A man ran to the Broadview ICE facility today searching for his wife of five years. They were following the legal process, showing up for her court case, when ICE took her to another room and disappeared her. He tracked her phone to Broadview where the signal cut off. Police

another thing: these deals also cover allegations of anti-muslim/arab/muslim discrimination. that might seem like "balance" -- but raises another problem, since the deals require disclosing names of *accusers* as well.

also the schools with an asterisk * signed deals that said they may turn over anonymized ID numbers instead of names. BUT this is meaningless: the same deals give the government the right to access the complete case file in any discrimination investigation.

clarifications: this is a list of schools that signed agreements to hand over names in exchange for closing investigations against them. other schools -- a presumably much larger group, not fully known -- have disclosed names *during* investigations. most notoriously, berkeley.

Here is a list of schools that agreed to hand over names of people accused of antisemitism to the government. https://t.co/o3Pb9Eb57d

Very useful report by MESA and AAUP on the weaponisation of antisemitism in the academy in the US: https://t.co/6PIot2f52h (PDF) More about the actual report here:

MESA and the AAUP have released a critical report exposing the weaponization of civil rights law to suppress campus speech concerning Palestine. Read full report here: https://t.co/Cmwlse9M0F

@AAUP @MESA_1966 For more information https://t.co/5973yxkPGH

@AAUP @MESA_1966 The unprecedented explosion in campus antisemitism probes under Biden coincided with a sharp drop in investigations for racial harassment (i.e. against government-recognized racial groups like African-Americans).