Judge: Northwestern can block enrollment for students resisting antisemitism training

A federal judge in Chicago allowed Northwestern University to discipline students who refused to watch an antisemitism training video.

Judge Georgia Alexakis declined Monday to issue a restraining order in a lawsuit filed by Northwestern Graduate Workers for Palestine and two graduate students. The plaintiffs claimed that an antisemitism training required by the school for enrollment was biased and discriminatory toward Palestinian and Arab students.

“Northwestern University’s Training is not intended to foster a civil and collaborative workplace or remedy discrimination but rather is aimed at suppressing political anti-Zionist speech and speech critical of Israel,” the complaint read.

The “Antisemitism Here/Now” training video, produced by the Jewish United Fund of Chicago, the city’s Jewish federation, did not ask students to agree with its contents. Fewer than three dozen students declined to watch it in protest.

Attorneys for Northwestern said that 16 students currently face enrollment holds for failing to watch the training, though they added that they were unsure if all students affected did so out of protest.

In her ruling, Alexakis acknowledged that the graduate students affected by the holds face “irreparable harm,” but said that the students’ lawyers had failed to prove Northwestern had a discriminatory motive in requiring the video.

“Because the plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden in this threshold inquiry, we do not move on to conduct a balancing of the harms,” Alexakis said in her ruling, according to the school’s student newspaper, The Daily Northwestern. “For that reason, I have to deny the motion.”

The complaint also criticized the school for adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which the complaint said “effectively limits Arab students, and particularly Palestinian students, in their expressions of nationalist aspirations and protest against mistreatment of their ethnic group.”

The IHRA definition of antisemitism does not list calls for a Palestinian state as antisemitic, nor does it list criticism of Israel in and of itself. Rather, it defines as antisemitism criticism of Israel that would not be made of other democratic states and “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination by claiming the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” which many pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activists do by accusing Israel of apartheid.

Furthermore, the common anti-Israel slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” refers to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, effectively calling for a Palestinian state to replace Israel, although some claim it is a call for a single democratic state for both the Jewish and Palestinian peoples.

The antisemitism training was announced by Northwestern in March in an email to the student body that cited US President Donald Trump’s January 29 executive order, “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism.”

“The truth is that Northwestern’s antisemitism training discriminates against Jewish students who are anti-Zionist, against Palestinian students, and against all people of good conscience, and it has nothing to do with Jewish safety,” said Jonah Rubin, the manager for campus organizing for Jewish Voice for Peace, at a press conference. “It’s about Northwestern trying to cozy up to an increasingly authoritarian administration.”

The 17-minute video was created by the Jewish United Fund of Chicago at Northwestern’s request last year. A Guardian report quoted the module’s critics as saying it is biased in favor of Israel and said it does little to protect Jews.

The video, which the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reviewed, offers a basic history of Judaism, Israel and antisemitism. It says that some criticism of Israel can veer into or sound like antisemitism but emphasizes multiple times that not all critiques of Israel are antisemitic.

It does say that anti-Zionism is usually antisemitic.

“Anti-Zionism is the opposition to the Jewish right of self-determination. Anti-Zionism also takes many forms, most of which are antisemitic, because they work against Jewish human rights,” an unnamed rabbi narrator says. “Anti-Zionism is not the same as Israel criticism. Democracies thrive under critique. Israel criticism is fine if/as long as it’s not based on conspiracy theories about Jews, distortions of history or antisemitic tropes.”

The video opens with a disclaimer from the rabbi, who appears to be Jonathan Posner of Metro Chicago Hillel, which JUF supports, noting that some Jews “may disagree” with the information offered.

“There are Jewish people who may disagree with some of the things that will be presented, and that’s okay. Jewish culture values disagreement and debate. This training is representative of the majority of Jewish people,” the narrator said.