In a 2024 Chicago Tribune op-ed, then President Michael Schill claimed he negotiated an agreement with faculty and students protesting NU's entanglements with Israel because of "core value of universities to engage in dialogue and seek to bridge differences peacefully." Referring to the "Deering Meadow Agreement" struck April 29, 2024, Schill wrote, "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 were in the process of learning. It was possible because we tried respectful dialogue rather than force."
Since then, Schill has admitted, bragged in fact, that this was bullshit, and that he had wanted to bring in the police, according to his statement to Congressional staff in August, 2025:
The mayor of Evanston called me and said he wouldn’t be sending in the police. I said to him, ‘We have a mutual aid agreement.: He said, ‘You know, you can sue me if you want.’ … We talked again the next morning, and he was consistent, and the police chief was consistent. So, we lost the ability to use force to remove the tents.
Schill could have ordered the 32 UP officers to remove the tents, but that might endanger them: “We weren’t going to send in a tiny police force.”
That was just a lie. The Northwestern University Police did indeed try to break up the encampment, shortly after it began on Thursday, April 25, 2024. Schill sent in the NUPD, as he did on other occasions as well. But the NUPD didn't have the numbers to disperse the protestors and withdrew.
Records recently released to me under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act show Schill pressured Mayor Daniel Biss to bring down the encampment on Saturday, April 26. In an email time stamped 1:34 a.m., Biss told his staff of his recent phone call with Schill and Northwestern's Chief Operations Officer Luke Figora, "their best option at this point is to clear the encampment and make mass arrests first thing in the morning," they told Biss. Biss disagreed. "The way I left it was that I would talk with our team and get back to them, but that I was skeptical of their ask. Because I wasn't able to catch Luke [of the City of Evanston], I haven't gotten back to them. I was, however, able to speak with Chief Stewart who shares my view that mass arrests of peaceful protesters would escalate the situation and is nothing we should participate in."
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Email from April 25 makes it clear that Schill saw the students as a "mob" meriting "mass arrests" from day one.
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Schill later rationalized his promises in the Deering Meadow Agreement, many unkept, as in keeping with a view of them as "young people in the process of learning."
The email from Biss to his staff on his phone call in the early morning hours of Saturday, April 26 states in full:
Please do not share any aspect of or information from this email with anyone.
Tonight around 10am I had a relatively lengthy call with Mike Schill and Luke Figora.
The purpose of the call was for them to explain that:
(1) their best option at this point is to clear the encampment and make mass arrests first thing in the morning;
(2) [REDACTED covering vulnerability assessments, security measures, and tactical response]
(3) EPD should participate in this clearing/arresting operation.
They were well aware that this is not what EPD would like to do; essentially they were calling me to ask Evanston to change its position.
I found their points very unpersuasive and pushed back pretty hard. They were unmoved. I would describe the conversation as respectful but tense
(and at some moments quite pointed).
The way I left it was that I would talk with our team and get back to them, but that I was skeptical of their ask. Because I wasn't able to catch
Luke, I haven't gotten back to them. I was, however, able to speak with Chief Stewart who shares my view that mass arrests of peaceful
protesters would escalate the situation and is nothing we should participate in.
So, my expectation is that as soon as I'm able to connect with Luke in the morning, I'll call Northwestern back and say that EPD is not prepared to
participate in their clearing and arresting operation.
There are several unknowns here:
(1) I don't know if they actually would refuse to try this without our help, or if that was just a bluff;
(2) Either way, I don't know what their public statements will be;
(3) Nobody knows how the protests will evolve, with or without arrests.
I'm really worried that things could spiral in a bad way, especially if NU continues down this path. We're going to need to be careful to make good
decisions and to communicate very well.
Biss's text messages with Schill track these events. (Biss text in blue.)
I also found of interest the email from Rabbi Dov Hillel Klein to Schill, forwarded to First Ward representative Clare Kelly on April 25 - "For your eyes only." The email was heavy on his emotions and those of certain Jews shared with him, but, save one exception, the statements he found offensive are boilerplate political slogans objecting to U.S. foreign policy toward Israel and the mass slaughter of civilians by an ethnocracy. These include Klein's concerns about "hearing a faculty member who is on the faculty senate get up in a microphone and not only criticize Israel, Jews, for what is taking place in Gaza in a very violent tone." A "violent tone"? Meaning the tone of someone deeply disturbed and angry by war and apartheid? Klein is not worried about Israel's actual slaughter targeting non-Jews, or the cycle of violence engendered by attachments to the nation-state, but someone's "tone" in a faculty meeting at a university where he does not teach? And so, Rabbi Klein is entitled to instruct Schill on faculty speech?
Also offensive to Rabbi Klein, this same faculty member "shouted at the NU Police officers who were there to protect everyone... 'Why are you here?' The meaning was very clear: leave. All the protestors started shouting with such disrespect and disdain 'Why are you here?'" I hope Rabbi Klein's pearls survived his clutching, on hearing protestors express the same concern to the NUPD held by Mayor Daniel Biss, about the incompatability of a peaceful demonstration with police interference -- and of course it is very clear now that Schill did not intend the police to "protect everyone," but rather to make mass arrests of those protesting.
The only alarming chant was one Klein did not personally observe: "What got me was when a student who was very shaken up shared with me a video where the crowd was screaming 'How many Jews did you kill today?'" I asked colleagues on a chat thread who spent time at the encampment if they were familiar with such a chant and no one could recall it, although they did recall the chant, "how many kids did you kill today?" referencing Israel's destruction of children in Gaza. Another colleague wrote: "No one leading chants wanted to call for 'killing of Israelis and Jews' because Jewish students were right there, leading chants."
I have sent an email to Rabbi Klein requesting documentation and will update if it is forthcoming. Absent this, the big takeaway is that the calls for dismantling and fears of antisemitism brought to Schill's attention were unfounded. (Other emails also are alleging antisemitism untethered to any specific antisemitic statements or events.)
There is a lot more that can be said about these records. My own takeaway is that they provide further evidence of NU's leadership appropriating a nonprofit university to advance their personal agendas using secrecy, lies, and force. These releases provide further grounds for the Illinois legislature to pass a law that would obligate the same transparency for records held by private institutions of higher education as is required for public universities in Illinois.
Mayor Biss and the City of Evanston protected free speech in 2024 by refusing Schill's demand for "mass arrests" and are allowing for sunlight today. If it were not for the state legislature enacting freedom of information laws, and Evanston abiding by them, we would not know of these communications. We need to pass laws today to insure trustees and officials running Illinois nonprofits do so to benefit the public, and not their profits or their political agendas.
The full trove of emails responsive to my request are available here, though most pages are repeats of threads.
I requested these records in my capacity as a political science professor who publishes on public policy as well as the current president of the Northwestern University chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
If you are a faculty member, please feel free to join our chapter (or that of another institution) via aaup.org .
If you are a journalist and wish further comment, I may be reached at jackiestevens AT protonmail DOT com.
