Northwestern’s Concerned Faculty group consists of faculty from the schools of arts and sciences, education and social policy, engineering, law, communications, journalism, and medicine. The group, formed during the 2024-25 school year, works to oppose attacks on universities by the Trump administration and its allies in Congress and to demand that Northwestern University leadership stand up for fundamental democratic principles. Our group has organized several teach-ins (including one on March 6 that drew hundreds of people); written open letters expressing our concerns and calling for action (including one that drew 287 faculty signatures); and participated in a variety of other activities.
Contact us at theuniversityunderthreat@gmail.com.
We are united in defense of civil, constitutional, and human rights.
We are united in defense of academic freedom & the goal of increasing faculty governance.
We are united in wanting to protect Northwestern’s core mission of teaching and research from threats stemming from within NU, i.e. from budgetary and policy decisions made by the Board of Trustees, NU President, and Office of General Counsel.
We are united in wanting to protect NU and higher education more generally from threats from the outside, including from:
government political repression and propaganda
targeted attacks on specific faculty and fields
procedurally unlawful and contractually illegal federal budget cuts on a massive scale
policies and laws weaponized to do harm.
We are united in believing we should stand up for vulnerable and targeted populations in our own campus communities (whether people are targeted by federal or university agencies or both).
We are united in wanting to counter bad-faith arguments that caricature what universities do and what we stand for, including misleading and false claims about antisemitism.
We are united in believing that public goods build stronger systems of democratic governance, including schools, infrastructure, unions, and public/environmental health.
We may be united that civil disobedience is essential in the face of authoritarianism.
We also have an Instagram feed.