Complaint accuses Northwestern of discriminating against Palestinian, Muslim students

CHICAGO (CBS) -- The U.S. Department of Education is investigating Northwestern University in response to a complaint from Palestinian and Muslim students—who say the school created a hostile environment and failed to protect them from threats and discrimination.

Palestine Legal , an independent legal organization that defends Palestine advocacy, filed the Title VI complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights on behalf of four students in April. Two are Palestinian American, and two were targeted for their association with Palestinians, the complaint said.

CBS News Chicago obtained a copy of the complaint, which accuses professors of making racist and insensitive comments to the students. Those students said the remarks created a hostile environment that enabled others to target them due to their identities and their solidarity with Palestine. This is the first time the students have spoken publicly about their experiences.

"I want to point to this environment of fear and hostility that Northwestern has cultivated," said Aasiyah Wasif, a Pakistani and Muslim-American law student, who's part of the complaint. "The fear was so pervasive, and the hostility was so pervasive."

Allegations of racism

The complaint was specifically filed against the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, but also accuses the university more broadly of failing to support Palestinian students impacted by Israel's war in Gaza. Some of the incidents described in the complaint happened even before October.

Northwestern University did not respond to several requests for comment from CBS News Chicago about the allegations, including questions about the professors accused of discrimination.

According to the complaint, in September of 2023, a team of students was working on a legal project on campus. A Palestinian Muslim student represented in the complaint was there.

The student zoomed in on an image for others to see. When she did, she said, "I'm going to blow this up on the computer to show you."

That's when—in front of the other students—a professor replied, "Someone who looks like you probably shouldn't go around saying they're going to blow things up," according to the complaint.

In another incident in January of this year, the complaint said that same professor compared the displacement of Palestinian victims in Gaza to a "two-week vacation." The Palestinian-Muslim student was there, and at that point had learned 130 members of her family in Gaza were killed by the Israeli military, the complaint said.

The students also said the environment worsened in the months after the war in Gaza began, causing them to miss class because they felt unsafe.

Wasif, who will soon be a third-year student at the law school, said she was also there when the comment by the professor was made in January—and the environment became so hostile she decided to drop out of that legal clinic.

"I think it shows that they don't care about their Muslim students," she said of the university. "They don't care about their Palestinian students, and I think that program is there just to draw us in so that they can tokenize off of us, without actually supporting us."

Another student represented in the complaint, who requested anonymity for fear for her safety, said she also witnessed discriminatory comments targeting her Palestinian and Muslim peers. It was an event on campus, held in April by a Northwestern Law professor, that prompted her to go to the university's Office of Civil Rights to express her concerns.

She attended the event, which was called, "An American-Israeli Perspective on the Israel-Hamas War: The Israeli Mood, Do the Palestinians Want Peace, and What the Future Might Hold." She said several Palestinian and Muslim students also attended.

During the 47-minute talk, the student said the professor made harmful and disparaging comments about Palestinians. CBS News Chicago reviewed a video recording of the talk and confirmed the comments that concerned the student, including several remarks characterizing Palestinians as inherently violent and hateful toward Jews. Twice during the talk, the professor said, "Palestinians don't want peace."

In another comment, he said, "The West Bank mood is very different than the Israeli Arab mood. Blame Hamas and the [Palestinian Authority] for educating children to hate Jews."

One of the topics the professor discussed was the civilian death toll in Gaza, and whether Israel is doing enough to allow sufficient aid into the area. The Gaza Health Ministry said the Israeli military has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians since October. On July 9, UN experts declared famine has spread across the entire Gaza Strip, citing the deaths of children who were only months old.

During the event, the professor said: "It is hard to be sympathetic to a people, most of whom would slaughter you without a second thought, and take videos of themselves doing it. Many Gazan families raised their children to slaughter Jews."

And at another point in the event, the professor described the protests against the war in Gaza—including at Northwestern—as supporting "the Hamas goal to kill or evict the Jews from Israel."

"To say Palestinians don't want peace and Palestinians want hate for the Jews—these are comments that are absolutely incorrect," the anonymous student told CBS News Chicago. "It's what's perpetuating Palestinian hate both inside the school, and out of it. To see a professor at Northwestern Law making comments at an event that's supposed to be, supposedly, educational in some way is absurd."

The university's Office of Civil Rights said it determined the professor's speech did not violate the university's discrimination policies, according to the student and records reviewed by CBS News Chicago.

"[Students and professors] feel emboldened to make Islamophobic or anti-Palestinian comments," she said. "They feel almost empowered by the lack of accountability to keep on making those same comments and continue with their treatment."

The student also accused Northwestern of enforcing double standards when condemning hate on campus. She cited the university's advisory committee on "Preventing Antisemitism and Hate on Campus." In a statement on Nov. 13, 2023, the university announced the creation of the committee to combat antisemitism and "other forms of hate," the email said, and included one mention of hate directed toward other groups, including students of Palestinian heritage.

"Anti-Palestinian hate and Islamophobia are afterthoughts because they're not even named in the title, but antisemitism is," she said.

The student continued: "Sweeping that all under this one descriptor of 'all other forms of hate' is a disservice to discrimination Palestinian and Muslims are facing. It's disheartening to say the very least. It's something we see in our personal lives or in the news that happening every single day. We keep fighting for just mere visibility – for those instances to actually be addressed. It's hard to come to this conversation when you have to describe why it's bad. You hope everyone understands anti-Palestinian discrimination is harmful and hateful."

Social media threats

Before the encampment at Northwestern began in May, several protests had already taken place inside the university, including in the law school.

Wasif said her commitment to pursuing a career in law was a key factor that prompted her participation in some of these protests on campus, calling for Northwestern to divest from Israel.

"When you're scrolling through videos of children who've had their limbs blown off... it mobilizes you," Wasif said "This is a human rights issue, and I'm a law student, and we are pursuing a career in which we are meant to uphold the rule of law. What's happening in Gaza is a violation of various international laws , and has been. And the genocide that is taking place is a combination of the system of impunity that's been in place for decades. So to me, it was a no brainer to be speaking out about what is happening."

But Wasif, and other students who are part of the complaint said the discriminatory comments from professors emboldened other students to "dox" those who were part of Palestine solidarity protests on campus.

"On the one hand, we have students who have contributed to our doxing, and on the other hand, we have professors who are making comments about displaced Palestinians as vacations," Wasif said.

That includes an incident in November of 2023, when she and several students held a silent protest on campus and said other law students followed them, recorded them without their consent and made comments that made them fear for their safety.

The complaint said the identities and personal information of the protesters were also shared online, in addition to threatening social media posts.

"The truth is: our enemies don't deserve a quick death," said one of the posts cited as an exhibit in the complaint. "Gracing them with our bombs is an act of mercy."

"It's clearly done to intimidate us and to silence us and to harm us," Wasif said. "It's to contribute to the harm that's already been done to us. There's no reason that our personal names and our personal information should've been released on the internet, and to do it in such a public way and to amass more views and more support or more hate towards us."

Civil rights investigations

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects people from discrimination based on race or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal funding. The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights is responsible for enforcing Title VI by investigating complaints of discrimination.

The complaint filed by Palestine Legal said Northwestern had a duty under the law to support the students and ensure they have equal access to services on campus. It also said Northwestern and its law program "has permitted an environment of anti-Palestinian racism that has denied these students equal access to campus life on the basis of their national origin or their perceived national origin."

"This has disrupted their academic focus and instilled fear in them," the complaint continued. "Some of the students have been so traumatized and so in fear of retaliation that they wish to remain anonymous, even in seeking support from the Department of Education."

It also said the university was slow to respond and "no concrete actions were taken" when students expressed safety concerns via email and in meetings with administrators about the threats from other students.

"The failure of the university to remedy the harm caused by these hateful postings sends a troubling message that such anti-Palestinian racism is tolerated within the institution," the complaint said.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into Northwestern's law school on June 21, according to its website. The Department said it does not comment on pending investigations.

If an investigation finds a violation of Title VI, and the university does not voluntarily comply, the Department of Education could initiate court proceedings to terminate a program's federal funding.

Palestine Legal has filed eight similar complaints against university across the country in the last year, including one against University of Illinois Chicago last September. Four of their complaints in other cities have prompted the federal government to open investigations. The organization is comprised of lawyers that provide litigation services and defend students and others against suppression related to supporting Palestine.

The Office for Civil Rights recently opened a federal investigation into another complaint filed by Palestinian students against UIC in 2022.

"The common thread that we see all across the US is that there are students, there's Palestinian students, people who look like they're Palestinian or Palestine allies, who are just being targeted for their activism," said Rifqa Falaneh, an attorney and legal fellow with Palestine Legal. "They're speaking out against the genocide, and as we see, it's not being taken well by these universities."

Wasif and the other students in the complaint said they hope the federal investigation leads to systemic changes at Northwestern.

"What we want out of this," Wasif said, "is for the administration and for other individuals who have harmed us to be held accountable."