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Wednesday, October 16, 2024

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NU to take on Wisconsin at Martin Stadium

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The Daily’s editors discuss football and Evanston’s budget on new installment of The Weekly

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NUGW passes BDS resolution Graduate workers union pushes for Israel divestment By JERRY WU

daily senior staffers @jerrwu

Ben Shapiro/The Daily Northwestern

Community members watched and participated in traditional dances and dressed in powwow regalia to commemorate Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

City honors native community Evanston celebrates Indigenous People’s Day at ETHS Powwow By BEN SHAPIRO

the daily northwestern @benshapiromedia

English literature graduate student Rafael Reza, a member of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation,

served wild rice soup and fry bread to attendees at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian’s first Indigenous Peoples’ Day Powwow in partnership with Evanston Township High School on Monday. He came to the powwow to support his niece and nephew as

they performed traditional dance. “Events like these create the perfect circumstances to be around people that are very similar — people who have similar shared experiences, people who, even though we might not come from the same tribe or from the

same area, we have a shared understanding of what it means to be Indigenous,” Reza said. More than 100 community members participated in and watched traditional dances,

» See POWWOW, page 14

Members of Northwestern University Graduate Workers voted 82-13 to adopt a resolution endorsing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel at the union’s Oct. 9 general members meeting. Almost two decades old, BDS is a Palestinian-led movement that calls for the boycott of companies and institutions with financial ties to Israel. The organization’s boycott practices first drew inspiration from those used in the South African anti-apartheid fight and the U.S. civil rights movement. NUGW’s resolution includes a bevy of action items. One stipulates that the union’s funds shall not be spent on goods or services from any of the companies identified by the BDS National Committee for a targeted boycott. Another states that the union shall not co-sponsor events that are held in conjunction with or that collaborate in any manner with Israeli universities. A third declares that NUGW will not cooperate on NU’s partnerships with Israeli

universities. “As graduate workers, we’re uniquely positioned, because we’re workers and students in a university,” said Mounica Sreesai, a thirdyear Ph.D. candidate in anthropology and a union area chief steward. “This is a step in the direction that joins the student’s government and the People’s Resolution to call the University to disclose and divest.” The People’s Resolution was first circulated in April by NU’s chapters of Educators for Justice in Palestine, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, demanding the University protect the civil liberties of proPalestine speech and cut ties with Israeli institutions. A few days later, the Associated Student Government Senate passed legislation to add its signature to the resolution. University spokesperson Hilary Hurd Anyaso told The Daily the University remains “committed to our connection to Israel” and has “made no commitments to divest.” The resolution states that NUGW “will support the rights of all students and scholars to engage in research about Palestine and Israel, and voice their support of Palestine and of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.” Not all members of the

» See NUGW, page 14

City weighs new Schill defends encampment response bidder ordinance President says NU safe, not comfortable for Jewish, MENA students Kelly pushes for Council to take up RBO proposal By NINETH KANIESKI KOSO

daily senior staffer

The Minority, Women, Disadvantage and Evanston Business Enterprises Committee is currently debating a Responsible Bidder Ordinance, which would establish “fair” criteria and standards for businesses applying to take on city projects. Ald. Clare Kelly (1st) proposed the ordinance in March with co-sponsors Ald. Tom Suffredin (6th) and Mayor Daniel Bliss, as well as support from many local construction trade unions. Kelly aims to bring the ordinance to City Council by February. The RBO would require bidders and subcontractors on public works contracts of at least $25,000 to businesses to have apprenticeship programs, a program for the prevention of substance abuse and increased safety training.

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The Illinois Economic Policy Institute says RBOs ensure that quality standards, levels of craftsmanship and economic development practices would be met. RBOs have already passed in Des Plaines, Forest Park, Oak Forest and Cook County. The Carpenters Local 58 Union and Laborers Local One declined to comment on the ordinance. However, last year, local labor organizers, including some members of Carpenters Local 58 Union and Laborers Local One, rallied on Sherman Avenue in October of 2023 to support the ordinance with a fleet of giant inflatable rats. The protesters pointed out that the lower bidder isn’t always the “best.” “I proposed this ordinance to really provide our city, our city council and our taxpayers with more solid assurances that we’ll use objective criteria when seeing what bidder’s responsible,” Kelly said. “It’s like a ‘protection plan’ for our city government.” Kelly said the city has had continued issues with projects. With

» See ORDINANCE, page 14

This interview has been edited lightly for clarity and brevity.

diversity while complying with the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling? Schill: I’m really delighted with the class and the composition of the class. If you go back a year and a half, I think a lot of us were very concerned about what would happen to diversity on campus. At an educational institution like ours, diversity is incredibly important, because we want to bring people together who are different from each other, so we can learn from each other. So what we did was we doubled down. Race was out of consideration with regard to the selection of the students, and we abided by the Supreme Court ruling. But we had the good fortune of having strong relationships with pipeline organizations and communitybased organizations such as Posse or Questbridge, and we made good use of those in basically building our pool of diverse candidates.

The Daily: The University recently released preliminary data demonstrating that the Class of 2028 is the most diverse class ever admitted to Northwestern. How did admissions continue promoting racial and socioeconomic

The Daily: Students, staff and faculty have continued to criticize the University’s response to the Deering Meadow encampment since May, with several external groups calling for your resignation following your testimony before

By THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN STAFF

the daily northwestern

For the first time since student protests erupted on campus calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and University divestment from Israel during Spring Quarter, Northwestern President Michael Schill sat down with The Daily for a wide-ranging interview. He reflected on his handling of April’s encampment on Deering Meadow and discussed the University’s path forward. Now two years into his tenure, Schill also addressed progress on the commitments made in the encampment agreement, his perception of current campus climate for students, recent free speech policies and navigating admissions in the post-affirmative action landscape.

the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Looking back on the previous academic year, do you have any regrets about the University’s response to student activism? Schill: We could always do things better, but I think we did the right thing, and that’s what we set out to do. We are an institution of learning, and we don’t come out ahead by bringing in police and ruining students’ lives. At the same time, there do have to be consequences, and one of the things that we learned as a result of the encampment on Deering was that our rules were insufficient for us to be able to make sure that people who broke them had consequences. We didn’t have any time, place and manner rules. Our code of conduct was just insufficient. So what we saw coming out of that year was that we needed to fix some of this, and we spent all summer working on that. But when I look back at what the school did, I look at our peer schools, and I look at Columbia, I look at Harvard, I look at any number of schools that we would consider in our group, in the top 10 universities in the country, and I’m pretty proud where we ended up.

The Daily: What progress has the University made on the commitments laid out in the April “Agreement on Deering Meadow”? Schill: We have Israeli students. We have Palestinian students. Obviously we agreed to do these things at the very end of the school year, so it was difficult to get everything implemented this year. There’s temporary space for our (Middle Eastern and North African) students in Norris. We said we would do work on a house in a couple years when Jacobs is done. So obviously, that’s not being done. The (Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility) is being worked on. The Board of Trustees talked about this at this past meeting, and we anticipate rolling it out by the end of the calendar year. The Daily: Given that several candidates seeking seats on Evanston City Council in the upcoming election have positioned themselves in opposition to the Rebuild Ryan Field project, how do you foresee Northwestern’s relationship with the city changing? Schill: I don’t think we’ve ever

» See SCHILL Q&A, page 14