Northwestern University cuts staff, halts hiring amid federal funding freeze
The cuts, announced earlier this month, include elimination of bonuses and a hiring freeze.
The university announced the drastic cuts in an email to faculty and staff.
Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, announced spending cuts and staff reductions after the Trump administration froze $700 million in federal funding in June over the school’s failure to address anti-Semitism on campus.
The university alerted faculty and staff to the changes in a June 10 email, WBEZ Chicago reported. Those changes include staff reductions, the elimination of bonuses, and a hiring freeze.
“Like a number of our peer universities, we have now reached a moment when the university must take a series of cost-cutting measures designed to ensure our institution’s fiscal stability now and into an uncertain future,” the message stated. “These are not decisions we come to lightly.”
Many universities have faced significant federal funding freezes due to concerns over their handling of complaints of anti-Semitism on campus. The Trump administration has used the cuts to pressure universities to take stronger positions against anti-Semitic incidents.
At the same time that the federal government halted $700 million in funding for Northwestern University, it froze $1 billion from Cornell University over anti-Semitism concerns. The Department of Health and Human Services also froze $60 million in funding for Harvard University in May for the same reason.
“In the Trump Administration, discrimination will not be tolerated on campus,” the department said in a May 19 X post. “Federal funds must support institutions that protect all students.”
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Northwestern faculty have criticized the university’s decision to cut spending, with some urging the school to resist the Trump administration.
One professor claimed the university is enabling federal overreach. The university has refused “to work with us in order to combat the forces that are really driving this, which is the Trump administration,” Jackie Stevens, a Northwestern professor and the university’s chapter president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), told WBEZ.
Other faculty members have complained about the lack of representation in decision-making. “There is this idea of a shared governance, and it’s a complete sham,” Luís A. Nunes Amaral told WBEZ.
The university has eliminated tuition reductions for employees, prompting backlash from some students.
“This is like a divestment,” one anonymous student worker told WBEZ. “In a place that is supposed to prize higher education, to put this barrier up is like they’re saying one thing, but then they’re doing something else.”
Campus Reform contacted Northwestern University for comment but did not receive a response before publication.
