The Trouble at Northwestern

You may not have heard about the trouble brewing at Northwestern University, where I have taught Russian literature for more than 30 years. So let me tell you: we’ve been caught up in America’s whirlwind cultural reconfiguration of acceptable categories of thought, speech, and action.

In order to understand what’s happening here in Evanston, Illinois, just outside of Chicago, I have to introduce, first, my colleague and sometime collaborator, Morton Schapiro. Schapiro is the president of Northwestern University, and he strives for good relations with the surrounding community. From the beginning of his tenure as our president a decade ago, Schapiro set out to demonstrate that Northwestern is a major asset to Evanston. Outreach programs, voluntary contributions, investment in public schools, and much more were high on his agenda. It is well known in university circles that over the last ten years Schapiro has increased Black enrollment from 6 percent to 10 percent, Hispanic enrollment from 7 percent to 16 percent, and Pell-eligible (low-income) enrollment from 12 percent to 21 percent. It is less well-known that Northwestern now admits 6 percent (formerly 3 percent) of its students from the troubled Chicago public-school system. The winner of a Community Service Award from the NAACP, he has done as much as anyone to make the university he leads a civic-minded partner of the community and its residents; in 2017 Evanston awarded him the key to the city.

To ensure the safety of students, faculty, and staff, a university typically maintains its own campus police force—not only to avoid draining city resources to support a tax-exempt institution but also because police who are university employees can be trained to behave consistently with university culture. In an era when sexual harassment and assault are much on our minds, university police can offer late-night rides and rapid responses that create a safer environment for everyone, especially the most vulnerable students, staff, and faculty.