Northwestern University’s mandatory anti-discrimination training relies on unverified data from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) that inflate Islamophobic attacks, giving the false impression that those attacks vastly outpace anti-Semitic hate crimes. The training also questions anti-Zionism’s ties to Jew-hatred and explicitly addresses “anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian biases,” but it doesn’t do the same for anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist sentiment.
All Northwestern students, faculty, and staff across all departments, must watch the nearly 20-minute video training, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, and is part of a 3-hour online course created by the university.
“Reports from Northwestern University faculty and staff suggest that its so-called anti-discrimination training does the opposite of what it claims,” Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern president Michael Teplitsky told the Free Beacon. “Instead of fostering genuine inclusion, it selectively elevates certain perspectives while excluding Israeli students from the conversation—despite these students facing some of the most severe harassment and intimidation on U.S. college campuses.”
“This omission is not an oversight; it reflects Northwestern’s ongoing pattern of sidelining Jewish concerns in response to activist pressure,” he added.
The training relies on separate datasets to show anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes. For anti-Semitic attacks, it cites official FBI data. But for Muslim attacks, the training showed unverified figures from CAIR—without citing the source.
As a result, the training falsely suggests there were five times more incidents against Muslims than Jews.
Citing FBI data, the video notes that anti-Semitic hate crimes rose 63 percent from 2022 to 2023, though it didn’t include the bureau’s raw figures—an increase from 1,122 to 1,832.
Had Northwestern consistently used that dataset, it would have shown that anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate crimes had a much smaller rise and far fewer incidents. According to the FBI data, anti-Muslim hate crimes increased from 158 to 236 and anti-Arab hate crimes increased from 92 to 123.
Instead, Northwestern’s training pointed to CAIR data, which simply aggregate self-reported complaints.
“By one account, there was a 56 percent increase from 2022, with 8,061 complaints reported nationwide in 2023,” a voiceover says, referencing a CAIR report almost verbatim. “It has been noted that this is even higher than what occurred during the travel ban imposed by a presidential executive order in 2017.”
CAIR has a long history of anti-Semitism, which has been underscored since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Two days after the assault, CAIR accused Israel of provoking the attack through “apartheid policies.” Weeks later, CAIR executive director Nihad Awad said he was “happy to see” Hamas kill Jews. In 1993, Awad participated in a secret meeting that was wiretapped by the FBI. During that gathering, participants reportedly discussed ways to support Hamas.
Northwestern spokesman Jon Yates ignored the Free Beacon‘s question about why the university used different datasets and relied on CAIR’s figures. Instead, he defended the training in a statement.
“Our required training for faculty and staff, which was released in December, comprehensively covers antisemitism, anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish hate, diving deep into the history, common tropes and pervasiveness of such hate today,” Yates said. “Our required training for students, released this week, was developed by the Jewish United Fund and covers the same topics, and is a permanent and annual training.”
Northwestern’s training was revamped as recently as last December to include “components on overcoming antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian biases,” according to a December 17 email obtained by the Free Beacon. Still, it appears unbalanced.
In the “overcoming anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian biases” section, the training provides specific examples of discrimination, including “verbal or online harassment,” “physical attacks and profiling,” and “everyday interactions such as inappropriate comments or actions.” The section addressing anti-Semitism, however, offers no comparable examples of discrimination specifically targeting Jews.
And while the training does discuss anti-Zionism, it receives less attention than anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian biases—and with qualifications. Anti-Israel sentiment is barely mentioned at all.
The video opens with a voiceover stating that “current affairs have brought anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian biases to the fore”—but the introduction makes no mention of anti-Zionism or anti-Israeli discrimination. It then divides into two sections: “Overcoming Anti-Semitism” and “Overcoming Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Biases.”
When the video begins to discuss protections for pro-Zionists toward the end of the anti-Semitism section, it casts doubt on the movement’s ties to Jew-hatred.
“There’s heated debate about the distinction between anti-Zionism, opposition to the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state, and anti-Semitism,” the voiceover says. “Some scholars and members of Jewish communities hold that opposition to Zionism is not anti-Semitic. Others say that anti-Zionism can and often does take anti-Semitic forms. Accordingly, at Northwestern, students, staff and faculty cannot be excluded from activities or spaces because they are Jewish or pro-Zionist.”
Harvard University, meanwhile, settled a lawsuit with Jewish students last month by agreeing to issue guidance that includes Zionists as a protected class under its non-discrimination policy, stating that targeting them could lead to disciplinary action. It also adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. That definition, which Northwestern has not adopted, states that “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” is a form of anti-Semitism.
Earlier this month, the Department of Education opened a probe into “widespread antisemitic harassment” at Northwestern and four other universities following Hamas’s attack. During anti-Israel protests at Northwestern last year, demonstrators defaced the Star of David and chanted that Jews should “go back to Germany,” among other anti-Semitic incidents.
Northwestern’s training video also goes out of its way to highlight modern-day “Palestinian territories” when describing Jews’ origins.
“Jews emerged 3,500 years ago in what is today Israel and Palestinian territories as the first practitioners of monotheism, or belief in one god,” the voiceover says.
“Northwestern is already under federal investigation for potential Title VI violations due to its failure to protect Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli students,” Teplitsky said. “If it continues to downplay antisemitism and distort history to fit activist agendas, it risks not only its credibility but also serious consequences at the federal level.”
Northwestern is also providing free legal defense to a group of anti-Israel radicals who orchestrated a blockade at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, highlighting a perceived inconsistency in addressing discriminatory practices on campus.
