Northwestern University's Faculty Senate voted 61-3 on Wednesday Sept. 30, to demand the university bar federal immigration agents from non-public campus spaces without a judicial warrant.
The resolution, first reported by The Daily Northwestern, calls on Northwestern to prohibit Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents from entering "any non-public spaces on either the Chicago or Evanston campus without a signed judicial warrant." Two senators abstained.
History Prof. Helen Tilley and Pritzker Prof. Eric Sirota proposed the measure. Tilley said the resolution draws from policies at peer institutions including Harvard, Columbia and Stanford, and is grounded in 10th Amendment protections that allow municipalities to enshrine rights not superseded by federal law.
"We have tens of thousands of students. We have nearly 10,000 staff," Tilley said. "Staff could be just as vulnerable, and what we're thinking about is the need for everybody to know their rights and to understand constitutional protections that apply whether or not you are a citizen."
Beyond the warrant requirement, the resolution asks Northwestern to provide Know Your Rights trainings for students, staff and faculty. It also urges the university to legally review any ICE requests for student, faculty or staff records before responding, and to create a dedicated office or contact person to manage immigration-related inquiries.
The resolution calls on Northwestern to follow Evanston's Welcoming City Ordinance, which prohibits the Evanston Police Department from participating in federal civil immigration enforcement or asking anyone about their immigration or citizenship status.
The vote came less than two weeks after ICE agents mistakenly detained a U.S. citizen in Evanston on Sept. 20, causing injuries to his head, neck and teeth. Mayor Daniel Biss confirmed the wrongful detention, according to WTTW.
Northwestern's provost office acknowledged in guidance issued Sept. 1 that recent changes to F-1 and J-1 visa regulations are "deeply impacting international students and scholars." The university is among 27 private colleges nationwide that consider undocumented students as domestic applicants and meet their full demonstrated financial need.
The Faculty Senate is Northwestern's only elected representative body. Resolutions it passes go to the university president, provost and chair of the Board of Trustees. Faculty Senate President Rebecca Zorach presided over the meeting.
No response from Northwestern's administration to the resolution has been made public. The resolution is advisory, and no implementation timeline has been announced.
