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Northwestern University will pull from its coffers to continue funding “vital research” that has been threatened by the Trump administration, the private institution announced Thursday.
Conflicting reports first surfaced last week that the administration had paused — or planned to pause — $790 million in federal research funding to Northwestern. The White House confirmed the freeze to multiple news outlets and claimed it stemmed from allegations of continued antisemitism on Northwestern’s campus. Prior to the reported funding cuts, the university touted a steep decline in complaints of antisemitic discrimination.
Federal officials offered few other details at the time or since.
As of Thursday, the university had not yet been notified of that freeze, according to a joint statement from Northwestern President Michael Schill and Board Chair Peter Barris. But the institution had received stop-work orders on some 100 federal grants — “money that fuels important scientific breakthroughs,” they said in the April 17 statement.
With approval from Northwestern’s board, the university has committed to using its own resources to fund any research that is subjected to a stop-work order or impacted by a federal funding freeze.
“This support is intended to keep these projects going until we have a better understanding of the funding landscape,” Schill and Barris said.
The pair did not say how long Northwestern could afford to sustain its current slate of projects if the federal government did indeed pull all funding. The university on Friday did not immediately respond to questions on that or on how it plans to fund the research.
“We continue to urge fiscal responsibility, including the conservative use of funds to help minimize University risk and extend the time that Northwestern can support our research community,” Schill and Barris said.
Their statement linked to a newly published website sharing the impact of Northwestern’s scientific research. The research ranges from studies of neonatal care to treatment for Alzheimer’s and supports about 14,500 jobs nationwide, according to the university.
Universities should look to recruit researchers fleeing the U.S. amid dramatic funding cuts by the Trump administration because it could help protect vital scientific expertise from being lost, according to the rector of a leading Belgian university.
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) has announced a host of new postdoctoral positions for international academics, stating that the institution “particularly welcomes excellent researchers currently working in the U.S. which see their line of research threatened.”
VUB and its sister university Université Libre de Bruxelles are offering a total of 36 grants to researchers with a maximum of eight years of postdoctoral experience, funded by the European Union’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. The positions are not exclusively designed for U.S.-based researchers, VUB rector Jan Danckaert stressed, but are “open to all incoming researchers, whatever their nationality or their working place at the moment outside of Belgium.”
VUB chose to advertise the positions to scholars in the U.S., Danckaert explained, in the wake of drastic funding cuts by the Trump administration, with research fields under particular threat including climate, public health and any areas considered to be related to diversity.
“We also hear from colleagues in the United States that they are applying a kind of self-censorship in order to stay under the radar,” he said. “We believe that freedom of investigation is now under threat in the U.S.”
“It’s not so much about trying to attract the best US researchers to Brussels but trying to prevent fruitful lines of research from being abruptly cut off,” Danckaert said. While recruiting talent “would benefit our society,” he said, “it’s important that these lines of research can be continued without interruption, for the benefit of the scientific community as a whole and, in the end, for humanity.”
VUB has already lost U.S. funding for two research projects, one concerning youth and disinformation and the other addressing the “transatlantic dialogue,” Danckaert said. The grants, amounting to 50,000 euros ($53,800) each, were withdrawn because “they were no longer in line with policy priorities,” the rector said. “Now, we have some costs that will have to be covered, but that’s nothing in comparison to the millions that are being cut in the United States.”
European efforts to recruit U.S.-based researchers have faced some criticism, with the KU Leuven rector Luc Sels arguing that “almost half of the world population lives in countries where academic freedom is much more restricted,” while “the first and most important victims of Trump’s decisions”—such as the cancellation of USAID funding—“live and work in the Global South.”
“Should we not prioritise supporting the scientists most at risk?” Sels writes in a recent Times Higher Education comment piece, adding that “drawing [the U.S.’s] talented scientists away will not help them.”
Asked about these concerns, Danckaert said, “It’s true, of course, that the U.S. by no means has a monopoly on putting scientists under threat,” noting that VUB, alongside other Belgian universities, participates in academic sanctuary programs such as Scholars at Risk. “We try to provide a safe haven for scholars who are being persecuted in their countries, and this work doesn’t stop.”
As for fears of a potential brain drain from the U.S., the VUB rector said he was “by nature optimistic.” Recruiting U.S.-based researchers “is hopefully only a temporary measure to avoid some lines of research being abruptly cut,” Danckaert said.
“I believe this is a temporary difficult period for a number of scientists,” he continued. “We’ve always looked with high esteem to the quality of science done in the United States, and I’m confident that the climate in which science was prospering will come back.”
It’s the holiday season, when the lights are blinking, the bells are ringing, and families are lining up to see festive displays of the demon-god Baphomet in the town square.
But this year, citizens in Concord, New Hampshire, might not get to enjoy all the holiday cheer after vandals decapitated the Baphomet display set up by the Satanic Temple. In fact, the display has proven so controversial that city officials promised to review the display policy next year.
Concord’s government would do well to remember that any rules about expressive displays in public spaces must be viewpoint-neutral, meaning the Satanic Temple has the same right to put up a holiday display as any other group.
Protecting the Satanic Temple’s right to speak also protects the expressive rights of Christians — and Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, and everyone else.
‘Happy Hellidays!’ from the Satanic Temple
So what happened?
Concord’s City Plaza is open for unattended displays by private groups during the holiday season. In early December, the Satanic Temple — which describes itself as a religious organization with a mission to “encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense, oppose injustice, and undertake noble pursuits” — put up a statue of the goat-headed deity Baphomet in Concord’s City Plaza, under a permit granted by the city.
Baphomet’s temporary neighbors included a nativity scene placed by a rural civic group and a Bill of Rights display put up by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. But just days after the Satanic Temple’s statue went up, it was vandalized — its goat head knocked off, its robed torso severed from its legs, and its tablet bearing the tenets of the Satanic Temple smashed to pieces. Police are investigating the vandalism, but the destroyed statue was taken down.
Then, earlier this week, a new statue went up, this time accompanied by a copy of the permit allowing its placement. In less than 48 hours, that statue, too, was destroyed. The police identified a suspect and said charges are forthcoming. That’s the proper response to vandalism of lawful displays: arrest and prosecute the vandals — don’t impose a “heckler’s veto” by censoring expression that provokes public hostility.
Social media post by WMUR reporter Ross Ketschke before the Satanic Temple’s statue of Baphomet was vandalized a second time in Concord, New Hampshire. (@RossWMUR / X.com)
City officials decry Satanic holiday display, promise review next year
But Baphomet’s future — and the First Amendment rights of citizens and groups to put up such displays — is threatened by more than just vandals in Concord.
Baphomet found his way to the city, because Concord created a public forum, where the government’s authority to restrict expression is strictly limited. Concord can impose reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on expressive activity there, including permit requirements for temporary installations, but viewpoint-based restrictions are unconstitutional.
You can’t allow one group to put up a nativity display but ban the Satanic Temple from putting up Baphomet. The same constitutional principles that protect the Baphomet statue also protect the civic group’s right to put up its nativity scene in the very same plaza.
Although we don’t yet know if the Satanic Temple and its supporters will put up a third Baphomet statue this year, FIRE commends Concord officials for approving the display in the first place, in line with their constitutional obligations.
For example, in 2017, Boston officials told Harold Shurtleff that he couldn’t raise a Christian flag during his event on City Hall Plaza, although the city regularly allowed other outside groups to fly flags of their choosing during events. Shurtleff sued the city, and in 2022, the Supreme Court weighed in and agreed the city violated Shurtleff’s First Amendment rights.
The city’s initial decision to grant the Satanic Temple a permit for the Baphomet display recognized its First Amendment obligations. In a Facebook post, the city explained, “Under the First Amendment and to avoid litigation, the City needed to choose whether to ban all holiday displays installed by other groups, or otherwise, to allow it. After reviewing its legal options, the City ultimately decided to continue the policy of allowing unattended displays at City Plaza during this holiday season and to allow the statue.”
However, some city officials were unhappy with the decision. Notably, Concord Mayor Byron Champlin opposed the permit, explicitly saying he would have preferred to risk a lawsuit rather than grant the permit “because I believe the request was made not in the interest of promoting religious equity but in order to drive an anti-religious agenda.”
Even as city officials explained why they had to approve the Satanic Temple’s request, they also said they planned to review the permit policy for unattended displays next year.
That left FIRE concerned that Concord may engage in viewpoint discrimination and deny applications in the future. So, we’re calling on city officials to reaffirm their commitment to their constitutional obligations.
Concord may not restrict displays simply because, in its view, they reflect an antagonistic or divisive ideology or perspective. Even if — in fact, especially if — the Satanic Temple put up the display, as Mayor Champlin believes, “in order to drive an anti-religious agenda” or as a “calculated political effort,” rather than to promote “religious equity,” the government may not disfavor “anti-religious” speech. The fact that Concord, or some of those through whom it acts, may believe a display is “a deliberately provocative and disturbing effigy” does not make it any less constitutionally protected, as “[g]iving offense is a viewpoint.”
The letter also highlights a recent Texas case involving holiday displays put up by private groups. In that case, Texas’ governor had the Texas State Preservation Board take down a previously-approved “Bill of Rights nativity” display in which cutouts of several Founding Fathers stood over a Bill of Rights in a manger. This decision violated the Constitution, and years of litigation ensued. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ultimately stated that it was “not seriously disputed . . . that the Board’s removal of the exhibit violated the First Amendment.” And the suit ultimately cost Texas and Texans almost $360,000.
Concord officials should take note of that Texas case when deciding whether to “accept the risk” of a lawsuit by engaging in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. Although we don’t yet know if the Satanic Temple and its supporters will put up a third Baphomet statue this year, FIRE commends Concord officials for approving the display in the first place, in line with their constitutional obligations.
Given the controversy surrounding the display, FIRE calls on Concord to affirm that it will continue to fulfill those obligations. After all, handing over the authority to restrict minority viewpoints sets a dangerous precedent.
