October 19, 2025 Update:

CAAN Statement on CAIR’s Lawsuit Against Northwestern University:
When Litigation Masks Discrimination: The Real Crisis at Northwestern

America’s response to campus antisemitism and foreign terror funding is being tested in Chicago.
CAIR’s lawsuit has made Evanston the proving ground for Title VI enforcement.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EVANSTON – October 19, 2025 – The Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern (CAAN) denounces the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)’s escalating campaign of politicized litigation aimed at dismantling essential civil rights protections for Jewish students.

CAIR has filed a federal lawsuit (see attached) on behalf of the Graduate Workers for Palestine at Northwestern University, which alleges that mandatory antisemitism training constitutes a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This baseless claim strikes at the heart of Title VI – a law created to protect students from discrimination, not to shield those undermining civil rights enforcement. (See the Washington Free Beacon article “CAIR Sues Northwestern, Alleging Anti-Semitism Training a Violation of Civil Rights Act”.) 

This lawsuit, Tahboub v. Northwestern University (Case No. 1:25-cv-12614), will be heard in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, before Judge Georgia N. Alexakis, with a motion hearing scheduled for 2:00 PM on Monday, October 20, 2025.

An SJP Northwestern– and SJP Chicago–circulated flyer (see attached) promoting attendance at this hearing underscores the coordinated campus activism driving CAIR’s litigation campaign. The lawsuit follows formal congressional calls by Rep. Elise Stefanik and Sen. Tom Cotton urging the U.S. Department of the Treasury to investigate CAIR for potential financial and organizational ties to Hamas, citing evidence from prior federal proceedings and recent public statements by CAIR officials. This development raises grave concerns that a foreign-funded and terror-linked network identified by Congress is now exerting direct influence over civil rights policymaking at leading U.S. universities – beginning with Northwestern.

These concerns are not theoretical. In her recent congressional statements, Rep. Elise Stefanik references the Holy Land Foundation(“HLF”) terrorism-financing trial – one of the largest such prosecutions in U.S. history. In 2008, five senior HLF officials were convicted of providing material support to Hamas, with the U.S. Department of Justice reporting that the organization directed more than $12 million to Hamas-affiliated charities overseas. Federal filings and contemporaneous reports noted that some of those individuals had prior associations with community organizations that later helped form or were connected to CAIR.

Separately, publicly available records indicate that Ibrahim Abusharif – now a faculty member at Northwestern University in Qatar (“NU-Q”) – previously served as co-founder, editor, and treasurer of the Quranic Literacy Institute (“QLI”), an Illinois-based nonprofit later cited in federal court proceedings (Boim v. Quranic Literary Institute) for transferring funds to Hamas-linked entities. Abusharif was referenced in materials introduced during the HLF case but was not charged or convicted. His current academic appointment underscores why federal investigators and Congress continue to examine how individuals or institutions with historical connections to alleged terror-finance networks intersect with U.S. universities’ global operations.

Moreover, these developments underscore the urgent need for a federal monitor at Northwestern, given that both the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (ED-OCR) and U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division (DOJ-CRT) are actively investigating the university for possible institutional indifference to antisemitic harassment.

A recent report by Middle East Forum titled “How Qatar Fuels Campus Extremism in the United States” underscores how foreign-funded ideology may infiltrate domestic universities – directly relevant to concerns about the relationship between CAIR, Hamas-linked networks, and Northwestern University.

Video 1 – Student-Facing Antisemitism Training (Produced by JUF and Northwestern; 17 minutes)
The first video at issue is a student-facing module developed in collaboration between Northwestern and the Jewish United Fund (JUF) and is the primary focus of the CAIR complaint. The module provides every enrolled student a baseline understanding of antisemitism, Jewish history, the contemporary Jewish experience, and the dynamics of discrimination. CAAN applauds Northwestern’s decision to require this training as a step toward federal civil rights compliance. The JUF-produced video offers a factual, balanced introduction to antisemitism and Jewish history – content that CAIR now seeks to erase through litigation that conflates education with suppression. Such objections reveal CAIR’s growing hostility to Title VI enforcement. Roughly three dozen Northwestern students are currently boycotting the training program.

Video 2 – Faculty/Staff Anti-Discrimination Training (Produced by Northwestern; 20 minutes)
The second video is targeted at faculty and staff, produced by Northwestern’s global marketing and communications team, and is divided into two segments: antisemitism and Islamophobia/anti-Palestinian/anti-Arab bias. CAAN has serious concerns about the credibility and data integrity of this module.

• The antisemitism portion uses verified FBI data, while the Islamophobia portion relies on unverified CAIR-sourced statistics, thereby skewing the narrative of campus bias. Why would Northwestern use neutral FBI data for one group and not for the others? The reliance on CAIR figures – aggregating self-reported incidents rather than law-enforcement-verified data – undermines the module’s credibility and presents a distorted comparison, minimizing anti-Jewish or anti-Zionist harassment.

• It is also unclear why Northwestern breaks out “Islamophobia” and “anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab bias” – but only “antisemitism” on the other side. Why not “anti-Zionist” or “anti-Israel”? That asymmetry alone raises questions about Northwestern’s own institutional bias and how it defines – and limits – Jewish identity and discrimination within its mandatory training content.

• Because this training is mandatory for faculty and staff, its flawed data and presentation may impair administrators’ ability to fairly enforce policies, protect Jewish and pro-Israel students, and understand harassment dynamics specific to those communities.

• CAAN demands that Northwestern immediately remove or substantially revise this faculty/staff video, given that the data underpinning the Islamophobia segment is compromised and unfit for mandatory compliance training.

• CAAN further demands that Northwestern immediately remove CAIR from its list of “Anti-Hate Resources.” It is unacceptable for the university to lend institutional credibility to an organization that is actively suing Northwestern and whose datasets have been widely discredited.

CAAN calls on Northwestern to adopt transparent and balanced training that unequivocally addresses antisemitism and anti-Zionist harassment, while ensuring all students’ rights to expression are protected. The U.S. Government must appoint a federal monitor to restore trust, compliance, and campus safety.

In short, the entire sequence—the lawsuit, the training modules, the dual-video system, and Northwestern’s continued endorsement of CAIR – creates the appearance of a farce rather than a serious, impartial commitment to combating antisemitism and protecting all students.

Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern (CAAN).