Dear President Chiang,
Congratulations on becoming the eighteenth president of Northwestern University. You arrive with a formidable record—a scholar’s rigor and a builder’s instinct. But more importantly for the moment we find ourselves in, you come with a reputation for a genuine commitment to free expression. That reputation is exactly why I am writing to you now, before the ordinary demands of a new presidency settle over everything else. There is unfinished business here. It predates you, but it is now yours, and how you handle it will likely say more about your tenure than any inaugural address ever could.
I’m talking about the settlement your predecessor's administration struck with the federal government last November: seventy-five million dollars, paid out through 2028, to end a civil-rights investigation and unfreeze federal funding. As part of that deal, Northwestern agreed to throw out the 2024 agreement it reached with the students who occupied Deering Meadow. Whatever its imperfections, that original agreement represented something vital: the university actually talking to its own students instead of just policing them. In its place, we got new restrictions on protests and mandatory training built to the specifications of the administration that froze our funding in the first place.
I understand the pragmatic defense. Interim President Bienen said it plainly: litigation would have cost time and money the university simply couldn't risk losing. I don't doubt the financial calculation was sincere. But let's be clear about what actually happened. When Northwestern tore up its own agreement with its own students under direct financial duress—from a government explicit about wanting universities to constrain pro-Palestinian speech—it taught everyone a devastating lesson. It told students, faculty, and watching universities that the price of political speech the government dislikes is calculable, and that Northwestern will pay it rather than hold the line.
That isn't a technical compliance matter. It's a wound to the very purpose of a university. It has exacted a real, ongoing cost from this school's learning and spirit.
President Chiang, no one expects you to relitigate a deal you didn't sign or reopen a massive funding fight in your first year. What I am asking for is much narrower: refuse to let this settlement be the final word.
That could mean a genuine, faculty-led review of the disciplinary actions taken against students in the run-up to the deal, with a real path to reconsideration where the underlying conduct was peaceful protest, not harassment. It could mean building durable legal infrastructure—a standing free expression fund, or independent counsel for students facing retaliation for lawful speech—so the next president isn’t negotiating from a position of total exposure. And it could mean simply stating, in your own voice, that complying with a settlement is not the same as endorsing its logic. A university can ensure student safety without deciding that the cheapest way to handle political controversy is to selectively restrict free speech.
You’ve said you see championing free expression as central to what makes a university work. I am asking you to test that conviction against the hardest case available, not the easiest one. Don't let your presidency be defined by refighting a battle already lost—define it by making sure Northwestern never again decides that the cheapest way out of a funding fight is handing over its students' right to dissent.
Welcome to Evanston. I hope you'll rise to the moment.
With respect and genuine hope for your presidency,
A Northwestern MA
