On September 4, 2025, President Michael H. Schill of Northwestern University announced that he would be stepping down from his position. The announcement came amid conflicts regarding the Trump Administration’s new policies, according to The New York Times. Concluding a three-year tenure, Mr. Schill will stay in his position until an interim president is named.
“As I reflect on the progress we have made and what lies ahead, I believe now is the right time for new leadership to guide Northwestern into its next chapter,” Schill said, addressing the student body. “Therefore, I have decided, in consultation with the leadership of the Board of Trustees, that I will step down as President.”
In the same message, Schill seemed to reference the struggles he faced during his term as Northwestern became a target of President Trump’s expanding agenda. For months, the university was grilled by the Trump administration and Republicans about their actions regarding the Gaza-Israel conflict. As stated in The New York Times, Schill was accused of “not doing enough to address antisemitism” on the campus and criticized for his negotiations with student protestors. This included providing scholarships to Palestinian students, opening two visiting faculty positions to Palestinian scholars, and ensuring a safe environment for Middle Eastern and North African Muslim students in return for the protestors putting down their tents.
Despite the negotiations ending in success on campus, multiple Jewish activist groups protested that he should resign.
A few months later, the federal government froze around $800 million in research funding to Northwestern, according to The Washington Post. To make matters worse, the government also pushed for the university—alongside others like Harvard, Cornell, and Brown—to pay millions as a compromise for settling the antisemitism accusations. Not long after, Northwestern had no choice but to cut around 425 positions due to a lack of funding to support the university.
Northwestern is only one of the many universities that are experiencing high-profile departures as a result of the current global situations. Due to growing controversies about mishandling the political sentiment on campus, the presidents of Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania have all resigned. Additionally, funding has been dramatically cut from institutions in every state, as found in an article referencing data from the US Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of Fiscal Service.
In fact, data on USASPENDING.gov showed that the funds allocated for the Department of Education have drastically decreased in the past year, from taking up 2.36% of government spending in 2024 to 0.77% in 2025. Both numbers are a significant drop from the 6.81% reported in 2022, two years before the start of President Trump’s second term.
During his term, Schill also faced other incidents within the school’s campus. In July of 2023, longtime football coach Pat Fitzgerald was suspended due to reports of hazing within the team. The suspension soon turned into a permanent termination as students came forward with their experiences, which were published in the school’s newspaper. Mr. Fitzgerald filed a lawsuit against the school for wrongful termination, and the situation was only resolved in 2025.
Most of the public’s focus, however, stays on Schill’s past troubles with the Trump Administration, raising further attention to the rapidly-changing scene of American education. In the meantime, Schill plans to take a sabbatical from Northwestern and return as a faculty member at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.
