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Mayor accused of abandoning Jewish college students to curry favor with anti-Israel radicals

“Failed to protect Jewish students” – Congressional education committee demands answers from the Illinois mayor who reportedly refused police support to clear illegal anti-Israel protests from the Northwestern University campus in 2024.

By World Israel News Staff

The Democratic mayor of Evanston, Illinois, is facing congressional scrutiny after he reportedly refused police help in clearing illegal anti-Israel encampments on a university campus, which at times were the center of violent antisemitic harassment.

In April 2024, pro-Hamas activists illegally set up protest encampments at Northwestern University, mirroring similar anti-Israel encampments set up at other college campuses around the country.

The encampments became the focal point not only for the harassment of Jewish students, but also were the scene of multiple physical assaults.

By April 26, school administrators were working to have the makeshift camps cleared but lacked the resources to carry out plans to dismantle the illegal encampments.

On Wednesday, House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) penned a letter to Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, demanding answers regarding allegations that he refused to provide police assistance to clear the encampments.

In his letter, Walberg accused Biss of abandoning Jewish students in order to appease anti-Israel progressives, withholding police reinforcements necessary to secure the Northwestern University campus.

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“I write with grave concern regarding your failure to protect Jewish students at Northwestern University by refusing to give the university the police support it desperately needed to clear its violent and antisemitic encampment in April 2024,” Walberg wrote.

“Concerningly, a Northwestern trustee said at the time that you were publicizing your refusal to provide the campus with support in order to ‘shore up [your] progressive credentials.’ The same trustee advised Northwestern’s then-president: ‘If the winds blow the wrong way [Biss] will throw you under the bus. No hesitation.'”

Both the city of Evanston and Northwestern University declined to comment on the letter.

In November, the university reached a deal with the Trump administration to pay $75 million over its handling of the April 2024 encampments, and to take steps to protect students and staff from antisemitism on campus.

The deal was inked after the administration had suspended $790 million in federal funding for the university while warning of a possible civil rights investigation.