The president of Northwestern University, Michael H. Schill, announced Thursday that he would resign, after a difficult tenure that included attacks from Republicans in Congress and cuts by the Trump administration that forced the university to lay off hundreds.
Northwestern became a target this year of Trump officials, who cut nearly $800 million of the university’s federal research funds, after months of intense scrutiny from Republicans.
Mr. Schill had faced withering questions during a Congressional hearing last year, as Republicans accused the university of not doing enough to address antisemitism during campus protests over the war in Gaza. They have argued that the school is still not aggressive enough in protecting Jewish students from harassment. And Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League and the Brandeis Center have called for Mr. Schill to resign, faulting him for negotiating with the protesters.
In April of this year, the federal government abruptly froze at least $790 million in federal research funding that had been planned for Northwestern, a Big Ten school near Chicago.
The attacks on Northwestern have been part of a broader campaign by Republicans to take American universities to task, claiming the schools have mistreated Jewish students. Mr. Schill’s resignation is the latest in a series of high-profile departures from the nation’s elite schools in recent years stemming, at least in part, from a Republican pressure campaign that started in 2023, in the wake of protests over the war in Gaza.
Attacking elite colleges has become central to Mr. Trump’s agenda in his second term. The administration has frozen millions, and even billions, in federal research funds to push schools to adopt its preferred policies and has also broadened the reasons it is going after schools. It has also expanded its attention from elite private universities to public institutions, like the University of Virginia, whose president, James E. Ryan, resigned earlier this year under pressure from Trump officials.