Evanston, Illinois, continues to be the place where liberal activist ideas run headlong into reality.

As the city’s reparations experiment faces multiple failures, Northwestern University is being tested on how much it truly believes in Native American “land acknowledgment.”

The Big Ten university wants to rebuild Ryan Field, its football stadium. The $800 million renovation has run into the normal problems that come from massive construction projects: complaints about noise, traffic, and, since this is a college, criticism of student behavior before, during, and after games.

But the rebuild is also drawing opposition from local tribal leaders who claim “the area that is being proposed for development contains Native American Ancestral burials and archaeologically sensitive sites.”

Northwestern should know this, since it has “land acknowledgment” resources that state the university “sits on the original homelands of the Council of Three Fires.”

It still needed a reminder.

“The extent of excavation and ground disturbing activities are very concerning to the Tribe,” the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians wrote in a letter to the city’s Land Use Commission. “We would request that Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act be followed, and archaeological oversight occur before and during excavation if the site is deemed appropriate.”

Section 106 requires that entities consult Native American tribes when construction might disturb historical sites. “Tribal consultation is a stand-alone Federal requirement” under the National Historic Preservation Act , according to the General Services Administration.

“Federally recognized tribes often have interest in projects proposed on historic ancestral lands of the tribe,” the GSA states. “As a result, consultation should not be limited to projects solely on current reservation or Indian Lands.”

Nor should universities try to impose construction timelines onto the tribes who “are not bound by any formal timeline and are often inundated with requests for consultation on multiple Federal projects,” the GSA explains. Furthermore, the consultations should be “a process of mutual information sharing that builds upon meaningful and effective consultation and respect for tribal viewpoints and priorities.”

Consulting with tribal lands and even potentially letting them veto a project shouldn’t be a problem for Northwestern. After all, it commits to “building relationships with Native American communities through academic pursuits, partnerships, historical recognitions, community service and enrollment efforts.”

The university also promised its land acknowledgment would not simply be a one-time thing: “Land acknowledgments do not exist in a past tense, or historical context: colonialism is a current ongoing process, and we need to build our mindfulness of our present participation,” a statement on its website reads, quoting the Native Governance Center.

Northwestern also offers a workshop on “how to intentionally and respectfully engage with Indigenous communities to build relationships beyond the land acknowledgment statement.”

The city’s advisory Land Use Commission gave Northwestern the green light to do so Wednesday night. The next step is a City Council vote as well as working out objections to the stadium hosting a limited amount of concerts. Northwestern said the concerts are needed to help offset the operation costs.

Yet more pressing than those negotiations is for the university to decide how much it values its commitment to tribal land acknowledgment.

After all, federal law seems to require early and ongoing consultation with local tribes, but those leaders said they only just recently found out about the project, which has been in the works since last year .

Now it’s up to the university to press forward with the project over tribal objections or call a timeout on its rebuild and honor its commitments, which “do not [only] exist in a past tense.”

Matt Lamb is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate editor for the College Fix and has previously worked for Students for Life of America and Turning Point USA.