Steven Thrasher is suing Northwestern University and others after he didn’t receive tenure.
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Steven Thrasher sued Northwestern University and four top federal officials this week, alleging that Northwestern denied him tenure because, among other things, federal agencies pressured officials to punish his pro-Palestine activism.
“Defendants robbed Dr. Thrasher of his successful academic career and livelihood because of a joint project of Northwestern and elements of the federal government to manufacture consent for their participation in the Zionist colonial project in Palestine,” Thrasher’s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Along with the university, Thrasher is suing Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Rep. Tim Walberg, the Michigan Republican who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee. In 2024, that committee wrote to then–Northwestern President Michael Schill, criticizing him for refusing to answer whether Thrasher was still teaching students after he “scuffled with and obstructed Northwestern University Police Department officers.”
