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Reuters
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Northwestern law dean abruptly steps down, takes new role at the school
May 21 (Reuters) - Northwestern University said its law school dean, Hari Osofsky, will step down from her post this summer to take another role at the university, an unusually short timeline for the departure of a senior academic official. The change comes at a time when Osofsky and the law school face ongoing discrimination lawsuits and pressure from the Trump administration and conservatives over faculty hiring and the clients the law school's clinics represent. In an email to Reuters on Wednesday, Osofsky said her decision to step down was not prompted by those pressures, but by her desire to focus on the rule of law and climate change. "As we face foundational challenges to our legal system and justice, each of us needs to ask at a personal level what our values and sense of integrity require," Osofsky wrote. Osofsky, who has led the Chicago-based law school since 2021, will oversee a new university energy innovation lab and head up the law school's recently launched global rule of the law program, according to a message to the university from its provost, Kathleen Hagerty. When asked for comment on Osofsky's departure, a Northwestern spokesperson referred to Hagerty's message. Northwestern's Pritzker School of Law has been in the crosshairs of conservatives for the past year. A group called Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences sued Osofsky and other law school administrators in July, claiming its law school discriminates against white men in faculty hiring and in the selection of articles that appear in its flagship law review. That case is ongoing. On May 13, a federal judge ruled that a former Northwestern law student can proceed with a discrimination lawsuit that claims the school failed to protect her from being harassed over her pro-Palestine activism. That suit also named Osofsky as a defendant. Northwestern law's clinics in April successfully fought off a U.S. House of Representatives committee's probe for information about their representation of pro-Palestinian protestors. The committee dropped its efforts after two Northwestern clinical professors sought a temporary restraining order to prevent the university from turning over clinic data. Read more: US House drops probe for data from university over pro-Palestinian protestor cases Northwestern law school sued for discrimination against white men in faculty hiring
Reuters
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Northwestern University must face Palestinian law grad's discrimination suit
May 13 (Reuters) - A former Northwestern law student can proceed with a discrimination lawsuit that claims the school failed to protect her from being harassed over her pro-Palestine activism, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. Plaintiff Yasmeen Elagha in November sued Northwestern and several law school officials, including law dean Hari Osofsky, alleging she was discriminated against and subjected to a hostile educational environment. Elagha, who is a Palestinian Muslim, said university officials failed to intervene after fellow students falsely claimed she attacked them during a campus protest. She also alleged that students released her personal information online and got her job offer at a major law firm rescinded. U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras in Chicago dismissed Elagha's claim of a hostile educational environment, but allowed her claim of intentional discrimination to proceed after Northwestern filed a motion to dismiss the case. Other universities are also facing lawsuits alleging discrimination against pro-Palestinian students, as campus tensions have escalated over the war in Gaza, including at the University of California at Los Angeles and Columbia University. Elagha's allegations that she made multiple harassment complaints, which the defendants failed to respond, permitted "an inference of intentional discrimination," Kocoras wrote in his opinion, opens new tab. A Northwestern University spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. Attorney Ahmad Zaher, who is representing Elagha, said he and his client are "confident in the strength of the remaining issues." Elagha, who graduated from Northwestern Law in May 2024, claimed that she and other students asked the university to intervene after they were harassed and threatened during a pro-Palestine campus protest in November 2023 but that the university took no action. She asked the university in 2022 to issue a no-contact directive against another student who had targeted her but was denied, she claimed. Law firm DLA Piper rescinded her job offer after a fellow law student falsely claimed Elagha assaulted her during a protest, according to the suit. Subsequent internal university review concluded that no assault took place, according to the lawsuit. When the Illinois Board of Law Admissions requested additional information about the protest incident, Northwestern law officials took at least two weeks to issue a letter saying Elagha had been cleared of wrongdoing, according to her suit. Read more: US House drops probe for data from university over pro-Palestinian protestor cases Northwestern law school sued for discrimination against white men in faculty hiring
