Cook County prosecutors dropped criminal charges on Friday against four people who participated in the pro-Palestinian protest encampment at Northwestern University in late April.
Alithia Zamantakis, an assistant professor at Northwestern’s Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing; Josh Honn, a university librarian; Steven Thrasher, an assistant professor of journalism; and an unnamed person were charged earlier this month with Class A misdemeanor citations for allegedly obstructing a police officer during the protests in April, according to officials.
The misdemeanor charges against the educators came more than two months after the encampment at the Evanston campus was dismantled in an agreement between protesters and university leaders.
Prosecutors ultimately declined to pursue misdemeanor charges filed by the Northwestern Police Department, “consistent with our office’s policy to decline prosecution against peaceful protesters,” a spokesperson for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office said.
Zamantakis said the charges threatened academic freedom.
“It goes to show how incredibly terrifying it is that universities have their own private police forces that ostensibly are in the name of keeping people safe, but are actually used to arrest and silence their students, staff and faculty,” Zamantakis said.
Northwestern was one of the first Chicago-area schools to see groups of students, faculty members and activists camped on the lawn in protest of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, part of a wave of student action that swept U.S. campuses over April and May. The university negotiated with protesters to end the demonstration after five days.
In an email to the Tribune, university spokesperson Jon Yates said the criminal complaints were pursued by Northwestern police “after four individuals obstructed officers during protests at Deering Meadow on April 25, resulting in injuries to one officer.” Yates said the officer was treated at a local hospital after he was bitten on the hand.
Yates said Northwestern has initiated its own discipline process after the state’s attorney declined to pursue charges.
“Any individual found in violation of a University policy will be held accountable,” Yates said.
Thrasher’s attorney, Joshua Herman, said he is pleased that the “reactionary and misguided” charges were dismissed, and his client, a Daniel H. Renberg chair of social justice in reporting at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and an outspoken advocate of Palestinians, can continue to focus on his scholarship and his students.
“The charges filed against Dr. Steven Thrasher and his colleagues were wrong from the start,” Herman said. “Inexplicably, they were brought two months after student-led events on campus that were squarely protected by the First Amendment.”
Honn could not be reached for comment.
Zamantakis said a Northwestern police officer and a detective came to her office on June 25 and told her she was effectively being arrested and released upon citation.
“He read me my Miranda rights and read my charges right there in my office,” she said. “It’s incredibly disheartening to have your employer send their own police after you to arrest you in your place of employment.”
Zamantakis said the arrests were carried out “under the guise of summer” when students are away to allow the university to “get away with whatever it wants to do.”
The encampment at Northwestern, which lasted almost a week, was the only protest encampment in Chicago that wasn’t taken down in a police raid. The agreement between protesters and administrators included a promise from university leaders’ to answer questions about Northwestern’s investments, eliciting mixed reactions.
Less than a month after, a congressional committee interrogated University President Michael Schill for making a deal with pro-Palestinian organizers of the encampment that allowed demonstrations to continue while barring temporary structures and tents, except for one with aid supplies. It also prevented outsiders from joining the demonstrations.
The Class A misdemeanor charge, which carried a sentence of up to one year in prison and a $2,500 fine, could have been detrimental to Zamantakis’ career, she said. Her work is primarily research-based, and she is neither in a tenure-track nor a union position.
“I think it is incredibly troubling that an institution would go to the lengths of arresting and charging their own faculty, withholding degrees from students and threatening staff with firing, rather than just listening to all of us and divesting from Israel,” she said.
