Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Federal judge denies CAIR request for restraining order in suit against Northwestern

Georgia Alexakis, a U.S. district court judge, stated that “the plaintiffs have failed to establish the likelihood of success on the merits of the claims that they advance.”

Close-up of a wooden gavel. Credit: Sora Shimazaki/Pexels.
Close-up of a wooden gavel. Credit: Sora Shimazaki/Pexels.

Georgia Alexakis, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, denied a restraining order, which the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations sought to bar Northwestern University from mandating that students take Jew-hatred bias training.

The federal judge stated that CAIR “failed to establish the likelihood of success on the merits of the claims that they advance,” the Daily Northwestern, a student paper, reported on Tuesday.

CAIR and others filed a lawsuit in district court on Oct. 15 on behalf of Graduate Workers for Palestine, a student group at the school, and two doctoral students against the university. The suit alleged that the mandatory training violates federal civil rights law.

“Public funds aren’t props,” said Mark Goldfeder, of the National Jewish Advocacy Center.
“We’re not going to solve the world’s problems with this hearing,” the judge said, after interrupting the plaintiff, who praised the Hamas terror organization.
The man posted an expletive-laden Instagram video saying that the U.S. president “should be executed.”
“This is our country, sweet land of liberty, and of thee we do not sing enough,” Wisse said.
The event was held hours before the city council approved a legislation package combating antisemitism.
While Democrats broadly oppose the strikes on Iran, about seven in ten Republicans approve, a new Pew report finds.