As a new president takes office at Northwestern University, two prominent Black Evanstonians think it’s time for the university to atone for its past discriminatory practices by contributing millions to the city’s reparations effort.
Commissioned in 2019, Evanston’s reparations initiative is the first government-funded reparations program for Black Americans in the United States. But so far, Northwestern, which has a well-documented record of discriminating against Black students and residents, has not contributed.
Dino Robinson, founder of the Shorefront Legacy Center, and the Rev. Michael Nabors, president of the Evanston/North Shore chapter of the NAACP, said the time is now for Northwestern to start paying back for injustices it has committed against the local Black community.
Robinson and Nabors both said the university has sidestepped fiduciary responsibility and owes the city’s residents an apology and millions of dollars.
“That would send a signal that … [Northwestern is] completely dedicated to repairing damage and building a brighter future,” Nabors said.
Michael Schill, who became Northwestern’s president in fall 2022, has not commented on the matter, but Dave Davis, the university’s liaison to the city, says the university is working on the issue.
“Our leadership is still trying to understand all the complexities and nuances of the Evanston reparations plan and how that relates to the institution itself,” Davis said.
A past of segregation, discrimination
While the university never officially barred Black students from enrolling in the 1900s, only five enrolled each year on average before 1966, according to Northwestern archives. Until 1947, Black students were prevented from living on campus. If they couldn’t find local off-campus housing, such as at the Emerson Street YMCA, they had to commute.
When the university did allow Black students to live on campus, Robinson said, they were segregated from other students. For many students, Northwestern deflected responsibility to Greek organizations, claiming it was sororities and fraternities that bore the responsibility of desegregating on-campus housing.
“Northwestern’s hands were tied with that because they cannot dictate what the sororities and fraternities can do,” Robinson said. “It was deflection away from them so they could engage in shooting down equal housing on campus.”
The university engaged in discriminatory housing practices toward Black Evanston residents who were not part of the university as well. In the early 1900s, the school bought property from rich white homeowners and leased it back to them. The school’s tax-exempt status meant neither party paid property taxes, shifting the burden onto Evanston residents, including Black homeowners who had a lower average income.
After World War II, the city faced a housing shortage caused by a slowdown in home building during the war. The city granted permits to the university to build temporary housing throughout Evanston, but Northwestern didn’t allow Black students or Black war veterans to live in those properties.
Robinson said that despite opposition to the school’s actions, especially by Edwin Jourdain Jr., Evanston’s first Black member of the City Council, the city didn’t put pressure on the university to cease discrimination.
“The common dialogue kind of always fell on, ‘Let’s look the other way to place blame or constraints elsewhere,’” Robinson said.
Northwestern has also bought up and cleared out land in majority-Black neighborhoods of Evanston. One of the most notable instances occurred in 1967, when the university petitioned City Council to change a local zoning ordinance, which allowed Northwestern to build a new $10 million graduate student complex in the Fifth Ward.
Most of the homes and businesses in the area were owned and operated by Black Evanstonians at the time. However, the city approved the university’s petition, and many apartment buildings, residences and businesses were demolished to make way for Engelhart Hall at 1915 Maple Ave. By 1968, every building in the area except one, the historic Foster Street Pharmacy, had been cleared.
The area’s Black residents also received little aid from the city in finding new housing. Because redlining had forced most Black Evanstonians into the Fifth Ward, many didn’t have anywhere to go after being displaced by Northwestern, so they left town entirely.
The university’s encroachment into Black neighborhoods and forced removal of Black residents has “sown generational distrust” toward the school among Black Evanstonians, according to Robinson.
“The general thought process is they are not to be trusted,” he said.
Calling on Northwestern to contribute
Evanston’s Reparations Committee originally planned to collect the initial commitment of $10 million for the fund through cannabis taxes. However, the city would need to build four more dispensaries to reach that monetary goal, according to Robinson. Recently, the City Council committed an additional $10 million to the initiative, and approved a new revenue stream from land transfer taxes.
With the program still in need of more funding sources, community members said they want the university to get involved. Nabors said action is imminently needed because Evanston’s Black population is decreasing.
Without a new injection of money soon, Nabors said, people who need reparations funds and benefits could leave Evanston before they become available because of the rising cost of living in the city.
Nabors cited the reparations initiative in Princeton, New Jersey, where he was once a seminary student. In October 2019, Princeton Theological Seminary committed $27.6 million to reparations, according to an official statement from the university.
Due to gentrification in Princeton, a large proportion of the Black community was forced to leave and couldn’t benefit from the fund, Nabors said. The Black population of the Princeton borough decreased 11.2% between 1990 and 2000, according to census data, though some of that drop is attributed to a change in census racial reporting.
According to census data cited by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, the percentage of Black residents in Evanston decreased from 22.2% in 2000 to 16% in 2020 (the percentage of those reporting other or multiple races increased during that period, but only slightly).
“If I get an opportunity to talk to President Schill, one of the first things I would do is a comparative analysis between what happened in Princeton and what I see beginning to happen in Evanston,” Nabors said.
Other private institutions around the country have committed millions to reparations, including Harvard, which set up a $100 million endowment fund for slavery reparations in 2022.
Nabors said Northwestern should follow that pattern as well. The school should give between $50 million and $100 million to the reparations fund for future payments, he said, to begin making up for past racist policies and prevent a situation like Princeton’s from happening in Evanston.
That kind of generational commitment would “guarantee that the diversity of Evanston is going to be permanent and there will not be a disappearance of the Black and Brown community,” Nabors said.
University’s response
Addressing comments from Robinson and Nabors, Northwestern’s Davis said that while he views Evanston’s reparations movement as “incredibly inspirational,” the university is still in an “information gathering” phase and trying to understand the city’s reparations plan.
The university’s Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy launched a research project in October 2022 led by political science Professor Alvin Tillery, which will examine the reparations plan. Davis said Northwestern will use studies like Tillery’s to define where the university stands.
“It’s important for us to do our due diligence before we make a decision on whether or not to invest,” Davis said.
Davis challenged the assertion that Northwestern does too little for the Evanston community, saying the school invests in the city, but its work is often overlooked. He said Northwestern has contributed to 80% to 90% of the city’s nonprofit organizations and worked in partnership with city leaders on multiple projects.
“We feel that we’ve been good stewards of the land we occupy,” Davis said.
He referenced the school’s initiatives, specifically the Good Neighbor Fund, as a sign Northwestern is invested in Evanston.
In 2015, then-university president Morton Schapiro created the fund in partnership with then-Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl. Each year since then the university has given $1 million to the city. And in 2020, the university established the Good Neighbor Racial Equity Fund. According to a news release from the school, it “support(s) a variety of bold, progressive programs aimed at strengthening underserved communities and advancing racial equity in Evanston.”
Davis also cited the school’s 10 Commitments, released in June 2020, which listed promises to advocate for racial equity and social justice. The commitments included $1.5 million to fund diversity, equity and social justice programs in Evanston and within the school.
Davis said he feels actions like these directly benefited Evanstonians, particularly because the distribution of money did not get slowed down by city bureaucracy.
Robinson, however, considers these expenditures tiny in relation to Northwestern’s $14.4 billion endowment and global presence.
“Here is a big university that wants to see itself as a leader in the academic world, but then do very little for the humanistic outreach of the community it lives within,” Robinson said.
Davis made it clear that, though the school has not officially decided whether to commit money to the reparations fund, the idea is not off the table.
“In the future, support of the reparations program might be another way” to contribute, he said. “We are just not there yet.”
Raj Ghanekar is a second-year student at Northwestern studying journalism. He reported this story for a class on police, race and community in Evanston.
Two things: 1. Nice job on this story! Thanks to Raj Ghanekar for this thorough reporting.
2. I am not surprised that the University would dither, stall, and claim they “just aren’t there yet.” The fact is, Evanston IS there. The Black community is urgently in need of these important dollars right now. Black elders, among those most deserving of reparations, are dying before they ever see a dime of this long overdue debt repayment. But NU “just isn’t there yet.” (Begging the question: Just when will they be there? Next year? In five years? Ten? Ever?) Wildly insufficient statement; completely tone deaf. Yet another example of their privileged audacity, which gets more tiresome by the minute.
Northwestern definitely should follow the Harvard example of adding to the reparations funds in Evanston with $100M for the properties and harm the university caused by confiscating homes and businesses from our Black neighbors. Although I suspect the dollar amount the university gained likely exceeds that number. Mr Davis’s remarks about the small amount the university contributes to non-profits and projects in Evanston is not relevant to this conversation. Remind Professor Tilley that the university can put around 1% of the endowment ($100M/$14.4B), in the Evanston Foundation. 1% certainly is much less than the endowment’s annual investment income. As the Foundation does so well in providing grants it could administer the money as it currently does for reparations and bypass any issues with the city’s Reparations work. Thank you Dino Robinson and Rev. Nabors for your efforts to bring the reparation’s issue and Northwestern’s roll to inform us Evanstonians.
There used to be a Black YMCA on Emerson. It later became a home for the Haré Krishnas (not sure how that happened.)
Later it was torn down and became part of the research park (a joint project, allegedly, with the city). That nice looking brick building was torn down for a high rise, which violated the city plan (costing $250,000 to five consulting groups). I don’t believe there are any non-NU students in either E1 or E2, just as there were no outside businesses in the “research park”) So, after increasing the housing for NU students many-fold (but somehow keeping the official number of students low) NU profits from their many real estate deals being tax-free and now has a 16 billion dollar endowment. No longer merely in the business of education, they now want to be concert promoters, with accompanying alcohol sales and sports betting!
Thank you for this timely and necessary article. Churches, synagogues and faith communities in Evanston have been working hard to dismantle racism and to establish justice for Black Evanstonians. As the Senior Minister of First Congregational Church of Evanston, we have been supporters of reparations and made contributions from our endowment to support this vital work of repair. It is time for Evanston’s most powerful and wealthy institution to do the same. Thank you Rev. Nabors and Dino Robinson for raising the issue and bringing this before our community. Northwestern, Evanston awaits your response. As Dr. King said, “It is always the right time to do the right thing!”
Several salient points brought up in this article. While NU has ground to stand on to say they give to important causes in Evanston, Mr. Robinson is quite right when he indicates that NU could be/should be doing a lot more; it seems NU does what is just-enough required to stand on that ground. The financial contributions are large enough to stem complaints, but really, they are crumbs. If we recall the previous NU President’s (Shapiro) approach to support staff salary that it ought not pay anyone any more than it can get away with, as opposed to looking at what is a good living wage, leaves this reader believing they had taken that approach with the people of Evanston under his tenure. Hopefully a new President will bring a new approach.
I also was intrigued by Mr. Robinson’s comment that there is generational distrust towards NU in the black community here. Mr. Davis and his superiors should be taking that problem head-on. NU should be leading, not following – or more accurately, not have to be pulled along like a ball and chain. Either way, I too would like to see NU pivot and be proactive in this regard. Yes, actively look at their past to identify wrongs done and actively do right to correct those wrongs where it can. Are we as individuals not encouraged to this? NU is fully capable, it’s just a question of choice.
I plan to write a letter to the University and City leadership in support of financially meaningful reparations. Much respect to Mr. Robinson and Rev Nabors.
Great article – this quote really got me:
“The university engaged in discriminatory housing practices toward Black Evanston residents who were not part of the university as well. In the early 1900s, the school bought property from rich white homeowners and leased it back to them. The school’s tax-exempt status meant neither party paid property taxes, shifting burden onto Evanston residents, including Black homeowners who had a lower average income.”
They still do this! How much property has northwestern taken off the tax roll in this town? An insane amount. They pay zero property tax. Who does that leave to foot the bill?!? Us Evanston residents – many of us black and brown and we are still subsidizing their crap.
Some more thoughts in no order:
1st: 1.5 million is a joke for northwestern.
2: Look up the number of black male admissions who are not on athletic scholarships at northwestern and you will see how little northwestern does for our black community. Another cruel joke. If they can’t do that right then the other stuff is just reputation washing for PR purposes.
3rd: important to point out that Naibors (who has been a big supporter of NU’s stadium plans) daughter is a PHD student at northwestern.
My bet is that NU is going to make an announcement that they are going to fund some kind of reparations plan based on profits from profits from concerts at the new stadium. Watch. That’s been the whole plan from day one. Divide liberal evanston so that they can call the white people in the 7th ward who don’t want these ridiculous concerts in their backyard racist nimbys. I would be willing to bet that’s what comes next… not to mention this whole action was set in to motion by Pat ryan who is one of the nations largest funder of republican politicians but no one ever talks about that. As if NU needs the money and can’t just fund the reparations they should be funding from their own coffers or even the broadcast money they make off the mostly black players on the football team while both denying them a real education while at NU because of the demands of the team and not paying them for their labor and risk of injury on the field. All while paying 5 million a year to the white coach telling our black kids what to do. Not a huge jump from the plantation to D1 college sports model. Let’s not fool ourselves.