CAIR-Chicago Says Forcing Northwestern Students to Watch Inaccurate, Biased Pro-Israel Film is ‘State-Sponsored Thought Enforcement’
- For Immediate Release and Distribution -
(CHICAGO, IL, 9/28/2025) - The Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Chicago), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today said that forcing Northwestern University students to watch an inaccurate, biased pro-Israel film amounts to “state-sponsored thought enforcement.”
At least 300 students have been blocked from registering for classes because they refused to watch the propaganda film.
According to The Guardian: “Students objecting to the video say it equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. At one point the narrator compares critics of Israel to former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, and uses a controversial definition of antisemitism.
“The video also states that Israel was founded ‘on British land’ and refers to the occupied West Bank as ‘Judea and Samaria’, the biblical name controversially used for the region by the Israeli government.”
In a statement, CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab said:
“What we are witnessing is nothing less than state-sponsored thought enforcement that should shock every free American. Students are pressured by a university to sign onto beliefs they do not freely hold or risk being denied an education, which they paid for. A university should not be pressured to indoctrinate its students with propaganda for a foreign state or risk losing access to government funding. This is the stuff of authoritarian regimes that this country was precisely founded to escape and has given life and limb to save other countries from. It should offend every American who still believes this is America, not the Soviet Union.”
Earlier this year, CAIR released its 2025 Civil Rights Report, Unconstitutional Crackdowns, which reveals that Islamophobia remains at record-high levels nationwide. CAIR said viewpoint discrimination against those speaking out against genocide and apartheid was a key factor in many cases.
Washington, D.C., based CAIR also launched a nationwide “Unhostile Campus Campaign,” a nationwide initiative designed to foster campus environments in which Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, and allied students, faculty, and staff who oppose genocide or express dissent can freely speak and engage without fear of state force or disciplinary retaliation.
More information about the campaign—including resources, guides, and how to get involved—can be found here: https://islamophobia.org/category/hostile-campuses/
CAIR-Chicago’s mission is to defend civil rights, fight bigotry, and promote tolerance
CONTACT: Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago, 202-870-0166, arehab@cair.com | Heena Musabji, Legal Director of CAIR-Chicago, 312-212-1520, hmusabji@cair.com | Hafsa Haider, Communications Director of CAIR-Chicago, 561-317-7509, hhaider@cair.com