On June 12, along with other changes to benefits, Northwestern announced that its healthcare plans for faculty and staff would be administered by United Healthcare.
UHC has a well-deserved reputation for putting profits above patients. Among other complaints, it has been the subject of a class action lawsuit for using AI to deny claims. Most recently, UHC threatened to remove the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center from its network, putting the care of ~20,000 cancer patients in jeopardy.
NU faculty have reported alarming experiences when they or their family members had health coverage through UHC at previous jobs. They have reported UHC refusing to cover chemotherapy and other life-saving treatments, and those whose children are currently receiving necessary therapies for autism have already confirmed that their providers will not accept UHC.
Human Resources explained in an email on 6/24 that Northwestern is self-insured and that UHC would only be a Third-Party Administrator. This message was intended to reassure us that UHC would not subject NU employees to the same terrible policies it's known for elsewhere. But UHC would still be adjudicating claims, and it is in Northwestern's financial interests for UHC to deny claims on its behalf and in UHC’s interests to keep Northwestern happy.
Nothing is known about what claim denial rates UHC will provide Northwestern, nor about the other terms under which UHC won the contract.
The terms of the Northwestern University Plan Documents, which set forth the terms of eligibility and covered benefits for the plan, are completely unknown to us. We need to know which treatments, procedures, diagnoses and drugs are covered, which aren’t, and how the new Plan Document compares to the current coverage from BCBS.
Many therapists, including mental health and physical therapists, do not accept UHC. We do have access to UHC’s list of in-network providers, and it is not encouraging: almost no mental health providers, nor providers who do pediatric developmental therapies (OT, PT, speech therapists, ABA therapists for those with autism, social workers) accept UHC.
Optum is the subsidiary that manages UHC’s mental health coverage. The company used an algorithm called ALERT to review and deny mental health services. By 2021, this program had been deemed illegal in New York, California, and Massachusetts. A 2024 ProPublica investigation found that ALERT has been rebranded as Outpatient Care Engagement, and that patients who need weekly therapy sessions for more than 7 months run the risk of being flagged for scrutiny.
Another ProPublica investigation in 2024 analyzed the company’s internal records and found that it’s targeting therapists who provide ABA, or applied behavioral analysis therapy, for children and adults with autism. The company is preventing new ABA providers from joining its network and pushing out those who are in network. UHC terminated care for a child with autism, writing to the family: “Your child still has a lot of difficulty with all autism-related needs. Your child still needs help, but it does not appear that your child will improve enough to end ABA.”
Changing providers, not having access to a stable medication regimen that works, and dealing with substandard coverage will place additional burdens on faculty and staff: not only financially (though in some cases that burden could be considerable) but in terms of time, energy, and health. Due to UHC’s poor reputation nationally, this change also will endanger Northwestern’s ability to attract and retain top faculty and staff.
Lack of shared governance: Faculty and staff were not involved in this decision at all; even the Faculty Senate was left asking questions and received little information in response. Faculty and staff need and deserve meaningful and substantive practices of shared governance in choices that affect our lives.
Context:
• In February 2025, Northwestern's administration announced a new mandatory student anti-bias training module called “Building a Community of Respect and Breaking Down Bias.” The student training is not the same as the faculty and staff training.
• The student module on antisemitism, entitled “Antisemitism: Here/Now,” was created by an outside policy advocacy group, JUF (Jewish United Fund), not by Northwestern. Faculty experts in the relevant fields were not consulted.
• At the same time, the university quietly adopted the controversial Draft IHRA Definition of antisemitism. (For more information on the IHRA draft definition and why it is problematic see here.) The US government’s adoption of the IHRA draft definition is an attack on political dissent and free speech, and an intrusion into Jewish collective life. It makes it easy to construe criticism of the Israeli government as antisemitic. No government—not the Israeli government, not the American government, and certainly not Northwestern university administrators—should have the power to define what it means to be a Jew.
• Previous training modules at Northwestern did not involve punishment for noncompliance. This one requires students to watch and “agree” with it or face a registration hold. This affects student status and hence visa status, health insurance, jobs, and financial aid. As of early August, 15% of students have not completed the training. Some international students now face a loss of status and deportation.
Content:
• The module presents statements by “anti-Israel activists” as interchangeable with and morally equivalent to statements made by KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.
• The video associates Judaism with Zionism and suggests that those who do not support Zionism should automatically be suspected of anti-Semitism. The assumption that because one is Jewish one must support Israel is itself antisemitic.
• The video displays an incorrect, hand-drawn map of Israel accompanied by the highly ideological statement that “Jews are from Israel.” In fact, Jews are from many places. It is historical fact that Jews have made their homes and contributed in countless ways to thriving societies and civilizations all over the world for thousands of years. The claim that they are “from Israel” erases many Jewish people and communities past and present.
• The map presents Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights all as part of Israel (in a lighter shade of the same color). Under international law, the occupied territories are not part of Israel. The video reproduces the political propaganda of the Netanyahu administration at the expense of the Palestinian people and in contradiction to international law.
• The video ignores widespread examples of anti-Semitism associated with far-right white power and white supremacist movement. It focuses exclusively on purported “left-wing anti-semitism,” which (it claims) “holds that Jews are the universal oppressor and pinnacle of white privilege, secretly responsible for all oppression—from racism to colonialism.”
• The video never states where the Holocaust occurred, but inserts a reference to it after a sentence about the oppression of Jews under Muslim governments, implicitly suggesting that the Holocaust was the fault of or was connected to Muslims and/or Muslim-majority governments.
Recommended reading:
The Review: Northwestern's inane — and controversial — bias trainings
Harvard appears to think all Jews support Israel. That is discriminatory
Context: politics of antisemitism
Many pro-Israel advocates have depicted pro-Palestinian movements as manifestations of antisemitism, examples of the over-scrutinization of Israel, and as denying Israel’s right to self-defense.
Many critics of Israel and of Zionism contest the conflation of antisemitism with anti-Zionism and argue in favor of a right to support Palestinians. For them, labeling anti-Israel positions as antisemitic is a way to criminalize dissent and prevent honest discussion of Israel’s actions.
Adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance (IHRA) in Bucharest on May 26, 2016, the IHRA is a 38-word quasi-legal statement “characterized by immense vagueness” (Ullrich). It has nonetheless become the central tool in a major legal redefinition of antisemitism in US law and policy. It is used as a legal benchmark for defining antisemitism and has a growing presence in US state and federal law.
Concerns about how the IHRA working definition of antisemitism is being used:
· Imprecise and ambiguous: “Every instance of the working definition’s adoption has taken place in the absence of a clear consensus regarding what ‘adoption’ actually means…Its capacity to motivate authorities to censor Israel-critical speech is linked to the imprecision of its legal status” (Gould). Antisemitism is equated with criticism of Israel. Erases lived violence of Jews’ actual experience (Tree of Life shooting, Charlottesville, etc.).
· Distorts data on antisemitism: For years, organizations like the Anti-Defamation League have tried to redefine “antisemitism” to force criticism of Zionism or of the policies of the Israeli state into the dictionary meaning of that term—that is, racism against Jewish people. Thus, when the ADL tallies up reports of “antisemitism on campus,” or warns of “spikes in antisemitism” across the country—warnings that are picked up, read at face value, and amplified by The Guardian or The New York Times—it’s deliberately impossible to distinguish in its data instances of actual anti-Jewish sentiment from the protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that have “spiked” on campuses across the country (Makdisi).
· Politically instrumentalized: the IHRA is a prop of state power that has been instrumentalized to stifle critique of the politics of Israel. Concerns have been raised about the criteria used in the document with respect to criticism of Israel and the policies of the Israeli government. IHRA is a tool of foreign policy by proxy, enabling those who wish to censor open discussion of Israel’s occupation to do so with a halo of legitimacy. It “provides a gateway for the stigmatization and public disadvantaging of disfavoured positions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In view of its quasi-legal status, this must be regarded as a threat to freedom of speech” (Ullrich, 16).
· Contains illustrations that erode free expression: The IHRA includes 11 illustrations, 7 of which highlight critical statements and assessments of Israel as markers of antisemitism. This contributes to a climate of fear and intimidation for activists on Palestinian issues. A sweeping application of the label “antisemite” to pro-Palestinian voices erodes free expression. One explanatory note* has been especially controversial: ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.’ It denies possibility of legitimate reasons to oppose Jewish statehood, such as an aversion to nationalism; it is not per se antisemitic to declare Israel a racist endeavor; and it places the onus on Israel’s critics to prove they are not antisemitic.
· Chilling effects on Jewish free speech: Under the guise of a legal redefinition of antisemitism, US public life is being transformed. What appears to be a technical change in terminology has become an instrument of political control, solidifying executive and legislative power to enforce a narrow, state-sanctioned definition of Judaism at the expense of others. The IHRA forces a straitjacket of Zionist identity onto American Jews by insisting that certain political positions (namely, certain forms of critique of the state of Israel) are incompatible with being authentically Jewish. By adopting it into law, the US government takes sides in an intra-Jewish debate, recruiting Zionist Jews to side with the government in a war against its opponents. This is not only an attack on political dissent – it is an intrusion into Jewish religious life. Jewish communities are diverse and plural in orientations toward Jewish nationality, political existence, and self-determination. Criticism of Israel can itself stem from deep Jewish religious commitment. The IHRA restricts the freedom of Jews to define their own identity, limiting the ways in which Jewish beliefs, thought and activism can be expressed. No government – not the Israeli government, not the American government, and certainly not Northwestern – should have the power to define what it means to be a Jew (Mann & Yona).
Conclusion: Neither the US government nor Northwestern should criminalize those whose (Jewish or non-Jewish) identity entails a critique or rejection of ethno-national Judaism. This requires rejecting the IHRA and similar definitions that conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Jewish racism (antisemitism).
Is there an alternative? Yes, but competing definitions won’t save us either.
The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism is a tool to identify, confront and raise awareness about antisemitism. It includes a preamble, definition, and a set of 15 guidelines that provide guidance for those seeking to recognize antisemitism in order to craft responses. It was developed by a group of scholars in Holocaust history, Jewish studies, and Middle East studies to meet what has become a growing challenge: providing clear guidance to identify and fight antisemitism while protecting free expression.
Sources:
Text of IHRA is here.
Rebecca Ruth Gould, “The IHRA Definition of Antisemitism: Defining Antisemitism by Erasing Palestinians.” The Political Quarterly 91, no. 4 (Oct-Dec. 2020): 825-31.
Saree Makdisi, “How Israel Lost America.” LA Review of Books (7/12/24).
Itihar Mann and Lihi Yona, “The New Definition of Antisemitism is Transforming America—and Serving a Christian Nationalist Plan.” The Guardian (3/23/25).
Kenneth Stern, “I drafted the definition of antisemitism. Right-wing Jews are weaponizing it.” The Guardian (12/13/19).
Barry Trachtenberg, “Against Definitions: The Politics of Antisemitism Definitions.” Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (2/27/25).
Peter Ullrich, “On the IHRA’s ‘Working Definition of Antisemitism.’” RLS Papers, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (Berlin, Oct. 2019).
Compiled by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, professor of religion & politics @Northwestern University
* “It is crucial and fraught with consequences in applying the definition whether one considers only the core definition or regards the explanatory notes and examples as part of it” (Ullrich, 12).