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Michael Schill left UO in 2022 to take the top job at Northwestern University. The university is among those that have faced intense criticism from Republicans.
Former University of Oregon President Michael Schill announced his resignation from the top post at Northwestern University on Thursday, Sept. 4, after attacks from Republicans in Congress and the White House.
Schill, 66, left UO and took the helm of Northwestern in 2022. He will continue his role at Northwestern until an interim replacement begins, after which he will take a sabbatical and return to the university’s school of law as a faculty member.
Much of his tenure at the private Illinois university was marked by turbulence, including congressional scrutiny over its handling of activism related to the war in Gaza, frozen federal research funding that triggered layoffs and a football hazing scandal.
“As I reflect on the progress we have made and what lies ahead, I believe now is the right time for new leadership to guide Northwestern into its next chapter,” Schill said in a release. “Therefore, I have decided, in consultation with the leadership of the Board of Trustees, that I will step down as President.”
Like leaders of other prestigious universities, Schill has faced attacks from Republicans in Congress saying Northwestern failed to respond to reports of antisemitism on campus. He was called to testify before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in 2024.
GOP lawmakers particularly grilled the president over his choice to negotiate with pro-Palestinian protesters to end their encampment on campus that spring, though Schill ruled out cutting ties with companies that do business with Israel during the conversations.
The fallout escalated when President Donald Trump in April froze nearly $800 million in federal research funding amid investigations into antisemitism and allegations of racial discrimination rooted in Northwestern’s work to increase diversity.
In July, Schill announced the layoffs of more than 400 positions at Northwestern in an effort to reduce the university’s staffing budget by about 5% due to the funding freeze.
He joins a growing list of university leaders who have stepped down after intense pressure from the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, including the presidents of Columbia, Harvard and Cornell universities, and the universities of Pennsylvania and Virginia.
“Over the past three years, it has been my profound honor to serve as president of Northwestern University,” Schill said in the release. “In that time, our community has made significant progress while simultaneously facing extraordinary challenges.”
Before moving to Evanston, Schill was president of UO for seven years, from 2015 to 2022. He was the first president ever selected by UO’s board of trustees, following the sudden resignation of the former president, Michael Gottfredson.
During his UO tenure, Schill oversaw record fundraising, including $1 billion from former Nike CEO Phil Knight to launch a new research campus. He also boosted UO’s four-year graduation rate, financial aid offerings, and academic and career advising.
He oversaw UO amid the COVID-19 pandemic, campus labor bargaining efforts and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, which renewed a community push to rename Deady Hall due to the racist past of its eponym.
Early in his tenure at UO, he faced student protests in part due to rising tuition costs, which he later responded to in an op-ed published by The New York Times.
After Schill took office at Northwestern, officials suspended the school’s football coach for two weeks after an investigation into hazing on the team. Schill changed course and fired the coach after the university’s student newspaper published detailed allegations of the hazing practices.
The university reached a settlement with the former coach last month after he filed a wrongful termination lawsuit.
The Northwestern student newspaper published an article in 2023 that drew parallels between Schill’s handling of the hazing case at Northwestern and his response to athletic program controversies at UO, including eating disorders on the track team and a men’s basketball player who played as a Duck while under criminal investigation for sexual assault.
Earlier in his career, Schill practiced and taught law. He became dean of the school of law at the University of California Los Angeles in 2004 and held the same position at University of Chicago’s law school from 2009 to 2015.
