As part of its widespread investigation of universities in response to Palestine solidarity organizing, the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce sent a letter to Northwestern University on March 27, 2025 requesting documents related to programs at the law school including the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic and its director Sheila Bedi. The letter criticized the school for its legal clinic work, in particular its defense of Palestine solidarity activists, work on a consent decree with the Chicago police, and engagement in "progressive left political advocacy," and demanded compliance by April 10. 

Northwestern professors filed a complaint and a motion for a temporary restraining order on April 9, 2025 challenging the investigation, asserting that it violates the First Amendment’s right to freedom of speech, association, petition, and academic freedom and the Fifth Amendment’s right to due process and equal protection.

The investigation comes amid the Trump administration's crackdown on the free speech and political activity of Palestinian rights advocates, which includes the targeting of at least eleven students and professors in early 2025. The committee’s work dovetails with administration efforts to cut off the funding of universities in the name of purportedly combating antisemitism. The letter to Northwestern — one of five sent by the committee to different colleges on the 27th — notes that “the use of federal funds is under intense scrutiny.”

This case builds on the Center for Constitutional Rights and partners' historic work to challenge repression against Palestine solidarity activists, which has skyrocketed since October 2023, as well as general attacks on the right to dissent.