{"id":963,"date":"2025-04-10T16:02:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T16:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/?p=963"},"modified":"2025-04-13T00:16:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T00:16:39","slug":"house-education-committee-drops-records-request-against-northwestern-law-clinics-after-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/10\/house-education-committee-drops-records-request-against-northwestern-law-clinics-after-suit\/","title":{"rendered":"House Education Committee drops records request against Northwestern law clinics after suit\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

The GOP-controlled House Education and the Workforce Committee withdrew a request for records<\/a> on Northwestern University\u2019s law clinics after its leaders filed a lawsuit Wednesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe committee is not seeking these documents anymore. Period,\u201d House general counsel Matthew Berry said at a court hearing Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sheila Bedi, director of the university\u2019s Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic, and Lynn Cohn, co-director of Northwestern\u2019s Center on Negotiation, Mediation and Restorative Justice, filed the suit against the university and the congressional committee Wednesday afternoon. <\/p>\n

The March 27 letter raised concerns about representing anti-Israel protesters<\/a>, among others. The lawsuit challenged the request for information on the clinic\u2019s budget and clients, arguing it was unconstitutional.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The suit also came after the Trump administration paused $790 million of federal funding<\/a> to Northwestern. \u00a0<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood hastily scheduled the Thursday morning hearing to decide whether to block the noon EDT deadline for the school to comply with the committee\u2019s demands.\u00a0But with the new development, Wood found the professors\u2019 request for a temporary restraining order immediately blocking the deadline was effectively moot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to me that the emergent nature of the issues raised by the motion are no more,\u201d the judge said. <\/p>\n

Wood is an appointee of former President Obama who was assigned to oversee the motion because she was on emergency duty Thursday. A different judge is set to handle the case moving forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the hearing, Berry stressed that the committee was no longer seeking the documents. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be absolutely clear that the formal request has been withdrawn,\u201d Berry said. \u201cThis is not a cover for and there is not going to be any informal, behind-the-scenes request for the same documents.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Letter reflects a bare desire to harm Plaintiffs for their association with \u2018left-wing\u2019 causes that the Committee does not like and for the protected speech reflected in their \u2018progressive,\u2019 \u2018left\u2019 advocacy,\u201d the lawsuit said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The GOP-controlled House Education and the Workforce Committee withdrew a request for records on Northwestern University\u2019s law clinics after its leaders filed a lawsuit Wednesday.  \u201cThe committee is not seeking these documents anymore. Period,\u201d House general counsel Matthew Berry said at a court hearing Thursday.\u00a0 Sheila Bedi, director of the university\u2019s Community Justice and Civil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":964,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions\/964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}