Chicago, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Governor Pritzker says Northwestern University shouldn’t have had to pay the federal government $75 million recently to settle investigations and get hundreds of millions of dollars back in research grants.

During a recent bill signing in Chicago, Pritzker said that’s not what democracy is all about.

“Every time a university signs an agreement based upon this extortion, they’re whittling away just a little bit at the democracy that, I think, we’ve all replied upon,” said Pritzker.

And Pritzker says it’s that democracy that has allowed institutions like Northwestern to be able to do groundbreaking and, in many cases, life-saving research.

“I understand what the challenges are for universities, that they’re having hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe even more than a billion dollars, taken away from them, each one.  These are research institutions all of us, by the way, for their medical research and other work that often leads to ground-breaking, life-saving solutions to problems in the world.”

The Trump administration went after Northwestern and other schools claiming they have, so-called “woke” policies.  But Northwestern’s interim president says he never would have signed off on the deal had there been any order to give up control of curriculum, admissions, or hiring.