Screw You Northwestern

By Pat Hickey

Sept. 17, 2023

I have chosen to foment discord, like our brethren on the Left. This will not be meat for pettifogging dodgers, or whatabout-ulists. I intend to spew as much venom, bile and ridicule upon the open-toed sandals of the academic poseurs and over-cooked vermicelli-spined leadership as possible. Northwestern has been a sinkhole of Leftist Marxism for decades, with social engineering labs like The Center for Wrongful Convictions and unrepentant terrorist Bernardine Dorhn’s masquerade as an academic.

I was angry when Northwestern disavowed any connection to Joseph Epstein over his lighthearted tease of Doctor Jill Biden in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. So furious was the backlash from the Biden White House that the tit-willows of Northwestern chirped mightily and not so very unlike the harrumphing sycophants of Gov. LePetomane in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles.

Joseph Epstein had been a lecturer in the English Department of that school from 1974 until 2002. Epstein’s reputation as an essayist garnered the title America’s Montaigne.  Scott McKnight noted: 

Few are the writers who weigh in so often about weighty subjects without putting their weight down. Epstein professes no known creed. He isn’t simply a stylist with irony but a man of irony itself. In his thrashing away at Adler, for whom he worked on the staff of Encyclopedia Britannica, Epstein reveals his penchant for a lack of finding bedrock philosophical truths as he observes the impact of Adler’s teachings about Plato on Adler’s seminar pupils: “After years of reading Plato, they seem no closer to escaping the cave than the rest of us.” In the opening essay of this new collection, on turning seventy, he says that “I find myself more impressed by the mysteries of life and more certain that most of the interesting questions it poses have no persuasive answers, or at least none likely to arrive before I depart the planet.” He continues, “I suffer, then, some of the fear of religion without any of the enjoyment of the hope it brings.” When his father died, Epstein found that he had left behind some 2,700 pages written in his own style of wisdom. “Although he had no more luck in this than the rest of us, there was something gallant about the attempt” of a senior citizen not finding a publisher but grinding away anyway.

In his essay on why he is not a lawyer, Epstein closes with this: “It’s a much easier job to be an investigator or critic of morality, which is what a writer does, than a lawyer, someone called upon to practice morality, relentlessly and at the highest level, day after day after day.” Faced with the task of cleaning out his apartment and disposing of most of the thousands of books he had collected over a lifetime, he discusses the few authors and books he chose to hold onto. “I kept a few Schopenhauer items, including The World as Will and Representation; his unrelenting darkness for some reasons charms me.” And Epstein notes that “I have three different Bibles in the apartment—a work, the Bible, I’ve not yet read all the way through and tell myself I must before I am hit with a most unpleasant quiz administered at certain pearly gates.”

Lawyers practice morality. Quidam faciunt mores quidam! I know from my fine education at Loyola University of Chicago in the early 1970s that ethics never change, and morals change when ants break wind. Lawyers are just the ticket. Test the windage and get to trial!

Northwestern’s (note that I choose not to include the term university): I admire the school of medicine and do not rope it in with the other prissy gobshites) motto is Quaecumque sunt vero, or Whatsoever things are true. That passage from St. Paul, no pettifogger himself, tells us to dwell upon things that are always true, beautiful and just. Now, imagine a Northwestern professor of journalism telling his students to insinuate sexual interests to get a stooge to falsely confess his guilt for murder, in order to get the guilty (but approved) client off. Protess and be damned! The lawyers weaseled Protess off the hook.

Northwestern’s motto should be Advocati Approbata (Lawyers Approved). Even better, Sum Wildcat sum Chumbalone!

Only a Chumbalone would nod with conviction and stand behind any statement coming from the administration of Northwestern.

I was angry when they sullied Joseph Epstein and now, I am bilious over the pussified firing of Coach Pat Fitzgerald.

I knew Pat Fitzgerald when he was a recruiter for the Wildcats and later, the head coach. Fitz put local talent at the top of his list and many Chicago Catholic and public-school players put on the purple. I worked as director of development at Chicago’s Leo High School and remember Coach Fitz’s treatment of recruits from our inner-city kids. He was always respectful, honest and professional. Our kids loved playing for him.

I know the poisonously woke culture that has managed to strangle the life out of Chicago. Northwestern and its Medill School of Journalism had a huge hand in that. The two daily rags and the electronic media in Chicago, especially (public television) WTTW and (public radio) WBEZ, are propaganda arms of Northwestern’s public morals labs.

A former Northwestern player beefed to the right lawyers about his unhappiness and attributed it to Coach Fitzgerald. Other unhappy boys joined the suit. The President of Northwestern got shit in his blood and overruled himself, first suspending Pat Fitzgerald and then terminating his contract.

Since taking over Wildcat football, Coach Fitzgerald amassed 110 wins for Northwestern and never brought a scintilla of shame to shadow his labors. He never had to rebuild; he would simply reload. Yet, when scandal lisped in the ears of Northwestern leadership and that hint of a day-in-court scented the breezes over Evanston, the woke narrative trumped justice again.

After being fired without any due process, Coach Fitzgerald returned to the sidelines as a volunteer for Loyola Academy football.  Loyola Academy is ranked 3rd in the State of Illinois with a 3- 0 record.  Northwestern Wildcats, sans Fitz, is 1-1, have lost to the atrocious Rutgers squad.  One wonders if that clapping noise wafting over the waves of Lake Michigan just might be the echoes of Northwestern donor checkbooks slapping shut.  Will Pat Ryan cough up more millions for decades of mediocrity?  Stay tuned dear readers.

Locker rooms are no places for weaklings. But they can be breeding grounds for monsters like Denny Hastert of Yorkville shame, the woman’s trainer at the University of Michigan and Joe Paterno at Penn State. Activist journalists and lawyers are not disinfectants. The eternal truths and ethical verities that should be the foundation of any confederacy of scholars are the stays against evil.

Pat Fitzgerald, like the great Joseph Epstein, is a sacrificial gift to Mammon. Mammon’s laws accept any and all perversity in the name of equity and inclusion. Mammon’s ecology makes sense at Northwestern.

No due process. No justice. No inquiry. No beauty. No victory. Advocati Approbata!

Screw You, Northwestern, to play on the words of your fight song.

May this clown car posing as a seat of learning enjoy misery, failure and empty coffers.

-30-

Born November 8, 1952 in Englewood Hospital, Chicago Illinois, Pat Hickey attended Chicago Catholic grammar and high schools, received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Loyola University in 1974, began teaching English and coaching sports at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, IL in 1975, married Mary Cleary in 1983, received a Master of Arts in English Literature from Loyola in 1987, taught at La Lumiere School in Indiana from 1988-1994, took a position as Director of Development with Bishop Noll Institute in Hammond, IN and then Leo High School in Chicago in 1996.  His wife Mary died in 1998 and Hickey returned with his three children to Chicago’s south side. From 1998 until 2019, it became obvious that Illinois and Chicago turned like Stilton cheese on a humid countertop. In that time, he wrote a couple of books and many columns for Irish American News. When the kids became independent and vital adults, he moved to Michigan City, Indiana, where he job coaches Downs Syndrome and Autistic teens in LaPorte County.  He walks to the Michigan City Lighthouse every chance he gets.

Comments 53

    1. Pat Hickey’s line “I know the poisonously woke culture that has managed to strangle the life out of Chicago” bears reflection. I know it. And I lived through it, with the help of God, family and friends like you subscribers. the poisonous woke culture at NU seeps out into journalism, into government and politics and all aspects of our lives. for Fitz and Epstein to be judged by angry pouting cretins is just too much. thanks Mr. Hickey

      1. For everyone’s great pleasure, please read Mr. Epstein’s absolutely wonderful collecton of short stories previously described by someone else as, “Witty, utterly compelling short stories about Jewish men of a certain age.” It is a work that, the entirety of which, as a man of American / Italian descent also of a “certin age” had the full outer region of my mouth in broad smiles beginning to end. So many of the situatons , experiences and familiar Chicago locations brought vivid pictures to mind. I’ve re-read parts of it quite a few times over many years when in need of a head-clearing and, although meditation is a good thing, namaste to all, incense and bronze chimes can’t compare. John, if you haven’t already, please do. You’re welcome in advance.

  3. Strongly put article Mr Hickey. However, as a proud graduate of Rutgers University [which has it’a own PC issues] I must point out that ” …that atrocious Rutgers squad…” is now 3-0! Go Scarlet Knights!

  7. Thanks Pat for calling out NU and putting their feet to the fire. Let’s not forget the weak Chicago media gleefully piling on and fueling the calls for his head. Never, did I see any calls for evidence nor did I see any real evidence that he did anything wrong.

  8. As late as last year I still went through all the trouble to find NU football games on TV. Big Ten Network, ESPN 2, local channel? I felt the frustration was worth it to watch and wish for a NU win. Now, I’m still searching with frustration to find their game, but now to gleefully watch them fail.

    Btw, if Coach Fitz didn’t see any of the abuse but should have, doesn’t the same hold true for NU’s President?

  9. Thank you Mr Hickey for your excellent article on what was once a great university long long ago. As a famous Chicagoan, who graduated from NU, non practicing lawyer once said: “ anytime Northwestern is in the news, it usually lowers the value of my diploma”.
    Coach Fitzgerald was the most valuable ambassador to this university and because of administrative ineptitude on all levels, he was railroaded. No due process. That ineptitude will cost the university much of its valuable endowment.
    Some of us older N men are doing our best to show support to the coaches and players who chose to stay with a university that does not support them. The sad thing is that many of our younger N men brothers who are working and supporting their families are hesitant to show their support because of fear of cancel culture.
    Come to the tailgates and see the support for Fitz.
    Again thank you

    2. On a side note – it’s a shame that a university’s future is linked to a successful football program. In case anyone is wondering, football is a ‘celebrity’ vocation: this means an artificially-small number of participants amount to anything, while the rest are nothing. Most degrees (at least STEM degrees) don’t work that way – the more the merrier. Also, people who pursue degrees make more contributions to society than people who pursue football.

      It’s too bad universities in general won’t cancel football and link their future instead to their degree programs. Perhaps that’s not their fault, but the alumni’s – we’ll give money because of the football team, not because a graduate gets a Nobel prize. Losing football-status might be more of a blessing than a curse.

      1. I must disagree with that last. When I was in HS in the 70s I knew a few fellow athletes who knew that their only real chance at a college education was via an athletic scholarship or joining the service. Many others [and I’ve seen HUNDREDS more in my 30 years of teaching] stayed in school and earned diplomas because they wanted badly to play HS sports. The glory [never the memories] fade but the knowledge they obtained as a means to an end [both on the field and in class] still serves them.

  11. Perfect Pat!! NW and it’s host city made the left turn years ago and continue their woke ideology!! They can’t afford reparations to blacks, yet will tax the crap of those chumbolones left behind, as they allow NW free pass. They don’t deserve to get the new arena built!! But that’s just me…

  13. Mr Hickey, I couldn’t have said it better. I’m an NU alumni who transferred after two years. During my time, entry to football games was free to students. Nobody attended the games and the team posted no victories. The student experience was sorely lacking. In 1996, when NU beat Notre Dame, won the Big 10 and played in the Rose Bowl, we all felt great. Coach Fitz, was, is and will be a class act, wherever he coaches. NU doesn’t deserve a guy like that. He is on to bigger things and we wish him well.

  15. Thanks for your words.
    When ants break wind. Too funny.
    The voice of a few now reign. It’s become easy to destroy someone on feelings.
    Woke needs to go broke. Many are tired and fed up with them.
    Will it be fun to watch Northwestern’s feet held to the fire? You bet.

  16. Thank you Pat for shining the light on the travesty in how the NU administration treated Coach Fitz. Not sure I have met a finer man nor one who has had the best interests of his student athletes, their families and our Alma mater at the forefront of his thinking for his entire career. I couldn’t sum it up better than Steven Shust: “Coach Fitzgerald was the most valuable ambassador to this university and because of administrative ineptitude on all levels, he was railroaded. No due process. That ineptitude will cost the university much of its valuable endowment.”

    As the proud father of three sons who are Loyola Academy graduates, I am rooting even harder this fall for the Ramblers and their volunteer coach!

    Greetings to all his from Greece. JK the homeland of your ancestors is everything you have described in your writing over the years and more! We are amazed by everyone and everything!

  17. I jumped over the fence and escaped to Texas four years ago. I’ve learned much about college football since. Texas A and M are big here. Probably since there are many grads of the school here working the ranches nearby. Certainly most of our pet doctors are successful graduates. As a Texas A/M game was on the TV at our crowded local drinking establishment I commented to my wife that Chicago had no real college sport scene. There are college bars in Chicago but not for any Chicago colleges. Northwestern was getting close, maybe even building a new stadium/ sports facility thanks to their football program. Not anymore. Just like everything the Wokesters touch, this plan has gone to shit. Deservedly so. Northwestern would rather cut off their foot than learn to walk with a limp. Northwestern would rather lose any revenue a sport/concert venue would earn than offend the Wokesters temporarily attending that school. Northwestern makes its bills from its inflated tuition. It doesn’t need any extemporaneous funding. Texas thrives. Texas graduates thrive here. Most don’t leave after they graduate. Texas, according to a recent article in the Houston Chronicle is the most “stickiest state” for people staying after college. We spoke to a woman from Hammond Indiana who married a man from here. They’re doing quite well, he’s a Texan, A/M graduate, employed in the energy industry. Although she loves it here she stated when her kids grew up she was moving back to Indiana to be with her family. I told her if her kids were being raised here they would be coming back. They’re Texans. Not Southerners. Not Rednecks. Texans. Call a Texan anything else and you might want to start running. People here support their college teams because they live here. Northwestern has always been a school of elite transient students. No one in Chicago cares for its sport programs because no one from Chicago goes there. That school, just like Chicago depends on paying its bills by passing the bill on to its consumers. Pass the bill to the customer. Let the customer pay more. Not that any monies earned aren’t siphoned away from the school, but there are residual effects on local businesses. Maybe a few locals, students might get jobs or benefit from a new stadium. Elites don’t need this. Not at Northwestern. Just like everything the Woke touches turns to shit so does their sport programs. No Chicago sport scene. Maybe Loyola’s basketball has a good season. Maybe..

  18. Beautifully written. It such a pleasure to have ones mind expanded with his words. Mr. Hickey’s writing is a lost art.
    I’m a grad of Loyola Academy and University. I never understood what football does for ones mind. The purpose of education is enlightment and TO TEACH YOU HOW TO THINK.
    AND TO SEEK TRUTH.
    I found the football students at LA to be knuckle dragging, elitist, mean, buffoon a holes who were given passing grades because of what they did on the field not in the class room. Most came from wealthy North Shore families that donated mega bucks to the school. They all seemed to get good grades. Hmmmmmm. Must be just a coincidence, huh. Loyola U had no football team. U of C dropped theirs long ago. Did that deprive one of a meaningful college education? Nope. Besides football is no longer a game. It’s a violent business that destroys bodies, ie CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Think Steve McMichael, etc, etc, etc. You are congratulated on how hard you hit someone, meaning inflicting pain, suffering, serious physical injury. I don’t get it. I was/am big and played sports. Broke bones, lost teeth etc with hockey, football, etc. Looking back on it: it was worthless. It didn’t teach me to be a better person, or write well, or practice my profession of medicine.
    Finally, the coach is the captain of the ship. He goes down with it no matter what caused it to sink. He should have resigned whether he knew or not. If what is stated happened then he should have known! When I was running for re election for coroner I screwed up some petition sheets by signing sheets in which I didn’t witness the signings. I thought I could do that. Eighteen States allow the candidate to sign. When they were challenged I didn’t fight it when I found out it wasn’t allowed. I withdrew from the race as the Democratic candidate.
    Enough for now.

    1. One more note for Mr. Hickey
      Northwestern Medical Center and medical school are WORSE than Evanston Northwestern! I also refuse to use University.
      The medical center has one of the largest gender mauling/maiming depts in the nation. Most funded by the fat gutted/assed Pricksters. The medical students are threatened to strictly adhere to the woke teachings. If they don’t they are severely punished. Not getting letters of reference or blacklisted.

    2. I’ve been involved in local elections. So I know about the rules in regard to nominating petitions. You were criminally prosecuted for a clerical error … in essence “pay back” for your courageous stand in publicly exposing the Joseph Gliniewicz fiasco. This undoubtedly was a major embarrassment to local law enforcement. The fact that our fat, useless POS Governor did not have the balls to right this egregious wrong, just shows everyone who Guv. Pritzker really is.

      1. Bruce
        Thank you for the kind comment. Yes the Gliniewicz case was a big factor but there were 3 other cases that embarrassed the corrupt Lake County political/judiciary/law enforcement establishment especially the Melissa Calusinski case. She was framed for the murder of 16 month old child. I reviewed the case and proved beyond doubt she was innocent. She’s still in jail. Google CBS 4HRS ‘Blaming Melissa’. On a another note regarding GI Joe Gliniewicz, I’d like to thank John Kass who helped me break the case. John wrote a defense of me back then. This column shook up law enforcement in Lake County. The FBI got involved. TFBI agreed with my findings and got the evidence to prove it. The FBI then went to the major crime task force of lake county and told them: ‘the doc is right. Here’s the evidence. If you don’t go along with this we will be announcing your arrest for obstruction of justice.
        Finally, I ve gone to Illinois pardon review twice: July, 2019 and April 2023. Both times I got full clemency. Both times Jumbo Boy has blocked my pardon. Honesty does not play well with Democrats. I m known as a troublemaker, i.e., for being too honest. I can’t be controlled or trusted to ‘help out’.

  19. “One wonders if that clapping noise wafting over the waves of Lake Michigan just might be the echoes of Northwestern donor checkbooks slapping shut.”

    That sentence just misses what’s really happening there. Like Deepthroat said to Woodward and Bernstein, “follow the money.” No Pat Fitzgerald = lousy football = no more sold out games = no need for a new stadium = more money for other university departments.

    It wouldn’t surprise me one bit to learn that some marxist professor threatened to fail the complaining player(s) if they didn’t find a way to denounce Fitzgerald.

  20. Excellent work Mr. Hickey. Your students were lucky to have you for a teacher. The poisonously woke culture that has stripped Chicago is bad enough Pat, but I just wished those who propagate this bilge actually believed it. It’s a con that’s being used to grab power.

    Those at the top who call the shots don’t believe any of this bullshit. It’s used to divide us and keep us arguing so they can rob us blind.

    Covid
    Ukraine
    Energy policy
    Military industrial complex

    It’s all to further the grift, and the grifters get larger with each new one.

    The savings and loan debacle started it, the democrats saw how easy it was, took the ball and ran with it.

    They brutalize their own constituents for profit

  24. Beautifully written, Mr. Hickey. You truly have a gift.

    But I got to disagree with some of what you said in regard to NU. I don’t often agree with Thomas Rudd but in this case I do. First “boys will be boys” and the locker room is no place for girls. True. But if some of the stories alleged are true, then this is beyond the pale and simply cannot be justified no matter what. I mean some of these alleged incidents are perverted … and would be deemed as such even before the dawn of wokeism. So I agree with Dr. Rudd: “Finally, the coach is the captain of the ship. He goes down with it no matter what caused it to sink. He should have resigned whether he knew or not. If what is stated happened then he should have known!”

    Second, “due process” is a foundational, constitutional bedrock, but that does not apply to private entities such as NU. In this case the applicable “law” will be contractual. I know you likely realize that.

    Third, I spent four years in post graduate medical education at NU: residencies in Internal Medicine and Anesthesiology. And I am reasonably certain that what Dr. Rudd says is true: the woke contagion has infected the medical school – as it has medical schools across the country – as much as it has infected the Evanston campus. To think otherwise is simply wishful thinking.

  26. Question:
    Pat Hickey sez (in part): “Locker rooms are no places for weaklings. But they can be breeding grounds for monsters like … the woman’s trainer at the University of Michigan…”
    So… are you talking about the gymnastics doctor (now rotting away in prison) at Michigan *State*who preyed on girls/women (including Olympic athletes!), or the athletics doctor (now deceased) at *Michigan*, who primarily preyed on men?
    Tough to say which is worse between the two, but I wasn’t sure which one you meant.

  27. I was in agreement with this article, until he included Joe Paterno. Paterno turned in Jerry Sandusky to the woke Penn State administration, which did nothing. Paterno was loved by the student body, of which my daughter was included. Paterno was a Republican, hence the outrage.

  30. So glad this was written. There are so many despicable actions Northwestern has taken in the past and Pat only mentioned a few of the dozens. Hard for me to believe that a 6 foot plus football player was picked on and took it in stride. So many years later he is crying wolf? I guess failure eats at you and then you need to have someone to blame other than yourself. Now all those that are looking for paydays will come out of the ant hills and go for the dollars. Northwestern has a lot of dollars. Maybe the “Center for Innocence” will step up and take on Pat Fitzgerald as a client. I hope he goes for the dollars.

  31. Pat, Change of subject I know, but I would be interested in your take on the new SoLa development project starting in Michigan City. Is there an entity that is watching out for the best interests of the residents? Watched New Buffalo hand their town to Chicago people and think going down same route. Thoughts?

    1. Plenty. I think this is one giant boondoggle. The SOShore station parking lot ( 600 slots) will become the nation’s largest homeless shelter. FIPS ai’nt coming to low-income housing City. No how and no way. MC is not New Buffalo. It is Kankakee-lite.

      Our town leaders are not visionaries, They react. One young man impresses me -Socrates Gray and he is running for the 6th Council. Keep an eye on him, Joan.

      1. BTW _ Joan The News Disgrace and the local radio is as in the tank for local grifters as the Chicago papers. NO one is looking out for the great people of Michigan City.

  32. Thanks for this article. I would ask you to rethink the medical center as being not involved in the leftist culture
    Specifically I refer to the tribune op ed section from 9/18.
    A northwestern Med student and public health student wrote about the attacks on ‘reproductive health’.
    This is how medical students and residents are being taught.
    What do you think?

  33. Just reread this one. This comment by Epstein upon approaching 70 years really grabbed me this time.
    “I find myself more impressed by the mysteries of life and more certain that most of the interesting questions it poses have no persuasive answers, or at least none likely to arrive before I depart the planet.”
    At just shy of 72, it really struck a chord with me. I guess we will only have the true answers when we meet the Lord upon our ultimate exit.

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