Family accuses Northwestern University of discriminating against national origin, leading to Chinese professor’s suicide

Jane Y. Wu, a Chinese-American professor who taught at Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University, committed suicide in July last year after being investigated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the school. Her family recently filed a lawsuit in court, accusing Northwestern University of discriminating against her original Chinese nationality and gender, and claiming that the school’s actions ultimately led her to commit suicide. The family is now asking the court for compensatory and punitive damages, accusing the school of violating basic rights protected by state law.

The estate of the late Professor Jane Wu filed a civil lawsuit against Northwestern University in the Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois on June 23. The family accused the school of revoking her research opportunities and resources based on her Chinese birth background.

The complaint further alleges that Northwestern University also discriminated against Wu Ying on the basis of gender, saying: “The male-dominated administrative system of the defendant Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has benefited male peers who competed with Wu Ying for funding.”

In addition to other allegations such as discrimination against people with disabilities and violations of the code of conduct, the plaintiffs also claimed that Northwestern University violated the Illinois Human Rights Act in its treatment of Wu Ying.

Northwestern University’s newspaper, the Northwestern Daily, asked the school for a response, and a spokesperson responded that the school “does not comment on ongoing litigation.”

Wu Ying has served as an endowed professor at the Feinberg School of Medicine for more than a decade, and her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

According to the complaint, since 2019, NIH has been investigating her for her ties to Chinese institutions. In recent years, federal research funding agencies have conducted strict scrutiny on scholars with ties to China. The Trump administration launched the China Initiative in 2018, claiming that it was aimed at addressing the multiple threats posed by the Chinese government.

However, the initiative has raised concerns that it fosters prejudice and discrimination. Matthew G. Olsen, then Assistant Attorney General for National Security, said in a speech at the George Mason University National Security Institute in February 2022 that the initiative was intended to focus on “multiple threats from the Chinese government,” but also raised concerns about “narratives of intolerance and prejudice.”

The Biden administration terminated the China Initiative in 2022.

According to the complaint, Northwestern University banned Wu Ying from applying for new NIH grants in October 2020 and began to reallocate her existing research funds.

Although the NIH eventually ended its investigation and allowed her to resume her research, the school revoked her laboratory space and disbanded her research team. The complaint alleges that these actions caused her to suffer from “emotional disorders.”

In May 2024, Professor Wu was forcibly taken away from the laboratory by Northwestern University police and Chicago police and sent to the psychiatric ward of Northwestern Memorial Hospital for treatment. The lawsuit pointed out that the family was not consulted during this process.

The South China Morning Post published an investigative report on Wu Ying’s death at the end of last year, stating that Wu Ying had previously served as a senior consultant researcher at the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is not clear whether this was the direct reason for the NIH to launch an investigation. The NIH official website shows that Wu Ying’s last NIH-funded project was “The Role of Mitochondria in TDP-43 Proteinopathy”. The project, which started in 2018 and ended in 2022, received a total of 3.03 million yuan in funding.

Wu Ying committed suicide at home on July 10 last year, and her personal homepage on the website of the university where Wu Ying worked for nearly 20 years also disappeared, and the published articles and funding records were also deleted.

Born in 1963, Wu Ying went to the United States after graduating from Shanghai Medical University in 1986 and received a Ph.D. in tumor biology from Stanford University in 1991. In 1994, she completed postdoctoral training at Harvard University, and then worked as an assistant professor, associate professor and professor at Washington University in St. Louis and Vanderbilt University. In 2005, she joined Northwestern University School of Medicine and taught there until her death.