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NEWS: University Experiences Increase in Email Phishing Attempts

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MARCH 28, 2024

SECOND WEEK VOL. 136, ISSUE 12

eva mccord and annabel shen .

NEWS: UChicago Facing $4.95 Million Settlement Payout Over COVID-19 Tuition Lawsuit

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MIGRANT: Uncovering UChicago’s History with Migrant and Refugee Communities

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ARTS: In Richard III, Man, Machine, Humor, and Tyranny

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SPORTS: Culture Meets Community in UChicago’s Backyard With Kit Swap

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Graduate Workers and University Reach First-Ever Tentative Agreement

By NIKHIL JAISWAL | Co-Editor-in-Chief Emeritus

Graduate Students United–United Electrical (GSU-UE) has reached a tentative collective bargaining agreement with the University, the union announced on Wednesday, March 6. The agreement comes nearly four weeks after the Union signaled its willingness to strike over a perceived lack of movement from the University on the topic of a contract.

GSU-UE, which the University recognized last year after two recognition votes and nearly 17 years of organizing, has been negotiating its first contract with the administration since last May.

The new agreement contains a number of major boons for graduate student workers, including an increased minimum funding rate, increased childcare stipends, and the ability to involve the union in discrimination and abuse of authority complaints.

In an email to members of the University community on March 7, Provost Katherine Baicker said the agreement reflected the University’s “significant ongoing commitment to and investment in our graduate programs, and the recognition of the important teaching and research that graduate students do at the University while pursuing their degrees.”

In terms of compensation, the agree -

ment raises the minimum stipend for Ph.D. students to $41,000 starting July 1 and to $45,000 on October 1, with 3-percent increases to come in each of the next two years.

The agreement also stipulates a $19 minimum hourly wage, a value also set to increase by 2.5 percent each year over the same period. Graduate students making more than the stipend minimum will receive an increase in wage of 2.5 percent on July 1, October 1, and annually for the next two years.

The agreement also contains a number of additional annual payments for Ph.D. students conducting teaching or research, including $300 for dental care, $225 for retirement savings, $100 for vision care, and $100 for transportation. Additionally, graduate students serving as research or teaching assistants are guaranteed funding for the quarter if their position is canceled at any point.

Beyond compensation, the union secured a number of long-sought policy stipulations, including union representation in Title IX hearings and the right for members to involve the union in cases of discrimination and abuse of authority.

Based on the summary released by the union, GSU-UE was unable to secure the addition of caste and political

views, a point of focus for negotiators, in the contract’s non-discrimination guarantees.

Before being enforced, the agreement between the University and GSUUE must be ratified by a full vote of the

union’s membership. GSU-UE is planning to hold a contract ratification vote meeting on March 25.

Nurses’ Union Reach New Contract With UCM, Call Off Strike

By TIFFANY LI | Deputy News Editor

In a vote on March 12 and 13, National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU) voted to ratify a new contract with the UChicago Medical Center (UCM). The new contract was reached after NNOC/NNU announced their plan to strike on March 14, which was called off due to a tentative contract agreement being reached with UCM on March 11.

The four-year contract will address issues surrounding staffing and safety

concerns and will involve wage increases “from 20 percent up to 40 percent over the life of the contract,” according to a March 15 press release by NNOC/NNU.

“We are so proud of what we have been able to accomplish for our patients with this new contract,” said NNOC/ NNU nurse Pam Valentine in the press release. “This contract includes numerous provisions that we believe will translate into better recruitment and retention of experienced nurses who are

critical in providing the highest quality of care to our patients. In addition, we have new processes in place to address the chronic understaffing that has led to many nurses leaving UChicago.”

NNOC/NNU represents 2,800 nurses employed by UCM in all three of its Hyde Park-based hospitals as well as in its other healthcare facilities. The union has been in negotiations with UCM since September 2023. They reached 26 tentative agreements, each on an individual issue, before reaching this comprehensive agreement.

In a March 11 press release posted to NNOC/NNU’s website, bargaining team member and registered nurse Stephanie Gamboa said, “Our decision to call a strike forced management to address a number of our outstanding demands at the bargaining table.”

Before the strike had been called off, both UCM and NNOC/NNU told the Maroon that they wanted to avoid a strike.

Jason Smith, who has worked in the adult emergency department and been a member of the nurses’ union for 14 years,

Members of GSU-UE at a rally on the quad. nathaniel rodwell-simon

“Nobody wins in a strike. The patients suffer, we suffer, the hospital suffers, which is why we’ve been working for months to get our voices heard...”

Eric M. Heath Talks Campus Safety, Security Alerts, and Changes to the Lyft Program

By AMY MA | Senior News Reporter

In an interview with the Maroon, Associate Vice President for Safety and Security Eric M. Heath discussed recent initiatives in campus safety and transportation undertaken by the Department of Safety and Security (DSS). Heath also addressed the University’s security notification system and the University of Chicago Police Department’s (UCPD) involvement in arresting student protestors on November 9.

Campus Safety Improvements

According to Heath, UCPD’s resources are spread across three geographic areas: the University campus, the Medical Center campus, and an Extended Patrol Area which stretches from East 37th Street to East 65th Street, bounded by Washington Park on the west and Lake Shore Drive on the east. Heath described the off-campus jurisdiction as a “supporting patroller re-

sponsibility in this huge extended patrol area which geographically dwarfs most, if not all, private institutional patrol areas.”

In terms of recent changes in crime rates around campus, Heath is cautiously positive. “Crime is cyclical. There are a lot of reasons that it goes up or down on a year-to-year basis. But what I can tell you is, if you compare our past initiatives to what we’re doing right now, it has significantly changed,” Heath said. “Through today, in 2024, we have seen in our patrol area pretty sizable reductions in some of the violent crime.”

He attributes these reductions to ongoing initiatives to improve UCPD’s capacity. “Since 2021, we have more police officers on the street; we have significantly more security presence in and around our campus, as well as in our extended patrol area,”

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spoke with the Maroon in an interview.

“Nobody wins in a strike,” Smith said. “The patients suffer, we suffer, the hospital suffers, which is why we’ve been working for months… to get our voices heard about the issues we’ve been having with safety. And the last thing we wanted to do is strike. We do want to make sure that we are there for our patients. We are the best ones that are capable of taking care of them.”

UCM expressed a similar sentiment in a statement to the Maroon before the agreement had been reached.

“To be clear, no one wins in a strike,” UCM’s statement said. “Not our nurses, not the Medical Center, and certainly not our patients and the South Side community that relies on us for care. We all

know the real work of reaching a contract is accomplished at the bargaining table and hope the union agrees to more bargaining dates in March.”

UCM also emphasized its quality of care and spoke to efforts addressing staffing shortages.

“Patient care and safety are UCM’s top priority,” the statement continued. “We are repeatedly recognized as among the safest hospitals in the nation, and recently received our 24th consecutive A grade in safety from the prestigious, independent Leapfrog Group. We’ve developed new processes to make sure we’re continuing to work collaboratively with nurses to develop staffing plans to meet patients’ needs, in real time.”

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Members of National Nurses United demonstrate outside of the University of Chicago Medical Center in Hyde Park. courtesy of national nurses united

“Heath highlighted how the dissemination of information often influences public sentiment about campus safety.”

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Heath said.

Staffing changes are a central part of the DSS’s improvement strategy. “For years, in our staffing mode, we have just been idly focused on this core group of police officers and security… but we really hadn’t looked at the staffing model and adapted it to address [challenges in] those core three areas,” Heath said. “What we are really focusing on is increasing our police staff.”

The Medical Center campus is a particular target for these expansions. The DSS recently created a designated precinct with additional police department leadership and staffing in the Children’s Hospital and the Adult Emergency Room Department. These staff increases allow UCPD to “address some of the daily challenges of the hospital without really drawing away from the extended patrol area or the University campus over the next few years.” Heath suggests that additional expansion of the medical center coverage is possible, depending on “budgetary needs” and “what [UCPD feels] is appropriate in the hospital area.”

In the extended patrol area outside of UCPD’s primary responsibilities, Heath foresees a mild increase in staffing. “Rather than doubling our policing in the extended patrol area, we were actually focusing more on building for the medical center precinct, and then increasing our Community Safety Ambassadors in the extended patrol area,” Heath said. Campus Safety Ambassadors are security officers that the University contracts from Allied Universal Security, a private security and staffing provider.

Pay and benefits for these staff increases are negotiated through the UCPD officers’ union.

Other than staffing, technology is another focus of UCPD’s initiatives. The University’s campus already has an established surveillance system, with “thousands of cameras and license plate readers” monitored by UCPD. However, these strengths are not reflected in the surrounding area. “The problem off-campus has been that there really is a lack of technology,” Heath said.

Heath held conversations with local aldermen and the City of Chicago to address these shortages. Subsequently, the University has donated an unspecified amount of money to the City of Chicago to increase camera and license plate reader coverage in UCPD’s extended patrol area.

Alongside infrastructural improvements, Heath mentions the opportunity for more cooperation between UCPD and the Chicago Police Department. “And as a result of a newly executed Memorandum of Understanding with those two agencies, DSS and the City of Chicago actually have direct connections,” Heath said. “For the public-facing cameras, we have the ability to share that intelligence and monitor some of that intelligence in real time.”

Existing technologies may also be optimized for new strategic directions. “One of the initiatives was really to add some staff to actively monitor the technology. In the past, we were using technology reactively rather than proactively and being able to drive intelligence to the field,” Heath said.

Email Notification System

Under the Cleary Act, the University is legally required to inform members of the University “in the event of a significant emergency or dangerous situation on campus involving an immediate threat to the health of students, faculty, staff, postdoctoral researchers, or other academic appointees.” DSS distributes these notifications using the University’s cAlert system, and subscription to these email alerts is mandatory for all members of the campus community, including students, staff, faculty, and other affiliates.

Prior to 2018, the University used the same cAlert system to report a subset of off-campus crimes deemed “relevant in some way to the community,” according to Heath. The system was integrated in such a way that off-campus alerts couldn’t be separated out from the required security alerts. Thus, every member of the University received email notifications of select off-campus crimes.

“When I took over in 2016, you would not believe the amount of negative feedback [from people] who were force-fed information about off-campus crime…

We had a lot of people [who] complained about it and begged to be taken out of it. But I couldn’t because the two systems were joined up.”

In response to such feedback, DSS introduced an opt-in system in 2018. Rather than reporting a “subjective” subset of off-campus crimes, Heath explains that the opt-in system reports “all of these crimes that fall under certain categories that are reported to the UCPD in the extended patrol area.” Additionally, students can opt into a Daily Crime Bulletin that summarizes all serious crimes reported that day. DSS has also continued to maintain a crime log on their website, as mandated by the Cleary Act.

In addition to its voluntary structure and expanded coverage, the opt-in system focuses more on distributing “patterns of information.” Heath believes that this shift is beneficial. “When you have patterns, you can give a better and more distinct modus operandi, you can give a little more distinct information about the potential vehicles that’s being used in rela-

tion to these patterns.”

Heath acknowledges that the email notification system may undergo some improvements in the coming years. “We are still under discussion about whether or not we will change those parameters or change the modality in which we send out that information.” Nevertheless, the fundamental structure of the opt-in system for off-campus crimes is unlikely to change. “[We want to] make sure that we’re giving people the choice of what they get, rather than force feeding it to them,” Heath said.

While discussing the security alert system, Heath highlighted how the dissemination of information often influences public sentiment about campus safety. “We had a lot of people talk about how bad October was in 2023… but when you compare robberies in 2023, we really weren’t very much different than 2017. So what really has changed over the last 10 years is how much information is available to people,” Heath said.

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Eric M. Heath. courtesy of university of chicago.

“Via would provide more benefits and freedom to students by removing the current limit that restricts users to seven Lyft rides per month.”

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Transportation

When the University first launched the Lyft RideSmart Program in 2021, Heath envisioned it as “a late-night complement for the time of day when shuttles really weren’t being ridden very much, and it was costing the University a lot of money per shuttle.”

However, the popularity of such a service soon became clear to Heath. “[After] getting a lot of student feedback around how successful and how well liked a pointto-point service is, we all agreed that having a myriad [of] options for transportation was the right thing to do.”

Confirming that a point-to-point service is here to stay, Heath explained that the DSS has been exploring alternative providers to Lyft.

A primary motivation behind this switch is the high cost of the current program. “Because we don’t charge students a transportation fee like some schools do, our transportation budget is somewhat limited. And you can imagine the cost and expense of a single occupancy ride, for about $10 a ride, offering that to 17,000 students,” said Heath.

Via has emerged as a likely candidate for this replacement. Heath explained that a switch to Via would provide more benefits and freedom to students by removing the current limit that restricts users to seven Lyft rides per month. Heath praised Via’s successful collaborations with municipality public transportation systems and other universities, including Harvard, Columbia, and Northwestern.

Moreover, Via would address environmental concerns about the Lyft program’s “dependency on single-occupancy vehicles.” “[Via] is an opportunity to move away from single occupancy, so they’d still be a shared ride system, but with small passenger vans or larger SUVs rather than 30-passenger shuttle systems,” said Heath.

Via will also allow the DSS to hire more drivers, which aligns with the University’s mission to bolster local economic opportunity. “With Lyft, there’s no guarantee that your drivers will come from a local area. And our president, our leadership, was very passionate about whatever kind of contracts we’re bringing as a university, that we’re having a positive impact on the local communities,” said Heath. “The beauty of something like Via is that they will work with us and work with the University on its hiring goals and hiring in the South Side community.”

While no final decision has been made, Heath suggests that any change would be made late in the summer in preparation for fall 2024. “The beauty of [Via] is that it is hugely flexible, it can be set up in a variety of different ways,” Heath said. “Assuming that we go with a solution like Via, we will make sure that we’re engaging with the students and the users so that we’re getting feedback about what students would want from it.”

In addition to a point-to-point car service, Heath also expressed the DSS’s commitment to improving other campus transportation options, such as the UGo shuttle system. While he acknowledg-

es student feedback about reducing the lengthy wait times between shuttles, he believes that “the problem with that is the ridership really doesn’t support that. And in fact, since the pandemic, we’ve actually lost ridership in the shuttle system.”

Nevertheless, the DSS is working with an independent transportation expert company to explore how they can enhance services or structurally change routes. Due to planning, logistical, and communication challenges, these improvements would take until fall 2025 to implement.

“A lot of these things take a long time. Especially with public transportation, you might imagine between supply chain issues or just hiring the right people, these are not overnight solutions. So we were very upfront with leadership and with anybody that would ask that these are multiyear phased-in projects and solutions to enhance the overall public safety system that we have,” Heath said.

Arrest of Protestors on Campus

Although the DSS’s main responsibilities fall under safety and transportation, they also assist the University in monitoring campus protest activities. On November 9, 2023, UCPD arrested 28 protestors from UChicago United for Palestine (UCUP), who were engaged in a sit-in at Rosenwald Hall to call for divestment of the University’s investments from weapons manufacturers supplying Israel.

According to Heath, UCPD had the right to arrest the protestors under University policies and procedures. “The reality is it was disruptive conduct that vio-

lated our policies and procedures. Those individuals were given every opportunity to leave throughout the day, and once it was determined that the building was closed for normal business, the University leadership made that decision,” Heath said.

Heath was asked about why that intervention differed from the decision to allow student protestors affiliated with #CareNotCops to stay overnight in UCPD’s headquarters in Drexel Hall in 2020. “The reason that distinction was made was that during the time of COVID, Drexel [Hall] had no occupants other than police. And it really wasn’t much of a disruption. So the decision was made by University leadership at the time that we will allow this to continue, given the circumstances, and given what was being demonstrated against. Fast forward to 2023, and the circumstances are quite different in the fact that everybody’s back to full operations.”

DSS maintains a crime log on their website. Students can also opt into a Daily Crime Bulletin that summarizes all serious crimes reported that day. Additionally, the Maroon has launched a UCPD Incident Reporter, which aims to “paint a more nuanced picture of incidents reported to UCPD and highlight any patterns that may exist within the incident data.”

Members of the community are welcomed to submit comments and feedback to the Public Safety Advisory Council through this form. “We always appreciate feedback,” Heath said.

SEIU Local 73 Sends Alivisatos Petition for Fair Contract

By GABRIEL KRAEMER | Senior News Reporter

Members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73, the union representing skilled facilities workers at the University, delivered a petition to University President Paul Alivisatos on January 31 calling for a fair contract and expressing willingness to strike amid ongoing negotiations be -

tween the two parties.

“We, the members of SEIU Local 73, work hard to keep the University running,” the members wrote in the petition.

“Our work keeps the University safe for students, faculty, and staff. But without adequate staffing, the safety of our university community is at risk.”

Building refrigeration engineer Tom Wright, the union steward for the Booth School of Business and a member of Local 73’s bargaining committee, told the Maroon that staffing issues were key to the union’s demands in the petition. “The big issue is staffing and our issues attracting new talent,” he said. “We have an aging workforce. And that’s a real concern, because we’re hitting a point where we’re

losing people faster than we’re getting them.”

Wright said the University needed to offer better pay and funding for worker training to address staffing challenges. “We’re looking for pay commensurate with attracting new talent and the retention of that talent, and part of the retention would [include] adequate training

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“Doing more with less seems like it has become a model for the University. And unfortunately, we’re losing people due to that.”

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levels,” he said. “We’re looking for more vocational, technical training to get current members like new hires up to speed as well as progress the skill set of current employees.”

“We are not competitive with what’s out in the market right now for what we’re doing in this industry,” Wright said. “We had an issue here in [the Charles M. Harper Center] where we were down a guy for almost a year and trying to recruit someone for that role was very challenging. Not only was it hard getting the number of applicants, but the ones that we did get in were far below the qualifications we wanted. A lot of that goes back to the pay that we have.”

Joe Pruim, the president of the UChicago unit of SEIU Local 73, told the Maroon that without changes, Facilities Services faces long-term issues. “We asked the University, on one of our bargaining items, we wanted to have a training differential—if someone comes and wants to be a carpenter, and they’re not up to speed on everything, if I have to do my original job and train them, we were asking for a differential on that. That was denied by the University,” he said. “It’s just become a status quo problem. Doing more with less seems like it has become a model for the University. And unfortunately, we’re losing people due to that.”

“We are skilled craftsmen,” he added. “You do not find skilled craftsmen in the bargain rack.”

Other University employees, includ-

ing collegiate assistant professors and non-tenure-track faculty, also fall under the Local 73 umbrella but bargain separately from Facilities Services workers. Skilled trades workers represented by SEIU are still operating under a contract that formally expired in October. As negotiations stretched into this calendar year, SEIU agreed to use a federal mediator at the University’s request. The parties plan to meet next on February 26.

“The University is negotiating in good faith with SEIU Local 73, which represents 150 employees in the Facilities Services bargaining unit,” the University wrote in a statement to the Maroon. “As we have done in the past, both parties agreed to utilize the services of a federal mediator to help reach mutually agreeable terms for a successor collective bargaining agreement. We are deeply grateful for the contributions of Facilities Services employees to the work of the University, and we look forward to working constructively on a contract that will benefit employees and serve the University community.”

According to Wright, the University has proposed a 11.5 percent pay increase over four years, compared with 13 percent increases for two other trade unions. The University did not respond to a request to confirm those offers. Pruim and Wright also noted that SEIU—unlike other trade unions at the University—helps provide funding for employees’ healthcare plans, making nominal comparisons in pay scales misleading. “You could be look-

ing at an 8 percent increase in healthcare costs,” Wright said. “These other trade groups have fully funded healthcare; they’re not seeing that increase. So when the University compares us to them, it is not apples to apples.”

The union managed to secure prescription safety glasses in the latest negotiations, but to Pruim, it was a hollow victory. “I cannot even understand at what point a safety item is a benefit,” he said. “It should be a necessity.”

“A big component of this petition was not just bringing these issues to [Alivi-

satos’s] door, but also showing that we stand in solidarity,” Wright said. “We have many different bargaining units, trade shops under our group, but we all support each other. That was the big message that we wanted to send: we are a unified group. And we are willing to fight for what’s right.”

Pruim said SEIU had not received any response to the petition from the University.

UChicago Facing $4.95 Million Settlement Payout Over COVID-19 Tuition Lawsuit

By TIFFANY LI | Deputy News Editor

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, granted preliminary approval in December 2023 for a $4.95 million settlement on a class action lawsuit that, if given final approval, would require the University to disburse cash awards of at least $25 to all students enrolled at any time from January 1 to the end of spring quarter in 2020. A hearing will be held April 10 to decide whether to give the settlement final approval.

Named plaintiffs Arica Kincheloe and Alexander Castro brought the class action lawsuit against the University of Chicago. The lawsuit argues that students are entitled to refunds from the University because they received remote instruction during the pandemic but still paid as much tuition they would

have for in-person instruction, with only a reduction in the Student Services Fee from $446 per quarter to $125 per quarter or no charge for students living over 50 miles from Hyde Park.

If the settlement passes, members of the settlement class would receive cash

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Members of SEIU Local 73 pose for a picture outside of Levi Hall. courtesy of seiu local 73.

“But I think that a global pandemic qualifies as a force majeure, in a moral sense if not a legal one.”

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awards of at least $25 each. The precise value of each award would be proportional to the tuition and fees the student paid during that period.

The deadline to exclude oneself from the settlement class or to object to the settlement was March 11. Those excluding themselves from the settlement class will not receive any cash award from the lawsuit but will reserve the right to file their own lawsuit against the University.

Those in the settlement class were notified of the preliminary approval through an email and through a mailed notice. They were directed to a website providing information about the lawsuit.

In a post on Reddit, some students expressed suspicion over whether the notices were a scam attempt, while others said they thought the amount of the cash award was negligible.

“What’s the big deal? It’s $25. Maybe if it was $2,500, it would be a different story,” one user commented in reply to the post.

The lawsuit was originally filed on May 20, 2020 with Kincheloe the only named plaintiff at the time. Kincheloe, then a graduate student at the School of Social Service Administration and a member of student organization UChicago for Fair Tuition (UCFT), had been vocally opposed to UChicago’s continuing to charge regular tuition despite the fact that students received instruction exclusively online. UCFT advocated freezes and decreases in tuition and fees early on in the pandemic, including through a tuition strike in May 2020 that lasted two and a half weeks.

“Through the lawsuit, myself and members of the campaign are looking for the University to acknowledge and be held accountable for the students it pro -

fesses to support, and generally trying to require UChicago to reimburse students for tuition they paid when they’re not able to fully utilize the services and the quality of education,” Kincheloe told the Maroon in May 2020, after the lawsuit was filed.

The Maroon was unable to contact Kincheloe for comment on the settlement. Castro did not respond to The Maroon ’s request for comment.

John Arnold, a former master’s student at the Divinity School who wrote a letter of objection to the settlement, spoke to The Maroon about why he was objecting.

In a statement to The Maroon, Arnold wrote, “I strongly disagree with this settlement and regret that it is being carried out in my name. I thought the university did a great job of responding to the pandemic… I hated online classes and absolutely agree that they pale in

comparison to in-person instruction. But I think that a global pandemic qualifies as force majeure, in a moral sense if not in a legal one.

“While the University does have a lot of money, its funds are finite, and I think the FIVE MILLION DOLLARS [sic] of this settlement could be better spent on students, or another tenure line in the humanities, or in community outreach.”

Arnold shared the objection letter he wrote and sent to the court with The Maroon. “This is my first experience being part of a class action, and I’m finding it to be as rotten as rumor has it. Lawyers get a payday and the settlement class gets coupons,” he wrote in the objection letter. “But at least I can use my class membership to object and say ‘not in my name.’ I therefore ask the court to reject this settlement.”

University Experiences Increase in Email Phishing Attempts

By NAINA PURUSHOTHAMAN | Senior News Reporter

Since the start of winter quarter, members of the University community have been experiencing an increase in phishing attempts sent to their University email accounts, according to an email in early February from Information Technology Services (ITS). According to a University spokesperson in a statement to The Maroon, there was no specific weakness in the security of student email accounts that led to this increase. The spokesperson attributed the increase to a broader trend affecting other organizations as well.

Phishing is an attempt to gather sensitive information from individuals through email or text. These emails or texts are often disguised as communication from a trusted individual or organization, such as University administrators.

The University does not provide specific information about the number of phishing emails sent to students or the

number of students who have sent their information. However, a list of phishing emails that members of the University community have received can be found on the information security website.

If a student sends their information in response to these phishing attempts, the University’s ITS works with those students individually. Typically, ITS locks the student’s account and uses an anti-malware software called CrowdStrike to eliminate any malware from their systems.

“We use industry-leading email security tools. The majority of phishing emails do not reach students’ inboxes,” the University spokesperson said.

Fourth-year Bridget O’Shea fell victim to one of these phishing emails in February. She received an email from a UChicago account saying that, as a fourth-year, her account would be made inactive in the spring unless she sent her Duo pin number, UCID, and password to

a phone number provided in the email.

“Although I was skeptical of the email, I was stressed that it might be real and I was remarkably tired... so I didn’t stop to think about the now obvious signs that it was not,” O’Shea said. It was 11:30 p.m. when O’Shea read the email. “Additionally, I was fooled by the fact that it came from [what appeared to be] a real UChicago account, [that it] had not been picked up by the spam filter, and that they knew that I was a graduating senior.”

A few days later, O’Shea received a follow-up text asking for more information. “Given that I had more time to think about the email at this point, I began to get suspicious,” O’Shea said.

After seeing that the phone number was from a North Carolina area code and that the person who sent the email was not part of the UChicago Directory, she realized that the email was indeed a scam. O’Shea contacted an on-call IT worker at ITS to fix her account, which she had been locked out of. She described

the IT worker who helped her as “extremely helpful and kind.”

On February 28, ITS sent another email to the University community about an upgrade that will be made to the Duo two-factor authentication service that will include enhanced security features. These changes include a three-digit numeric code instead of push notifications and enhanced authentication verification, in which one will have to provide additional verification if attempting to log into their UChicago account on a non-University virtual private network or VPN.

There are many steps the University recommends to students to protect themselves from phishing attempts, which are featured on the information security website. The University said students who receive a phishing message or who have shared any information should contact the University’s Information Security team by calling (773) 702–2378.

2023 Campus Climate Survey Reports Greater Levels of Harassment Than 2016 Survey

By NIKHIL JAISWAL | Co-Editor-in-Chief Emeritus

On Friday, February 23, the University released the results of the Spring 2023 Campus Climate Survey. The survey asked faculty, staff, and students about their evaluation of their local and the broader campus climate, their sense of belonging, and about any experiences of harassment.

According to the report, the percent of respondents who experienced some form of harassment or discrimination in the 2023 survey grew compared to the 2016 survey. This increase was seen most acutely in general bias discrimination: 27 percent from 16 percent. Respondents from minority and underrepresented groups reported experiencing bias and discrimination at greater rates than their majority peers.

The report detailed respondents’ views of the campus climate across 11 dimensions: racism, sexism, tolerance of people with disabilities, homophobia, religious intolerance, ageism, tolerance of diverse political views, tolerance of national origin, tolerance of socioeconomic status, and tolerance of gender expression.

Groups that were the subject of the intolerance measured by the climate evaluation reported a less tolerant environment than their peers. For example, disabled respondents reported less tolerance for disabilities, older respondents felt there is more ageist than the collective University community, and

non-white respondents perceived the campus environment as more racist than their white peers.

In addition, academics reported greater levels of intolerance of their own identities across all dimensions than students and staff who shared those identities.

The campus community as a whole reported lower levels of intolerance than in the last campus climate survey in 2016, and marginalized groups often reported greater improvements than peers. Since the 2016 report only surveyed five dimensions—racism, sexism, homophobia, intolerance for disability, and religious intolerance—only these dimensions were compared between 2016 and 2023. Non-heterosexual or LGBTQ+ academics were one exception highlighted by the

report, as they “perceived the climate as somewhat less tolerant in 2023 than in 2016.”

Broadly, respondents viewed their “local climate”—areas of the University they most often interact with—more favorably than the University climate as a whole.

Additionally, most marginalized groups reported lower senses of belonging on campus than the whole sample of participants. But those rates were improved from the 2016 survey.

The email also included an invitation to a February 26 town hall meeting over Zoom to discuss the survey with Provost Katherine Baicker and members of the University’s Diversity & Inclusion leadership.

SJP Marches in Solidarity With Rafah, Condemns Disciplinary Hearing

By AMY MA | Senior News Reporter

Students for Justice in Palestine at UChicago (SJP) led a rally on the University’s main quad on Friday, February 16. The two major catalysts for the protest were Israel’s current bombardment of the city of Rafah, and the University’s disciplinary hearing against SJP.

Located in the southernmost area of the Gaza Strip, Rafah has been referred to as the last safe zone for approximately 1.4 million Palestinian refugees. Israel’s ongoing attacks on the city have sparked a new wave of protests globally and across university campuses in the United States. Israel has threatened a ground invasion of Rafah if Hamas does not free hostages before Ramadan, which begins on March 10.

The protest also took place on the same day as the University’s formal disciplinary hearing against SJP. Convened and adjudicated by the University-wide Standing Committee on Disruptive Conduct, the hearing addresses two incidents from autumn quarter: SJP’s alleged disruption of a counter-rally on the quad in October and SJP’s blockade of Levi Hall

in November.

According to University administrators, SJP’s activities violated the University’s principles of free expression and constituted the designation of “disruptive conduct” supplied by University Statute 21. The University is following its disciplinary processes to investigate this allegation of disruptive conduct.

The demonstration began at 12:30 p.m. SJP protestors were joined by UChicago United for Palestine (UCUP), a larger coalition including SJP, as well as allied students, faculty, and community members. More than a hundred people were present at the rally, chanting, drumming, and waving signs under the direction of SJP organizers.

Members from UCUP and the wider SJP community in Chicago addressed the gathered protestors, condemning the University’s financial ties with arms manufacturers that equip the Israeli military. In 2020, The Maroon found that the University invests in weapons manufacturers. Speakers also criticized the administration for its perceived dis-

regard and “institutional censorship” of the SJP movement.

“In December, UCUP organizers got [University President Paul Alivisatos], on camera, saying that he would meet with

students, and still, admin has refused to meet with UCUP. All the while strengthening their connection to Western imperialism, settler colonialism, and apart-

Protestors on the quad hold signs in support of Palestine. nathaniel rodwell-simon

“Our movement is not an extracurricular activity, it is a collective commitment to breaking down the systems that oppress us.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 8

heid by doing things like meeting with the Israeli Consulate General,” Sanya Bhartiya, a third-year student organizer, said during her speech.

At 1 p.m., the protestors proceeded towards Levi Hall and marched around the building. After a few encirclements, the crowd then advanced towards Rosenwald Hall. During the whole demonstration, the entrances of Levi Hall and Rosenwald Hall were fenced off and guarded by several campus security officials. A Dean-on-Call, a University administrator who provides support, referrals, and intervention, was also present.

According to a statement from University officials, “the University’s De -

partment of Safety and Security was on site to ensure that the rally did not disrupt University operations or violate the University’s occupancy limits .”

In alignment with disciplinary procedures, the University’s order for a formal disciplinary hearing followed SJP’s decision to reject the informal sanctions presented by the University. According to UCUP’s written statement to The Maroon, the informal sanctions previously offered to SJP were “1) an official warning; 2) an educational sanction requiring SJP to create an infographic on how to hold non-disruptive protests in line with University regulations; and 3) disciplinary probation for a year, which would force SJP to disband after another

‘disruptive’ event.”

SJP denounced the University’s disciplinary process. “The disciplinary process here is completely illegitimate,” one organizer, a third-year undergraduate at the University, explained. “Time and time again, we see protests succeed precisely because they’re disruptive. Civil rights activists held sit-ins, blocked highways. They made noise. They were inconvenient. If a campus protest is ‘non-disruptive’—well, then, that’s a really lucky coincidence for admin, since they can kick up their feet and ignore it. But if we do something that gets their attention, they want to disband us.”

The rally concluded around 2:30 p.m. The University’s admissions office, locat-

ed in Rosenwald Hall, closed at 2 p.m. on Friday, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. In a statement to The Maroon, the University declined to say whether this was in response to UCUP’s protests. SJP affirmed that they will continue to advocate for the cause of Palestinian freedom and oppose the University’s investments.

“Our movement is not an extracurricular activity, it is a collective commitment to breaking down the systems that oppress us.… We will not stop until Palestine is free and until our university is no longer complicit in atrocities,” Bhartiya said.

Uncommon Interview: Center for Effective Government Democracy

Fellow Nicole Sedaca

By OLIVER BUNTIN | Senior News Reporter

In an interview with The Maroon, Center for Effective Government (CEG) Democracy Fellow Nicole Bibbins Sedaca shared advice for students looking to pursue a career in international affairs and spoke about her role at the Washington, D.C.–based advocacy organization Freedom House.

CEG is a division of the Harris School focusing on civil reform and advocacy. Over the course of February, Sedaca met with students at the Harris School of Public Policy and the College to discuss her work and insights.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. The conversation took place before the Russian elections.

CHICAGO MAROON: Could you describe your day job and new role at the CEG?

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: I am a Democracy Fellow at the Center for Effective Government. In my day job, I’m the executive vice president of an organization called Freedom House. At Freedom

House, my role is to oversee all of our programs and strategy. [Freedom House] is focused on expanding and defending freedom around the world by informing the world about the problems that exist with democracy and freedom and the opportunities [for] mobilizing actors to really get engaged in the fight for freedom, and then supporting activists around the world. And so I’m delighted to have this time as a fellow to both speak with students about what’s going on in global freedom, but also look for opportunities to partner with the University in this area.

CM: Could you share some impressions of your experiences at the Harris School?

NBS: I was delighted to have some really great conversations yesterday and today. The students are phenomenally engaged and interested and eager to learn and also share their views. They came with lots of great questions and conversations. Because all of our conversations have been focused on democracy around the world, I think there’s a lot of hunger

and interest among students, particularly some of the international students, and obviously the American students, to talk about what does this year mean, where many countries are going to elections, but also where a lot of countries are facing backsliding in their democracy. So we wrestled with some really hard questions that are on the minds of students.

CM: What are some elections you’re paying attention to this year?

NBS: So I’m very focused on the Indian elections, which is a parliamentary election coming up in April and May. Mexico will also have an election and their current president is term limited. So [Mexico] will unquestionably have a new president come June. [We’re] also watching the South African elections that will take place later this year. We know that there are a number of elections that are coming up in Russia and Venezuela, for example, which we don’t expect to be free and fair, and don’t expect to reflect the will of the people. But it’s notable that they are feeling the crunch to actually pretend that they’re a democracy, even though the leaders are not governing

that way.

CM: What are some of the ways in which you think the CEG’s work advances some of the causes you’ve worked on at Freedom House?

NBS: I admire the work that the CEG is doing with their series on primers about democracy. It’s really excellent. And it is providing some very practical and research-based information about some of the questions about how democracy works that’s going to be important. And my organization works [both] in the US as well as around the world. And so for us, to see what scholars are saying specifically about the technicalities of how democracy works, it’s going to be a really wonderful way for us to stay connected with what academia is thinking.

CM: How would you assess the state of democracy in the world today?

NBS: There are things that make us concerned and things that make us optimistic. So in the category of concerned, we are seeing our 17th year of decline in freedom around the world, which means, according to our reports, there are more

“I think it’s really important that we have great people in public service, who are willing to bring the values of democracy into the public arena.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 9

countries that have been going backwards in their democratic development than there are countries that are moving forward in how their citizens are experiencing political and civil rights. And so it’s concerning because that just means that there are unquestionably more attacks on freedom around the world, from authoritarian governments, but also some democracies that are weakening. So that’s certainly what’s on our mind most days.

But there’s a lot that gives us a lot of hope as well, despite the fact that we’re in a very difficult period. We see activists around the world that, despite the real physical, emotional, and political battles that they face, they’re in the streets demanding their rights. And whether that is in Venezuela or Sudan or Ethiopia or Iran, they are demanding the rights which we all hope everyone will be able to experience. The fact that in this year of elections, there are dictators and undemocratic leaders who still feel that they need to hold an election tells us that the norm of elections, the norm of democracy—just the fact that it is valued—carries some weight. And that matters because it means that this concept of “democracy is the best governing system to represent

the voice of the people” has not been lost. It’s unquestionably challenged, but it by no means has been lost.

CM: Could you discuss how your work at Freedom House contributes to the promotion of democracy?

NBS: Yeah, absolutely. Our work really starts with raising awareness of where the challenges are, because it’s important that we have shared facts and shared truths about the challenges. So a lot of what we do is raise our voice through speaking through our events, through reports, and through our research to let the world know where we see challenges and where we see authoritarian leaders using tactics like transnational repression to silence the voices of others. But we do really look to mobilize action to push the U.S. government, to push the United Nations, and to push other democratic governments to use their power to pressure or to reinforce democracy around the world.

And finally, we know that the real courageous people are not those of us sitting in Washington [D.C.] but those who are in the streets, who are in the prisons, who are around the world pushing for change.

And so we have looked for ways to listen to what those needs are and be able to respond to those by providing assistance, by

providing training, and being a support to those who are really on the frontlines of fighting for freedom.

CM: What advice do you have for students or young professionals who are interested in a career in international affairs?

NBS: I hope that many students will pursue a career in international affairs. It’s an exciting way to serve your country and serve your world. I encourage students to look for opportunities both in the classroom and through their research to really dig into what the toughest challenges are to look at ways that you can build your expertise in these issues. But also look for opportunities, particularly overseas, whether that is through the U.S. government—they have a lot of overseas opportunities through nongovernmental organizations like Freedom House— or other organizations. And there’s a lot of service organizations, whether that’s through faith-based groups or through other opportunities that people have to really get out and see the world, see what the challenges are. I think it’s really important that we have great people in public service, who are willing to bring the values of democracy into the public arena. But when we also look at philanthropic organizations and nongovernmental organizations, that’s also a great way to serve. That said, in every sector, whether you go into the business sector, whether you go into journalism, whether you go into a nonprofit, democracy issues cut through all of them. And so people have the opportunity to think about how they’re going to engage whatever next steps they have in their professional career with the values of democracy in those arenas.

CM: Are there any opportunities you would recommend to students today?

NBS: I pursued a rotary fellowship, and I can’t speak highly enough about it. It was a wonderful opportunity. I would encourage students to look that up. There are many other opportunities like the Fulbright, and others, which allow students to go overseas. The Peace Corps is a path that a lot of colleagues and friends of mine have also taken to look for opportunities to serve overseas for a number of

years. So I would encourage students to look at all of those after they graduate as ways to get out to serve and to see the world.

CM: Do you have any advice regarding graduate school, particularly in light of Harris’s new five-year track?

NBS: I think the five-year programs are excellent. And obviously the University of Chicago is just an extraordinary school. And I think that a five-year program is a wonderful opportunity to do both degrees in a shorter period of time. I think if someone chooses just a four-year track, I would also encourage them to go out in the world for a couple years before they choose a graduate school. I think it is helpful. If you don’t have an opportunity for a five-year program directly after your undergrad, spend a year, or even two or three, working somewhere, whether that’s in Washington [D.C.], in the policy community or overseas or elsewhere, and then decide what graduate school looks like. I think that’s a period [in] which, as a former professor, I saw a lot of students use that time to sort of refine their thinking, refine and test some of their assumptions of what they were interested in doing in the long term.

CM: Are there any opportunities at Freedom House you want students to be aware of?

NBS: Absolutely, we have a summer internship program on our website, freedomhouse.org, and would encourage anyone to apply. We would love to have great students like you [and other] Chicago students here. And also, when you get out of school, there are a lot of jobs that are for new graduates and entry-level roles that are doing anything from researching the trends around the world, doing advocacy on Capitol Hill, or with the administration, programmatic work, which has you dealing with any number of countries, but also interesting fields like communications and development. Nonprofit organizations like ours need a whole range of skills. So we’d encourage students to really consider Freedom House as a possible place to land.

Center for Effective Government Democracy Fellow Nicole Sedaca speaks to students at the Harris School of Public Policy. courtesy of harris school of public policy

Hyde Park Cantonese Restaurant Jade Court Closing Due to Lack of Traffic and Rising Expenses

By AMY MA | Senior News Reporter

Jade Court, a Cantonese eatery in Harper Court, closed its doors at the end of February after three years of operation. Restaurant owner Carol Cheung cited lack of foot traffic, rising labor costs, and high rent as the main reasons behind her agreement to terminate her lease with the University of Chicago, which owns the property.

During its short tenure on the corner of 53rd Street and South Lake Park Boulevard, Jade Court earned acclaim for its Chinese cuisine, especially its Peking duck and Dungeness crab. The restaurant had been named one of Chicago’s best Chinese restaurants by Time Out Chicago and one of the city’s essential 38 restaurants by Eater.

Despite being a relatively new establishment, Jade Court brought generational recipes and family legacy to the Hyde Park restaurant scene. Cheung, a third-generation restaurateur, opened the first location of Jade Court with her father near the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2016. Following her father’s passing in 2019, Cheung relocated Jade Court to the Harper Court development in Hyde Park. The walls of Jade Court were covered with sprawling scrolls of Chinese calligraphy, commissioned by her grandfather when he opened his first restaurant, also named Jade Court, in 1972. Cheung served many dishes passed down through her family, such as a steamed pork belly dish created by her grandmother.

Cheung envisioned Jade Court as a welcoming space for the Hyde Park community: “When you came in here, I wanted you to feel like you were being invited into my home,” Cheung said in an interview with the Maroon. She noted that she made an effort to remember a customer after just one or two visits: “I love getting to know my customers and recommending them things I think they would enjoy.”

Despite its positive reputation, Jade Court encountered challenges since its opening. According to Cheung, she was rushed to open shop during the pandem-

ic by University of Chicago administrators. “We weren’t quite ready to open yet, but [the University] kept saying ‘you have to open, you have to open.’ When I reluctantly did, I didn’t even have my steamer yet—I couldn’t make dumplings.”

Cheung cited a lack of visibility and foot traffic as the primary causes for the restaurant’s closing. Hidden from the main street, Jade Court’s location inside Harper Court significantly impacted its prominence. The pandemic and the shift to remote work in recent years have also decreased customer acquisition. “If you’ve ever walked around here at lunch, nobody’s here. There is no foot traffic,” Cheung said.

New construction only worsened the problem. Harper Court Phase II, a new University of Chicago development, began construction right above Jade Court in 2023. The entrance to the restaurant has since been obscured by ladders and scaffolding.

Cheung wishes that there were more opportunities for engagement and collaboration with the University.

“I had asked a few times if I could do a pop up in any one of the dining halls,” Cheung said. “I never, never got to do one. They don’t ask me to do the Lunar New Year celebrations or anything… There’s a reason that we’re here. It’s for the community, for the students, and for the faculty. If [the students] don’t know we’re here, we’re going to close because we’re not getting the business.”

There is currently no tenant slated to replace Jade Court. Adrian Race, Cheung’s husband and business partner, commented on the rushed nature of their closure: “We can’t understand why we would be pushed out so fast [by the University] during a construction period with no suitors. There are so many empty storefronts in this area.”

Jade Court’s closure follows many changes to the 53rd Street business district in recent years. Citing the departure of Leona’s Pizzeria, Aloha Poke, Native Foods, and other small businesses, Cheung lamented the changing dynam-

ics of Hyde Park’s commercial scene:

“This type of family-run small business is what made Hyde Park what Hyde Park was—mom-and-pop shops, small business, no big chains. But it’s changing from that, it’s becoming a little bit more generic, which is sad. Small businesses can’t afford steep rent like those national chains.”

Despite these challenges, Cheung expressed her appreciation for the Hyde Park community. “I will miss the neighborhood. We really like the people we’ve met here, and we’ve become a part of the community,” she said.

Members of the University’s student body have expressed their sadness about the restaurant’s closure. “Jade Court is one of the rare spots that offers good, reasonably priced Chinese food near campus,” second-year Ray Huang said.

The restaurant also holds a distinct significance for the Chinese international student community. “When my parents came to Hyde Park to drop me off last September, we went to Jade Court for dinner. After eating their food, my

dad told me that he felt assured that I would be ok here,” said Vickey Zhou, a first-year student from Beijing, China.

In a statement to the Maroon, the University said it was supportive of Jade Court during its time at Harper Court.

“Jade Court was a welcome addition to Harper Court for three years, regularly recognized as one of the city’s best Chinese restaurants,” a University spokesperson said. “Carol Cheung has been a great partner, and we have worked closely with her on efforts to grow Jade Court’s customer base and develop a path to financial sustainability. The news of her closing February 29, 2024, is difficult, but we extend our thanks and wish her continued success in her future endeavors.”

Following the closure of Jade Court on February 29, Cheung plans to take a break to think and regroup; however, she expressed her desire to potentially open another restaurant in or around Hyde Park sometime in the future.

Carol Cheung and Adrian Race at Jade Court in Hyde Park. amy ma .

Migrant Special Insert

Letter from the Editor

We began putting together this special insert in September 2023, a year after Texas began busing migrants to Chicago on August 31, 2022. Since then, over 35,000 migrants have been brought to Chicago, and the city has piloted a myriad of programs designed to support its newest inhabitants. Alongside city efforts, community groups, religious institutions, and everyday Chicagoans have aided migrants’ transition to the city, including in Hyde Park. In many ways, the local and University member responses to the increasing migrant population are stories of existing communities seeking to help their new neighbors.

In this special insert, the Maroon explores the University’s and University members’ relationships with recent Chicago migrants. In particular, we ask: How has the University reacted in the past to migrant communities seeking assistance in our neighborhood? How is the University supporting migrant communities? Does the University have an obligation to help migrants? These questions and

more inform our reporting.

You will find a timeline on the Chicago migrant influx within Hyde Park, reporting on previous University-migrant interactions and policies, stories of doctors facilitating spaces of exchange and law students putting their expertise into practice to advocate for migrants, an oped on the University’s responsibility in this migrant influx, and data visualizations on shelter capacity by region and shelter locations throughout the City. Further coverage can be found on our website and by scanning the QR code.

The Maroon ’s coverage is far from exhaustive. Rather, we seek to shed light on a small portion of a broader situation. Thank you for picking up this issue; we hope you learn more about our ever-expanding community.

— Kayla Rubenstein, Co-Editor-in-Chief

— Elena Eisenstadt, Grey City Editor

A Timeline of Migrants in Hyde Park

By NICK ROMMEL | News Reporter

April 13, 2022

Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas) orders a bus of recently arrived migrants to Washington, D.C. This “busing strategy” is meant to undercut President Joe Biden’s upcoming cancellation of the public health regulations allowing for rapid expulsion of migrants crossing the border. It is the first moment in what will become a dependable strategy for Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) and a national political flashpoint.

August 31, 2022

After sending over 7,000 migrants to New York City and Washington, D.C., since April, Abbott announces the first bus heading for Chicago, with 60 migrants on board. Abbott says that his state bears the brunt of Democratic lawmakers’ immigration policies. “[Former Chicago] Mayor Lightfoot loves to tout the responsibility of her city to welcome all regardless of legal status,” Abbott explains. “I look forward to seeing this responsibility in action.”

Mid-October, 2022

Over 3,000 migrants—mainly from Venezuela—have arrived in Chicago on buses chartered by Southern Republican governors. President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners Toni Preckwinkle calls the strategy “cynical” and “disgraceful.” Most migrants live in and around Chicago Police Department (CPD) police stations.

December 29, 2022

The city announces the conversion of Wadsworth Elementary, a shuttered school in majority-Black Woodlawn, into a migrant shelter. The announcement draws immediate criticism from the area’s alderwoman, Jeannette Taylor, as well as local residents, who claim the city was not transparent about its selection process for Wadsworth.

February 2, 2023

The city begins moving migrants into the Wadsworth Elementary School shelter despite protests of local residents, including two local residents attempting to physically block a bus carrying migrants.

Wadsworth is one of many shelters on the South Side that spark criticism of the city’s prioritizing of migrants’ needs over those of underinvested neighborhoods and for sending migrants to these neighborhoods over wealthier ones.

February 13, 2023

Mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson unveils a migrant plan on the campaign trail, aiming to counter “forces seeking to divide” Black and Hispanic Chicagoans. His plan includes using a tax on highend home sales to fund city shelters for asylum seekers and allowing residents to vote in Board of Education elections regardless of citizenship status.

May 31, 2023

A highly contentious City Council session ends with $51 million being allocated from the city budget towards the migrant crisis, with a vote of 34–13. Racial justice is a flashpoint as alderpersons and members of the public accuse the city of double standards, having failed to provide similar funding in underinvested, majority-Black neighborhoods.

June 2023

A team of primarily Venezuelan migrants who met at Wadsworth Elementary shelter form a team for Chicago’s World Refugee Day soccer tournament, which involves diverse refugee and immigrant teams from across the city. The soccer games at Wadsworth were organized by a coalition of Woodlawn churches and local organizations aiming to build ties between migrants and the community.

July 6, 2023

CPD opens an internal investigation into reports of sexual misconduct by police officers towards migrants living in police stations.

July 17, 2023

A new pilot program at a Chicago Public Schools (CPS) high school converts four classrooms into a “welcome center” for migrants in West Town and Humboldt Park. Services include information about enrolling their children in public schools and accessing healthcare.

September 7, 2023

Mayor Brandon Johnson unveils plans for moving nearly 1,600 migrants living in CPD stations to winterized tent cities across Chicago.

September 12, 2023

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Chicago faces a $538 million budget shortfall in 2024, with just over $200 million stemming from the city’s response to the migrant crisis. City Council also votes to accept $33 million in federal funding for handling the crisis. Most funds go towards feeding, housing, and clothing migrants, with tent city plans raising the prospect of even greater expenditures.

September 2023

Mayor Brandon Johnson comes under fire from his own political base for signing a contract with GardaWorld, a Canadian private security firm, to build and operate the city’s planned tent cities for migrants. Criticism focuses on GardaWorld’s reported safety violations and their work for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis busing migrants to Northern cities.

September 25, 2023

Department of Homeland Security regulations change to allow any migrants who arrived in the United States before August 2023 to get a chance to receive work authorization more quickly. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, about 40 percent of Chicago’s migrants arrived after this cutoff date and will not benefit from the rule change.

October 2023

Residents of the majority-Hispanic and Asian Brighton Park neighborhood protest against a potential tent city site on a large vacant lot at 38th Street and California Avenue. The city responds that the site is only one of many being considered and is still subject to an environmental review.

November 7, 2023

Protestors are escorted out of a City Council meeting debating a donation of land for the city’s tent city plan from a defunct supermarket location. The site in question is at 115th Street and Halsted Avenue in the majority-Black Morgan Park

neighborhood. Protestors oppose a tent city being built in their neighborhood, but aldermen vote to accept the donation.

November 16, 2023

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) announces $160 million in funds for Chicago to deal with the migrant crisis, including support for Johnson’s winterized tent shelter, creating an official intake center and moving migrants out of police stations.

November 23, 2023

Many migrants across Chicago celebrate their first Thanksgiving, thanks to the efforts of volunteers at shelters to provide free meals featuring traditional Thanksgiving staples. The Chicago Tribune describes one migrant mother’s gratefulness “for the city that has taken us in” as she celebrates finding an apartment for her family over turkey, stuffing, and Venezuelan arepas and polvorosas

December 5, 2023

Governor J.B. Pritzker orders Chicago to scrap the Brighton Park and Morgan Park tent city sites after a city report recommended an environmental cleanup before the site is fit for habitation. The decision does not simply leave migrants on the street, as the city has had success moving migrants from police stations and municipal facilities into churches, smaller localized shelters, and locations outside Chicago. According to city officials, no migrants remain in police stations by mid-December, an imperative for winter, as many had been camping outdoors during the warm months.

December 17, 2023

A five-year-old boy living with 2,000 other migrants in a Pilsen warehouse converted to a shelter dies due to strep throat and COVID-19. Five more people are transported to a hospital from the shelter, which is reported to be overcrowded and unsanitary, with water leaking through the ceiling.

December 27, 2023

Mayor Brandon Johnson joins the mayors of New York City and Denver to appeal for more federal funds for dealing

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with the migrant crisis. He paints a dire picture, calling it a “critical point” and remarking that city economies are not equipped for dealing with problems of this scale. He adds that “this is not something that should break our country.”

Throughout December 2023

In response to the City of Chicago suing migrant-ferrying charter bus companies and limiting drop-off locations and times, buses from Texas increasingly drop migrants off in suburbs like Rosemont, Manhattan, and Glen Ellyn. Multiple municipalities adopt ordinances to limit these drop-offs, which often take place in parking lots, and sometimes in

suburbs with no hotels to temporarily house arrivals.

January 9, 2024

Worsening winter weather prompts many migrants to seek shelter at the city’s new “landing zone”—the site of an under-construction intake center—at 800 South Desplaines Avenue in West Loop. Migrants are supposed to be placed in shelters in the “landing zone.” But as the number of migrants at the zone rose from around 50 to over 500 in early January per city data, migrants are sleeping in ordinary CTA buses repurposed as “warming buses” while the city constructs small heated tents.

This map visualizes data for the number of new migrants who arrived the week of March 15, 2024 at each of the 23 current migrant shelter sites across Chicago. The Data and Technology Team represented shelters that are currently receiving migrants with red circles whose area is proportionate to the number of new arrivals at the site. Sites that the city is no longer using as migrant shelters are represented by gray squares. tiffany li .

January 29, 2024

Mayor Brandon Johnson delays the introduction of his plan to evict migrants from city shelters after 60 days from early February to mid-March. The plan would have forced migrants to reapply for city housing after their 60 days ran out, and around 6,000 migrants would have been evicted had the original schedule been kept. The mayor reasoned that the $1.5 million a day being spent on housing migrants would deplete the city’s migrant crisis budget without state and federal help, but he agreed to a delay of the plan because of unpredictable winter weather. Several aldermen, including City Council Committee on Immigration and Refugee Rights Chair Andre Vasquez of the 40th

Ward, praised Johnson for the decision.

February 13, 2024

According to city data, the number of migrants staying at city shelters falls to 13,000 for the first time since November 2023 after reaching a peak of nearly 15,000 in mid-January. The drop is attributable to lower arrival rates in the city and a 50 percent reduction in southern border crossings in January as President Joe Biden responds to Republican border security demands. O’Hare International Airport and the Harold Washington Library are phased out as migrant shelters as a result.

These charts visualize data from the 40th Ward Office’s New Arrivals Data Dashboard. According to the City of Chicago, the city has welcomed over 37,000 new arrivals from the southern border since August 31, 2022. June 9, 2023 is the earliest date the city has released data.

The Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) has recorded and reported the number of chartered buses that arrive at the city’s “landing zone,” people who arrive by airplane to the city’s airports, and those who independently arrive at emergency staging areas in police stations. The first chart shows the number of new arrivals at these staging areas or “landing zones” over time.

The city has also created 23 temporary congregate shelters across Chicago where they provide case management for new arrivals. The second chart shows migrants at these shelters over time divided into which region of the city the shelter is located. austin steinhart

Uncovering UChicago’s History with Migrant and Refugee Communities

By SABRINA CHANG | Deputy News Editor

How did UChicago assist in refugee resettlement during the World War II? What is the University’s current stance on social and political issues regarding asylum seekers? Where did all of this begin? In an effort to uncover these questions about UChicago’s nuanced relationship with migrant and refugee communities, the Maroon conducted a deep dive into the major events of the University’s long history with these groups, including key faculty and student-led initiatives and institutional responses.

The History of the Settlement

UChicago’s efforts to aid migrant and refugee populations can be traced back to its founding and were spearheaded by faculty members, beginning with the University of Chicago Settlement House.

Founded in 1894, the Settlement was

established in the packinghouse area of Chicago by a group of UChicago faculty members. The Settlement sought to aid foreign-born packinghouse workers through lifelong support. The Settlement provided community members with English instruction, assisted with citizenship and legal issues, and hosted group activities that nurtured basic skills like sewing and cooking, among other services.

Mary McDowell, Head Resident of the Settlement at its founding, wrote: “Settlement residents do not go to the people with a plan, a policy, or a proposition; they go as friends, as neighbors with a keen sense of the commonness of all that is best in all.” This reflects the Settlement’s goal to promote neighborhood unity, fostering a “home” for residents regardless of race, nationality, or language—a sentiment that challenged the anti-immigrant stance

largely present throughout the city.

The University of Chicago Settlement was part of the larger settlement movement, a reformist social movement brought to Chicago through the founding of Hull-House by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889. Hull-House helped immigrants integrate into American society through practical classes and social activities.

The Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, formerly known as the School of Social Service Administration (SSA), was born from another settlement—Chicago Commons, which was founded by Graham Taylor, a professor at the Chicago Theological Seminary, in 1894. Chicago Commons merged with Emerson House in 1948 to form the Chicago Commons Association, later absorbing the University of Chicago Settlement in the late 1960s. As subsequent generations became more integrated into

mainstream American cul- ture, these settlement houses shifted their focus to providing greater educational opportunities for both immigrants and non-immigrant populations. They also became involved in broader issues such as labor rights, women’s suffrage, and other social justice causes. This wider focus contributed to a shift away from being solely centers for immigrant assistance. The Crown Family School merged with UChicago in 1920 with the help of Addams as a board member.

The Crown Family School continues to lead research on migrant populations and, most recently, cohosted a panel discussion with the City Club of Chicago on October 30, 2023 which explored the consequences and complications of the city’s current migrant situation. The conversation focused on the need to create a system in the city that will sustainably set migrants up for

UChicago students volunteering to help migrants prepare for their citizenship tests in 2017. courtesy of new americans .

“The instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual faculty member or the individual student.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 15

future success as well as promoting mental health for the migrant communities.

Sponsoring Scholars Across the Globe

In 1999, UChicago faculty members founded Scholars at Risk (SAR). According to its website, SAR is an “international network of institutions and individuals whose mission it is to protect scholars and promote academic freedom.” Since SAR’s founding, many other universities have joined the network to help defend scholars around the world who are imprisoned or silenced in their home countries. These member universities provide temporary academic positions to scholars facing serious threats and offer them a place to stay safe and continue working.

Most recently, Christine Mehring, a UChicago art history professor, helped bring Fazel Ahad Ahadi to the University with the aid of both SAR and Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who had been helping scholars find a way to leave Afghanistan when the Taliban took over. Ahadi is a well-known screenwriter, poet, playwright, and scholar in Afghanistan who had openly criticized the Taliban. Mehring helped coordinate a temporary lecturer position for Ahadi, which he was able to start in November 2022 after waiting eight months in Germany for a visa.

However, UChicago faculty and administration had begun sponsoring and aiding scholars long before SAR’s formation. The University helped provide jobs and support to scholars fleeing Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain. Italian physicist Enrico Fermi is one wellknown example. Shortly after arriving in the United States, Fermi became an important member of the Manhattan Project team, which attained the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at UChicago in 1942, making possible the development of the atomic bomb. In 1946, Fermi resumed his academic work at UChicago as the Charles H. Swift Distinguished Professor of Physics and a member of the newly formed Institute for Nuclear Studies, which later became the Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear

Studies. The University also notably supported other scholars like Thomas Mann and Hannah Arendt at the time.

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, former president and founding father of Czechoslovakia, was another scholar with important ties to the University. Masaryk was a controversial figure who was invited to Chicago by Charles Crane, who had endowed a lecture series at UChicago. In 1902 and 1903, Masaryk spent his time giving public lectures and meeting the large Czech-American community in Chicago, gaining their support for a Czech republic. Masaryk’s daughter, Alice Masaryk, became part of the University of Chicago Settlement House, collaborating with Jane Addams on community work until 1907. After World War I, with Crane’s help, Masaryk was able to convince Woodrow Wilson to support an independent Czechoslovakia. The Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk Monument now stands on the east end of Midway Plaisance.

The University further supported Czechoslovakia by providing job opportunities for Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, President Edvard Beneš, and numerous others.

The Darfur Controversy

Beyond their support of foreign scholars, the University administration has taken a more controversial approach to addressing migrant and refugee populations. Formalized by the 1967 Kalven Report, the University contributes to social and political issues through their support of the academic freedom of faculty and students while maintaining a neutral stance as an institution.

The Kalven Committee was appointed in February 1967 by then-President George W. Beadle, who requested a statement on the University’s role in political and social action. According to the report, “the neutrality of the university as an institution arises then not from a lack of courage nor out of indifference and insensitivity. It arises out of respect for free inquiry and the obligation to cherish a diversity of viewpoints.” Instead of a university voicing its opinion, “the instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual

faculty member or the individual student.”

This long-standing practice has resulted in many criticisms aimed at the University for not taking greater action on serious local and global issues over the decades. One of the most notable instances of this was the University’s response to the genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region in 2007, where 400,000 people died.

According to the University of Chicago Magazine, President Robert Zimmer established the Darfur Education Fund of $200,000 to support faculty and student work to advance human rights. This fund was the first of its kind among colleges and universities in the United States. Zimmer told the Magazine that the purpose of the fund was “to underscore the seriousness with which the University takes the situation in Darfur and its belief in the time-tested truth that the University’s greatest social contribution is made through the efforts of its faculty, students, and alumni, in the context of the rigorous analysis and inquiry for which Chicago is known.”

However, much of the campus community had hoped for the University to address the crisis through divestment from any company whose business has supported the ruling regime in Darfur, which was the route that many other universities took, including all eight Ivy League schools, Stanford, and the University of California system. The campus chapter of the national group Students Take Action Now: Darfur (STAND) argued that this fit into the Kalven Report’s “exceptional instance” clause, which allows the University to act as a corporate body when a crisis challenges the “paramount social values” generally accepted by the University. STAND’s petition to the board was signed by 1,500 students, 110 faculty, and the Kalven Committee’s last surviving member, professor emeritus of history John Hope Franklin, but the board still voted against divestment.

Taking matters into their own hands, STAND planned a five-day simulated Darfuri refugee camp on the main quad which would provide tents, food, security, and other items to 25 event participants. Twenty non-participants would also

partake in meals, and 1,200 additional non-participants would receive pamphlets and information.

Present Day Efforts

Many other UChicago student organizations have organized demonstrations and offered other forms of support for migrants and refugees over the past few decades. Much of this action came after former President Donald Trump’s election in 2016. New Americans, a program that sends UChicago students to tutor individuals preparing for the U.S. citizenship test, experienced an increase in interest that year. The group tutored legal residents in a Path to Citizenship class weekly at the Instituto del Progreso Latino in Pilsen. The program also worked at the Erie Neighborhood House, a social services organization that provides workshops for undocumented residents and individuals who are not as far along in the naturalization process.

In February 2017, around 60 students and faculty took part in a “Solidarity March” around campus to show their support for immigrants, minorities, and women following Trump’s election. Though the main purpose of the march was to show unity and support, it was more urgently driven by frustration with the political climate and anti-immigration executive orders.

More recently, the Hyde Park Refugee Project, a program founded in 2015 that works to support refugee and immigrant families settling in the South Side, started hiring UChicago students to help out. The project helps refugee families find affordable housing, connect with employers, and learn English.

Last year, the Association of Latinx Students for Social Justice (ALAS), a student-run organization within the Harris School of Public Policy, hosted its eighth annual “I Stand With Immigrants” Day of Action on October 25. The event consisted of a panel discussion featuring policy experts, community organizers, and student leaders who discussed how to improve mental health resources and improve policymaking processes for the migrants housed in Hyde Park.

Empathy, Not Sympathy: A Profile of Dr. Abdullah Pratt

By FEIFEI MEI | Senior News Reporter

Working in an emergency room in the South Side is filled with its unique challenges, and ever since Chicago started to receive an influx of migrants coming from the Southern US border in August 2022, Dr. Abdullah Pratt found himself rethinking his role in the hospital and beyond.

Pratt grew up in the South Side and has an intimate understanding of the problems that afflict the area, especially its Black communities. With the recent introduction of migrants, which has sparked tension and dissatisfaction over the way in which the city’s leadership has decided to allocate resources, Pratt has taken on a dual role. He is both a medical professional caring for the community members’ physical health, and a community leader rallying for the UChicago community to come together to support the South Side’s new residents.

Pratt wears many hats: he is an emergency medicine physician at the UChicago Medical and Trauma Center, Faculty Director of Community Engagement for the Pritzker School of Medicine; he is the founder of the nonprofit Medical Careers Exposure and Emergency Preparedness (MedCEEP) initiative and the Trauma Recovery and Prevention of Violence Program (TRAP Violence); he is also a resident dean for Snell-Hitchcock Hall.

“Historically, the South Side patient population is mostly African American, and we have Latinx patients as well. We’re working with an overburdened healthcare system, patients who’re usually of lower socioeconomic status, who have lower levels of health literacy, and populations that have a lower ability to produce medical professionals,” Pratt said of the structural challenges that he is already used to dealing with, but the new arrivals have revealed new weaknesses within the system.

The migrants do not have healthcare insurance or doctors among them. On top of that, Pratt has found that language barriers and limited knowledge of the American healthcare system and their own medical histories has made it challenging for migrants to access timely medical help. “The migrants who come to us are often much more sick. For example, when sepsis isn’t treated immediately, it worsens from just being a localized infection to

becoming blood-borne, which is when it becomes life-threatening. Also, we have no knowledge of their medical history… so we’re receiving mothers and children with symptoms, pregnant women who don’t know their dates, patients who don’t know their infection history,” Pratt said.

These barriers to healthcare create frustration and unhappiness for both the staff and the patients. “[The patients] are frustrated. They ask us questions like ‘why am I waiting for so long’ because they’ve been sent around in circles,” Pratt said. “Communication is difficult sometimes because we have to remember that these people are also coming with lots of trauma—some are victims of assault, fights, domestic violence, or gun violence.”

Pratt also observed that there have been rising tensions within the South Side community ever since the migrants arrived. “There’s anger that resources are being directed to migrants. They’ve fixed up schools to host migrants, when the locals have been asking for years to get those schools fixed so the neighborhood can have more schools for their kids,” he said. One example of these tensions is Wadsworth Elementary school in Woodlawn, which was converted to a migrant shelter in February, 2023. The Hyde Park Herald reported that a physical altercation had broken out on July 14, 2023 when a resident found her driveway blocked by some shelter residents. This is but one example revealing the pent-up frustration that residents of historically underinvested neighborhoods hold toward the incoming migrants.

As a doctor, Pratt is constantly working to understand how to solve long-standing health disparities, what it truly means to treat every patient humanely, and what can be done to bring communities together to collaborate instead of compete. “As someone who’s already deeply involved with this community, the question that I ask myself is, what can we do as shepherds [to address these tensions] because we have to remember that, ultimately, [the migrants] are here for their own humanity.”

Respecting each individual’s humanity has become a cornerstone of Pratt’s advocacy. “The migrants are human. Treating them like humans is different from what we Americans think,” he said. “It’s about

empathy, not sympathy.”

He recalled one patient in particular who inspired him. “One day we had a patient come in; he was a Spanish-speaking middle-aged man with very bad knee pain. The nurse came and told me that he was threatening the staff—he swung and tried to punch a nurse. The nurse who was translating said that he said, ‘My knee hurts a lot, I deserve to be treated like a human too.’ After I treated him, he apologized for his actions. He said that he was in so much pain that he couldn’t think straight,” Pratt said.

The interaction revealed for Pratt how migrants are often subject to dehumanizing portrayals and treatments that prevent them from being afforded the dignity and care that they deserve. Such narratives promoting ideas that migrants are “stealing jobs” or are content to work labor-intensive jobs while being paid below minimum wage are harmful for both migrants and locals, and deconstructing them, to Pratt, is the first step to mitigating tension.

“Some migrants are disillusioned by how they still can’t make enough money despite getting housing and stipends. This dispels the myths that the Black community is poor because they’re lazy, that migrants are ‘stealing jobs,’” Pratt said. To him, the migrants’ disillusionment highlighted how there were structural reasons preventing underprivileged groups from making a living wage even if they had some support in the form of stipends. “These narratives [of laziness and job stealing] are harmful to all communities: it’s not true that migrants are willing to work for unlivable wages, it makes the assumption that migrants are made to work and work and it’s okay for them to be treated as less human,” he said.

Pratt therefore believes that helping the migrants will be beneficial to the local community on top of being a moral responsibility. “The least that we can do is give them some help since they’re part of the community already,” he said. He tries to organize efforts that involve partnerships between different communities so as to enhance mutual understanding and create more equitable solutions. “To me, equity is achieved when a problem is met with an equal or greater solution,” Pratt said. “So communities that are in greater need should get more help.”

One such partnership was created by Pratt when he organized “Thanksgiving for the Migrants” on November 17, 2023. This initiative involved migrant community leaders like Dr. Alfredo Lopez, other nonprofits, students from the Pritzker Medical School, and even students from Snell-Hitchcock Hall. Lopez is the chief scribe of the UChicago Medicine (UCM) Adult Emergency Department (ED), and Pratt entrusted him with the leadership of the event.

“Alfredo had approached me before to ask how he could help, and he’s someone who understands the migrant community. He left Venezuela when he was 17 and managed to get visa status, so I told him, ‘I want you to lead this effort.’ I wanted to build him up as a community leader and [support him to create] more doctors from that community,” he said. “He’s now a national leader and involved in efforts like this everywhere.”

Lopez suggested that they distribute arepas, which are a staple in Venezuela and Colombia. Pratt opened Snell-Hitchcock’s main kitchen and invited students from Snell-Hitchcock to come and help make the *arepas* because “we need to give kids the opportunity to give back to the community [and] learn about other cultures,” Pratt said. Other nonprofits helped with the food distribution, in addition to bringing other necessities like coats, socks, and blankets. The Latino Medical Student Association from the UChicago Pritzker School of Medicine also volunteered at the event.

Keeping morale up is challenging since doctors like Pratt are already extremely busy handling their responsibilities in the ED and elsewhere. The influx of migrants has also meant longer working hours because of the rise in patient volume. “There’s definitely an increased burden [in the ED that] deters people who want to help but can’t because they need to prioritize supporting their families, but it’s a double-edged sword. [Helping migrants] helps us cope with the problems of our system. Some of us share an affinity with their plight because we grew up helpless to things like diabetes, sickle cell disease that affected people around us. [It also feels like] we’re living up to the image that our younger selves had,” Pratt said.

Notably, Pratt did not always have

“The migrants are human. Treating them like humans is different from what we Americans think. It’s about empathy, not sympathy.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 17

emergency medicine as his dream career in mind. When he first started out in medical school, he had wanted to specialize in sports medicine. In 2012, however, an especially intense level of community violence led to the murders of many of his loved ones, his older brother among them. This was the pivotal moment that led Pratt to change his career goal: “My number one concern became the community,” he said. “As an ER doctor, I have more leverage to address issues like gun violence and maternal fatality, and a better platform to advocate for change.”

He took a gap year for therapy and did research with Dr. Monica Peek, who is an advocate for reducing healthcare disparities. The experience inspired him to advocate for creating a Level I trauma center for the South Side, which has historically lagged behind in terms of healthcare access. “Before UChicago Medicine was founded in 1899, patients here didn’t even

have a hospital and needed to go up North,” he said. “I worked with the other community groups that were protesting, and the Medicine School and Hospital leadership were graceful enough to teach me about the dynamics [of pushing for change from within the system].”

The trauma center was initially viewed as an unprofitable and unnecessary venture that placed additional burdens on patient care, but it proved to be good for the hospital as well as the community in the end. “The trauma center has actually helped us to make money, especially thanks to the Affordable Care Act under the Obama administration,” Pratt said.

During his medical school years, Pratt also founded the nonprofit Medical Careers Exposure and Emergency Preparedness (MedCEEP) that seeks to build up emergency preparedness and next generation medical professionals like emergency medical technicians in underrepresented groups. Pratt led workshops training youth

and adults in skills like cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and treating gunshot wounds. These workshops then uncovered another need within the community: trauma recovery. “It was difficult to finish the workshops sometimes because the children and youth would be sharing their trauma. Many of them have experienced traumatic events—some of them have seen their friends get shot,” Pratt said.

Consequently, the Trauma Recovery and Prevention of Violence Program (TRAP Violence) was founded as part of MedCEEP, which focused on youth violence prevention and helping youth overcome depression. “We borrowed from resources for violence recovering programs for adults and made them suitable for youth, and we [were also informed by] sources like the National Institute of Health’s studies on youth violence prevention programs,” Pratt said. “The best strategy to prevent trauma is to reduce the number of people being shot [through

violence prevention programs] and let the healthcare system prevent the worst-case scenarios from happening.”

Mentoring the youth became a key part of Pratt’s work after he realized the positive impacts that initiatives like MedCEEP had on their lives. “We have kids from our high school programs who now want jobs here [at UCM]! You can see the product of uplifting them,” Pratt said. “As a mentor, [the most important thing is] do not get discouraged. Change the small things—no one has to be a big superhero. Make sure that your efforts can be modeled and spread.”

Ultimately, bridging the gap between these different groups—the communities that he helps, the youth, and other advocacy groups—is paramount to Pratt, who firmly believes that “the people shouldn’t be fighting. We must hold policy makers accountable to prevent further violence.”

Dr. Abdullah Pratt is an advocate for both patient and migrant voices on the South Side. courtesy of uchicago medicine.

Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic Provides Legal Aid for Migrants in Hyde Park

vivienne zhang

By ZEV WOLDENBERG | News Reporter

As the migrant crisis develops in Chicago, the Law School Immigrants’ Rights Clinic has offered migrants in Hyde Park some reprieve and provided aid in Hyde Park. UChicago law students and faculty run the clinic, which is a part of the law school’s Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic.

During the autumn quarter, the clinic provided legal aid and advice by assisting migrants in filling out change-of-venue forms, which are necessary to change the location of a court hearing from the originally planned location to Chicago. Migrants often have court hearings set in the states that they entered after crossing the border, but they move to another state before they can attend their hearings. The clinic also helped migrants fill out forms to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a legal protection for migrants from designated countries

to which returning might be impractical or unsafe. This protection can only be attained before a certain deadline each year.

University and Law School professors and undergraduate student volunteers have helped the clinic establish connections with the shelters as well as communicate effectively with the migrants. In addition to translating discussions between the clinic and migrants, the volunteers presented a Google Form in Spanish to those they determined to be possibly eligible for immigration relief. Using the form’s responses, the clinic assessed which people they would invite to their events.

The clinic hosted two events in the fall quarter, one at Hyde Park Neighborhood Club in Nichols Park and the other at the St. Paul & the Redeemer Church. During the events, they gathered infor -

mation from approximately 20 migrants to determine which asylum claims were the strongest so that they could decide which cases to take on.

The clinic often faces challenges determining the eligibility of its clients, particularly those who have arrived after the TPS deadline, which was July 31, 2023. It is difficult for many migrants to qualify for asylum because they must demonstrate that they are fleeing persecution based on one of five specific “protected grounds.”

Another challenge the clinic faces is maintaining contact with migrants, who frequently move around.

While the clinic receives a small amount of funding from the University, their expenses are low because of help from community centers and volunteers. Morgan Tougas, a third-year law student at the clinic, identified the clinic’s lack of capacity to take on more cases as its main struggle.

With only a couple of lawyers experienced in immigration law, the clinic has only been able to take on three asylum cases. Though the clinic could not take on the cases of the other migrants seeking asylum, it assisted them in filling out pro se forms, which would help them meet their one-year deadline to file for asylum and allow them to represent themselves.

Despite these challenges, the clinic has plans for improvement and growth. “This is very much a learning process for us as well. We’re going to become more efficient and more productive,” Tougas said.

This winter quarter, a nonprofit called the Resurrection Project has taken on the role of holding workshop events for the migrants. With a grant from the city, they have been able to provide more frequent meetings, where they help migrants with TPS forms, work authorization, and general legal advice, much like the clinic did last quarter.

The clinic is committed to addresing the migrant crisis through actionable means.

CONTINUED FROM PG. 19

As the clinic wraps up its work with the asylum cases, it is working on a new project to address the migrant crisis but cannot yet discuss the details, according to Tougas.

The clinic is committed to addressing the migrant crisis through actionable means. “There’s a lot of talk going on [from the city] about what should be

done, but there’s not a lot of action,” Tougas said. “The city has a structured way that they eventually want to do things, but because it’s not been worked out yet, we’re not going to wait around for that

kind of permission.” In response, the group has taken measures into its own hands. The clinic plans to continue this hands-on work helping migrants with upcoming projects.

UChicago’s Place in the Chicago Migrant Crisis: From Articulation to Action

By JESSICA ZANG | Columnist and CAMILLE CYPHER | Columnist

As the city of Chicago rushes to build intake centers for incoming migrants as well as house and feed them, both UChicago and the thousands of students it brings to Hyde Park must understand themselves to be part of this crisis. Given UChicago’s reputation for prioritizing the life of the mind, it can often lie complacently within an academic bubble, removing itself from local politics and activism. In the past, UChicago has articulated its support for immigrants both inside of its student population and on a national scale, particularly in offering aid to undocumented students and supporting Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. However, as the issue of immigration is no longer just materially within its student community or abstractly affecting the United States, but instead concretely imminent in Chicago, the University’s mere written claims are insufficient without the backing of concrete aid.

The Chicago migrant crisis is not UChicago’s first brush with displacement. The University’s historic expansion into Hyde Park and refusal to accommodate community needs have created rifts between the institution and its neighbors in ways that have become harder to bridge with time. Whether we are looking at low-income Hyde Park residents or the current migrant crisis, it is true that UChicago, as a private educational institution, has no automatic legal obligation to act or provide aid. However, UChicago has repeatedly issued statements on its position in both cases of local gentrification and national immigration, acknowledged its place in the gentrification of Hyde Park, released statements supporting undocumented

students, and wrote a letter to former President Donald Trump stressing the importance of welcoming immigrants into our country. Given these statements and the urgent nature of Chicago’s migrant crisis, the University has a moral and ethical obligation to stand by its commitment to its neighbors.

For better or for worse, institutions like UChicago are scrutinized in the public sphere. Elite universities play a large role in shaping American politics, economies, and public perceptions, as seen in the fallout from Harvard, MIT, UPenn’s controversial antisemitism hearing. UChicago’s procured statements pledging to welcome and support undocumented students is not therefore only a theoretical, ideological position—rather, they plant UChicago as a stakeholder within a wider political struggle. Importantly, the University also benefits from these statements: they bring talented students to the University’s College and graduate schools and uphold UChicago’s image as an intellectual and inclusive beacon of higher education. The University thus has, to whatever degree possible, an obligation to tangibly stand by its word. It cannot simply expect to pay mere lip service while reaping its benefits. Having taken a stance on immigration issues, UChicago also must take decisive action in times of immediate need, and today’s migrant crisis, taking place in UChicago’s backyard, is undeniably one of these instances.

So what can UChicago actually do? In a utopian society, UChicago might radically stick to its proclaimed values on immigration: open its doors, clean up Stony Island or the abandoned Breckinridge House, and

house and support migrants in any other underused properties on its 217 acres. But these solutions may take too much time to ultimately create resources that are better serviced through equipped and already existing organizations; they are not realistic for the University, nor for the migrants who require immediate aid and housing. Instead, urgent crises like these necessitate immediate solutions that funnel resources directly to those who can make the biggest institutional differences, such as the City of Chicago itself. Chicago has pledged at least $138 million towards caring for migrants in 2023, most of which was outsourced to private firms to house and feed migrants and staff shelters. For 2024, the city has set aside $150 million, a number that Mayor Johnson acknowledged will not be enough

to care for the only growing number of migrants. Perhaps this is the junction where UChicago can easily and immediately step in: by offering resources towards the city’s solutions or the many organizations that provide food, warm clothing, and shelter to those in need.

At the end of the day, UChicago does not have to do anything. But the University’s current inaction ultimately further distances itself from Chicago’s issues while harming the populations it claims to support. The current crisis is not merely political; it consists of real, struggling people who need aid. As an institution whose purported goal is to change the world for the better, UChicago has an ethical responsibility to take care of the worlds it inhabits— whether that is its students, Hyde Park,

eva mccord.

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Grub, Not Hub: Losing Social Connection at Hutch

How Grubhub’s Hutch takeover exemplifies a greater loss of human connection.

By CAMILLE CYPHER

This year, on the first night of Saturday Night Meal Swipes, I got so confused by the Grubhub app that I gave up and ate scraps off of a friend’s takeaway box. But finding determination through my hunger, and upon being handheld through the ordering process by a Grubhub spokesperson, the workers and I discovered that not only was I the evening’s last patron but the 1000th. There was an amused outburst as the workers closing up for the night overheard. Employees clapped for a successful first night with the new system, with 1,000 being a nice round and high number to end on. A UChicago Dining spokesperson asked for a photo, positioning me with my tofu poke bowl, a Grubhub utensil kit, and a stiff french fry plushy that the manager had found in the back— my makeshift prize.

I was delighted myself! I ran around Hutch, telling all the people I knew—which was many, given the way that Hutch seems to pull everyone you know into the same room. I joked that “girls like me don’t win sweepstakes.”

I taped my receipt to my wall. And yet, what was once comical if not resented for its gratuitous inconvenience, has now become entirely accepted. Because as soon as Grubhub became efficient, we happily adopted a process that ultimately removes us further from each other not only as producers and consumers but also as humans.

Certainly, Grubhub has its benefits. It’s efficient, reduces crowds, and even allowed someone to broadcast Subway Surfers onto the order-displaying screens—or so I heard. But what’s efficient isn’t necessarily good for us in the long run if it’s not human. As college students,

we’re all familiar with the silent Uber ride, driver and rider hardly acknowledging each other, or the “leave it at my door” function— or, in Hutch terms, leave it on the metal rack. More recently “Google Assistant” called Shinju to make my birthday reservation for me, though I would’ve preferred calling myself. I can only imagine what mechanical voice spoke to the front desk, asking for a table, party of eight.

With Grubhub’s addition to Hutch, we’re again not even given the option to communicate directly or bring our goods together in a simple exchange. Instead, we abstractly send our money—or Maroon dollars—off and collect our food from a metal rack. It’s Marx’s commodity fetish—the abstraction from labor and goods, the agency of objects, and the consequential loss of human connection in our exchange—doubly done. We

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don’t understand how labor becomes goods. We don’t know why goods cost as much as they do. And now we don’t even see each other, bartering with an abstract third-party app that brings our objects together for us, even if it’s just money and to-go boxes. Within Hutch, we’re removed from even the subtlest human connections, all for the sake of a few seconds that would’ve been spent waiting in line. It’s all moving so fast, and our generation is told we can handle it because we grew up this way. But we’re accepting it so easily that it’s hard to understand what we’re losing and the scale of what we’ll miss in the long run: the social-emotional learning that comes from brief human interactions. For a long time, I thought there was a startling difference between Gen Z and the iPad kids, but we’re all pushed to change our habits for the sake of efficien-

cy. The difference might just be how willing we are to accept it.

And maybe this is a silly argument to make about a process that’s solely UChicago’s problem, but it’s not just Grubhub at Hutch. It’s Uber Eats and Google Assistant. Every trip home to the Bay or back to Chicago comes with a new VR experience storefront, the coffee shop I worked at closing, or my mother watching 10-second ballet videos on Facebook. There is barely enough time for anything to become familiar and even less incentive to know each other. And coming back to Chicago this year, I was met with bright orange banners (and a $3 coupon!). I was again waiting but in a different form, my back pressed against soda machines next to four other phone holders, all for the sake of efficiency, but at the cost of connection.

So What Brings You Here: O-Week for Transfers

Hosted by: CELESTE ALCALAY and ERICA CAI

Featuring: SAIA PATEL

Edited by: ERICA CAI

Music by: CELESTE ALCALAY

On their second episode, Celeste and Erica discuss navigating O-Week as a transfer—from awkward first impressions over Zoom to extravagantly fancy lunches—with guest Saia Patel, a transfer student from Colby College.

In Richard III , Man, Machine, Humor, and Tyranny

A twisted automaton takes center stage in Nora Schultz and Honor Torrance’s recent University Theater production. ARTS

By NOLAN SHAFFER | Arts Reporter

“Now is the winter of our discontent.”

The very first line of Richard III hits a little too close to home for UChicago students in the middle of winter quarter. And it is not the only somber truth in the play. The focus of Richard III, the scar left by tyranny, is ubiquitous: familiar to many students in their social sciences and civilizations sequences and pervasive in the news. On February 15–17, it was keenly felt on the third floor of the Reynolds Club. With an automaton, bloodshed, and humor, the Dean’s Men’s production of Richard III warned of the human consequences of tyranny.

Humanity is typically not the first thing that comes to mind when Richard III is mentioned. Richard of Gloucester, the play’s protagonist, is arguably one of Shakespeare’s greatest villains: he quests incessantly for power, and if you’re measuring villains by kill count, he comes in first.

Humanizing this unrelenting evil is a challenge that every production of Richard III must respond to, but it is not the only one. “Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time… That dogs bark at me as I halt by them” is how Richard describes his characteristic physical disability, often portrayed as a hunchback, in the opening soliloquy of the play. Recent productions have found themselves confronting the ethics of how to portray this. In 2022, the Royal Shakespeare Company cast a disabled actor as Richard for the first time, while the Public Theater chose to leave Richard’s disability out entirely.

In this production, co-directors Nora Schultz and Honor Torrance have come up with their own answer, simultaneously addressing both predicaments of humanizing evil and approaching disability: Richard is a power-hungry automaton.

As this machine rises toward kingship in 15th-century England, killing anyone who stands in his way, he is not hindered by

his conscience—or by the enormous, shiny winder attached to his back. Even if you were to miss this distinctive costume piece or the notable design choices (such as the ticking sound effect that creeps up during tense moments or the mechanical, unsettling music box melody), there would be no confusion surrounding the duke’s robotics.

Jack Pflieger’s performance as Richard is careful and calculated, mechanical in his laughter and physicality, yet smooth and kingly in his speech. In short, it’s everything you’d want to see in an evil robot.

Pflieger’s savvy approach to mechanization sets the stage for the rest of the cast to emphasize their humanity, and they rise well to the occasion. In the second scene, Griffin Jones shows skillful range as Queen Anne, moving from spitting in Richard’s face to accepting a ring from him in marriage. It is a difficult transition to pull off, but Jones does so candidly, foreshadowing the devastating consequences of Richard’s expert manipulation.

It can be nail-biting to watch this evil unfold, as Richard includes the audience in every step along the way through natural and polished soliloquies. This makes it easy to become invested: there is a jarring tension between knowing what’s going to occur and watching it happen that speaks poignantly to tyranny’s ability to masquerade itself. Moments like Queen Margaret’s unheeded warning cries are especially gut-punching, delivered intensely by Anya Moseke with desperate urgency to unlistening (or perhaps unwilling) ears. Frustrating as it is, the irony she captures is a solemn reminder that tyranny doesn’t look like tyranny to most. Indeed, if Richard III is meant to serve as a warning of tyranny, this production’s greatest strength is its ability to communicate this warning subtly and emotionally.

For instance, this theme is well-aided by technical choices. An empty throne sits threateningly upstage and remains lit as

a warning for nearly the entire duration of the play. The sound design (Kelly Mao), which features classical music, is particularly effective at reflecting the fear and danger of Richard’s coercion, ranging from violent and intense violin to a chilling piano underscore.

In Richard’s murders, the consequences are intimately felt. In an emotional and fevered monologue shortly before being killed, Clarence (Ruth Witter) recounts a nightmare about going to hell, and the panic is tangible. When the murderers approach, the audience, like Clarence, feels trapped. Later in the play, after two of her sons are killed, Queen Elizabeth’s (Fimi Adesemoye) performance is emotional and potent—“I have no more sons of the royal blood / For thee to murder.”

Despite all the bloodshed, there are resilient moments of comedy—another strength of the production is its ability to contrast tragedy with humor. The genial Buckingham (Simon Lenoe) epitomizes this strength: through excellent timing and natural delivery, he is relatable and funny, an excellent foil to Richard that makes the Duke’s eventual (and inevitable)

betrayal hard-hitting.

The humor does not detract from the seriousness of the play but rather makes the production more engaging. In Clarence’s murder scene, the assassins (Charlie Robinson and Tannus Vollmer) are hilarious and effective in their timing and physical comedy. Queen Elizabeth’s two sons have a distinctly humorous relationship, with actors Moseke and Witter committing well to their characters’ quirks. Even the play’s final speech, delivered by the victorious Richmond (Charlie Robinson) after Richard is slain, is full of comedic awkwardness and adolescence.

In the end, Richard’s defeat does not leave much hope. The human consequences of tyranny have been felt, and we are reminded of the emotional (and physical) baggage when the victims appear as sobering ghosts haunting Richard’s conscience. Even this last fleeting ability to demonstrate a conscience—fully establishing Pflieger’s remarkable range—does not provide solace. If anything, it drives the essence of the play home: no one, not the tyrant, not his victims, not the audience, is spared from the devastation of tyranny.

Jack Pflieger and Elisa Gao in University Theater’s recent production of Richard III courtesy of university theater .

SPORTS Culture Meets Community in UChicago’s Backyard With Kit Swap

Local musician Hameedullah Weaver looks to foster community on the South Side with a unique soccer shirt swapping event, hosted by Miyagi Records.

By SHRIVAS RAGHAVAN | Sports Editor

When I was first told about a soccer shirt swap event being hosted by a music label at a local record shop, I was somewhat perplexed. I had always viewed sport and music as domains with immense cultural significance, but their significances had existed independently. Combining two distinctly different things in such a novel way seemed odd to me. When I told my friend about “Kit Swap,” his response made it clear that I wasn’t alone in my confusion. “A soccer event at a record shop? What does that even mean?”

It was this confusion, which soon became an insatiable curiosity, that led me to the front door of Miyagi Records on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, eager to see what Kit Swap was all about. As I entered the small yet charming building, right across from the Garfield Green Line station, I was immediately hit with a wave of laughter and chatter. Eventgoers dressed in an array of vibrant soccer shirts thumbed through Miyagi’s record collection, conversing with each other while nodding along to the electronic music pulsating from the shop’s speakers. Those who had meandered toward the back of the shop and away from Miyagi’s seemingly endless collection found themselves engaged in a game of FIFA or in the midst of a shirt exchange.

The energy in the quaint shop was palpable, and it soon became clear to me that the intersection between music and sport was no coincidence.

“The event came from the ethos of what I want to do with my label,” Hameedullah Weaver, event organizer and head of music label Lunt and Oglesby, told the Maroon. Lunt and Oglesby, named for two streets on the polar ends of Chicago, represents the intersection between two seemingly unrelated con-

cepts, something that inspired Weaver to host the event in the first place. “I love soccer and I love music, so why can’t we just bring those two worlds together?”

However, the allure of Kit Swap extends beyond just the collision of sport and music. Weaver hopes his event can help revitalize a sense of community in Chicago, stressing the need for intimacy and camaraderie in an increasingly capitalistic world. “When you’re sharing something so intimate, you’re revealing something about yourself and exchanging it with someone else who might ap -

preciate it,” Weaver explained. “We’re always pressured to buy more, but we have a lot already, and you could share that with somebody else.”

As I continued to make my way around the shop, Weaver’s sentiment became evident to me. While many had found themselves at Miyagi Records that day in hopes of securing a new addition to their personal soccer kit collection, their focus soon shifted from personal gain to cultivating new relationships and sharing a part of themselves with others. Those who had entered Miyagi as strangers became lost in conversations ranging from their favorite soul records

to their thoughts on the Africa Cup of Nations final between Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire projected on the store’s wall. For a few hours, Miyagi had become a sanctuary—a comforting symbol of community and intimacy in a progressively disconnected world.

With his sights set on New York City as the next stop on the Kit Swap tour, Weaver hopes to continue using his label and musical platform as a way to bring communities together across the country. “I definitely want to go around the country to do this. Maybe I’ll do one in New York this summer, we’ll see.”

Hameedullah Weaver, the organizer of the event. shrivas raghavan .

CROSSWORDS

73. Moments Lost in Time

By PRAVAN CHAKRAVARTHY | Head Crossword Editor

ACROSS

1 Supper, for one

5 Bangs on a drum, maybe

9 Gateway Arch city, for short

12 Mozart’s “Rondo ___ turca”

13 Danger

14 “Go away!”

15 “Yeah, happy to do whatever!”

18 Who might be called for backup in a fight against a sibling

19 Black cats, maybe

20 Elder Stark sister on “Game of Thrones”

21 Stereotypical dog name

22 Earn, as money

23 Medieval Icelandic saga

26 Special area

29 Class for many an American immigrant

30 Device that sees through you

33 Break up over text?

34 Stirs in

35 CS field that deals with making computers understand speech

38 Absolutely dominate, in slang

39 2020 David Fincher film about “Citizen Kane”

42 Tours “ta-ta”

44 Like many olive oils

47 4.0 is a great one

50 Midway alternative

51 “Eureka!” moments

52 French for “grape”

54 Not quite a shave

56 Painter Max or physicist Mach

57 Cancún cousin

59 Place whose last letter is a sound you might hear inside it

62 Part of an iconic “Blade Runner” simile... and an explanation of the circled and shaded letters

65 Sister and wife of Osiris

66 Former UN Secretary-General Kofi

67 Pub unit

68 ___ Guevara, subject of the photograph “Guerrillero Heroico”

69 2000 Eminem song whose title aptly rhymes with “fan”

70 TV series set at William McKinley

DOWN

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3 What a fourth-year will be, in a

4 Track

5

6

7

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47

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37

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