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FOOD TRUCKS FACE REGULATORY ROADBLOCKS

NOVEMBER 17, 2022 EIGHTH WEEK VOL. 135, ISSUE 5

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University Reports Sexual Assault and Drink-Spiking Incidents

By KAYLA RUBENSTEIN | Deputy News Editor Content Warning: This articles mentions sexual assault and drink spiking.

On November 3, the University announced in an email that an undergraduate student had reported attending a party on October 28 at which they suspected that drugs were placed in a drink of theirs. The

undergraduate student reported likely being sexually assaulted in an unspecified dorm on campus the same night. The email, which came from Associate Vice President for Safety & Security Eric Heath and Dean of Students in the University Michele Rasmussen, also revealed that the University had re-

ceived six other reports from undergraduates who suspected that drugs had been slipped into their beverages at parties since late September. The University of Chicago Police Department’s incident log notes that the assault was reported on November 1 and had been referred to the University’s Title IX coordinator. As of today, the log also states that UCPD is not conducting an investigation.

Under Illinois law, tampering with a person’s food or drink in a way that causes “great bodily harm” is considered a Class 2 felony, which mandates a three-year minimum prison sentence. Additionally the possession of many types of date rape drugs is illegal under Illinois and federal law.

Laura Gersony and Milutin Gjaja contributed reporting.

Instructor Postpones Class on Whiteness After Harrassment, Threats

By YIWEN LU | Managing Editor After receiving a wave of responses online, Rebecca Journey, instructor of global studies course “The Problem of Whiteness,” postponed the class to spring 2023, according to an announcement on the program website.

The seminar, which was cross-listed with the Department of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) and the Department of Anthropology, was scheduled for winter 2023. Journey, a teaching fellow who holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from UChicago, writes in the course description that the seminar intends to “examine the problem of whiteness through an anthropological lens.”

“In recent years, whiteness has resurfaced as a conspicuous problem within liberal political discourse,” the description states.

Since winter quarter courses became available in Week 6, a screenshot of the course listing and its description has circulated widely on Twitter. Second-year Daniel Schmidt first tweeted about the course on November 1, calling it “the most egregious example” of “anti-white hatred” on campus.

Multiple right-wing media outlets, including The Daily Caller and The Washington Times, reported on the course offering.

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Schmidt was a Viewpoints columnist at The Maroon during fall 2021 and winter 2022. In February, The Maroon terminated Schmidt from his position over harassment of a fellow columnist.

Beginning November 2, the day after Schmidt’s Twitter thread—which included a screenshot of Journey’s bio and email— went public, Journey received at least 80 harassing emails. “These harassing emails have included death threats, veiled threats, and threats of sexual assault, as well as all kinds of misogynistic, racist, and antisemitic languages.”

Because of concerns over her and her students’ safety, Journey decided to reschedule the class so that the University administration had more time to implement appropriate safety measures. As of Wednesday, November 9, the University has taken steps to protect Journey’s digital identity and develop a personal safety plan.

Journey has no intention to cancel the class. She plans to offer the class in spring with the same title, description, and content.

“I want to just state unequivocally that the class is emphatically not about ‘an-

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ti-white hatred,’” Journey said in defense of the course. “This class is about interrogating whiteness as a social construction, not as a biological fact.”

The study of whiteness has had a history in the social sciences since the 1990s. Scholars have analyzed the idea of whiteness, including the concept’s multiple meanings, how it emerged from history, and how it functions in society today. The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, for example, published a 12-part series called Seeing White discussing what it means to be white.

“None of that involves anything remotely close to attuning people who might be thought of or identify as white. It’s not about castigating people at all,” Julian Go, a sociology professor at UChicago, said in explaining the difference between anti-white racism and the study of whiteness in response to the controversy. “That is no more racist than studying how people support a sports team.

I mean, they’re completely separate issues.”

The University defended the course, citing the Chicago Principles, a University tradition that upholds a commitment to free speech and the ability to debate controversial ideas. In communications with

The Maroon, University spokesperson Gerald McSwiggan added, “The University will continue to defend the right of faculty to establish curricula and courses.”

This is not the first time that colleges and universities have taught courses about similar subjects. Last winter, Journey taught the same class at UChicago and said that she had a “wonderful” experience with “some of the brightest, sharpest students I’ve ever had the pleasure to think with,” she said.

In 2016, the University of WisconsinMadison (UW-Madison)’s Damon Sajnani offered a course that was also titled “The Problem of Whiteness” as part of the

institution’s African Cultural Studies program. Wisconsin state representative David Murphy (R-Greenville) and Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke asked the university to cancel the course, citing racial divisions, according to CNN. At the time, UW-Madison defended the continuation of the course in a statement released after the backlash. “We believe this course, which is one of the thousands offered at our university, will benefit students who are interested in developing a deeper understanding of race issues. The course is a challenge and response to racism of all kinds,” the university wrote.

Hyde Park Food Trucks Encounter Regulatory Roadblocks

By FINN HARTNETT | News Reporter Wednesday, October 5, was a day like any other along South Ellis Avenue.

Then the fire department showed up.

The department, along with various officials from the City of Chicago’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection (BACP), came to pay a visit to the food trucks that frequent South Ellis Avenue. These trucks station themselves in the heart of UChicago’s campus during the early afternoon, providing lunch to students, faculty, medical workers, and locals.

A variety of trucks show up every afternoon, each with something to offer. The Fat Shallot and Chicago Lunchbox are always busy. El Buen Taco #2 offers a large variety of Mexican lunch options. Tacos Cincuenta Arrobas specializes in huaraches—larger, flatter tacos with thicker tortillas.

The officials who’d arrived, however, weren’t there for lunch. They had come to inspect the trucks’ safety systems and licenses.

Sure enough, many of Hyde Park’s favorite mobile eateries were soon unceremoniously escorted off the block.

Kyle Kelly, the owner of the food truck Cajun Connoisseur, told The Maroon that this was the first time he had seen such an inspection since he began frequenting South Ellis Avenue seven years ago. At that point, the area was mostly just used for parking, Kelly said. Slowly, though, the trucks began

to show up, offering their wares to hungry students eager to snap them up.

Even if one doesn’t prepare food inside of their truck, a license from the City of Chicago is required in order to operate such a vehicle. This “mobile food license” must be renewed every two years. For many truck owners, that was where the problem arose.

“Because of the pandemic, so many offices were closed…All the processes were so slow,” Virginia Velásquez, an employee at El Buen Taco #2, told The Maroon. “We had an application [that was sent in] March, and we didn’t have any call back to continue with the process. So of course when they came in… my license was expired!”

Following the inspection, the staff of El Buen Taco #2 was made to attend a class about new propane regulations, submit some paperwork, and pay a $1,000 fee for a new license. Despite the complications that arose from the visit, Velásquez stressed that she and the rest of El Buen Taco’s staff did not have a problem with the process, which took them about a week, and praised the city’s fire and health departments for checking in. “In my point of view, they did the right thing… they have to come, they have to check.”

The city officials weren’t just looking for a single license, however. The food trucks’ kitchens were also subjected to a standard health inspection by the BACP. “Even

though it’s a mobile kitchen, we still need to have fresh water, we still have to have all the cleaning supplies,” Velásquez said.

Perhaps the most extensive checks on the trucks are on their fire suppression systems. A food truck with an operational kitchen contains enough flammables to make a pyromaniac blush. “We have electricity, we have fire… we have propane tanks, we have gasoline, and the truck itself has to use diesel,” Velásquez said. Kelly stated that the possibility of explosions is the top reason he has a problem with unlicensed trucks.

“If something happens over here and one of these trucks blows up—and I’m not saying that they will, it hasn’t happened, I pray it doesn’t happen—propane is a very dangerous thing to deal with,” he said.

Why, then, do some food trucks not get licensed in the first place, choosing instead to take to the streets in makeshift stalls that are often literally homemade? According to Thomas Brewer—founder of the food truck Whadda Jerk, another truck along Ellis Avenue that offers a variety of Caribbean street food—the answer is that licensing can be a very tedious process.

“There are a lot of regulations inside the truck as far as it’s built,” he said. “A lot of people don’t get their truck built professionally.

They just kind of put it together, and then they hit the street.”

To get an official license, one’s truck must be examined by the BACP. Brewer stated

that truck owners typically fail this examination about four or five times before passing, showing just how time-consuming the licensing process can be. A few, like Whadda Jerk, pass on the first try. “Someone [built] my truck who knew what they was doing,” Brewer proudly stated.

According to Brewer, it is usually not mom-and-pop trucks that try to skirt the licensing process. “It’s not like the family struggling. It’s the greedy people as well, that have multiple trucks,” he said. “Sometimes they have three trucks out here [on South Ellis Avenue], and none of them are licensed.”

Another reason some truck owners avoid licensing their vehicles, according to Kelly, is the issue of the food truck commissary. A commissary is a large shared space where ingredients are prepared and the trucks themselves are cleaned, serviced, and stored. The City of Chicago states that food trucks must legally join a commissary.

When he spoke to The Maroon, Kelly explained that he was having problems with his commissary of which Whadda Jerk is also a part of. The company was recently sold to ProLogistix, a freighting and warehousing company that Kelly worries will convert the space’s kitchen area into more truck storage.

“I’m waiting to see how that plays out. They said they’re not going to do it,” he said. “But, you know. People say one thing and do another.”

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Velásquez speculated that money is the biggest reason vendors don’t get themselves licensed. The required classes cost a fee, as does the license itself. Additionally, she explained that illegal trucks typically don’t use proper equipment, which they would then need to buy. The proper type of generator costs around $5,000, according to Velásquez. “To make it worse, when you order [a generator]… it’s a delay of 15 months, at least,” she added.

These factors, along with some stringent local food truck laws—the most notorious of which stipulates that food trucks be GPStracked so that the city can ensure they are

parked at least 200 feet away from restaurants—are part of why Chicago has a fairly tepid food truck scene. The Chicago Tribune reported in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, that only about 65 food trucks service Chicago. For comparison, a 2017 article by the Chicago Reader pointed out that there were 2,600 permits for food trucks in California’s Los Angeles County. Even in Minneapolis, a city where the winter months are colder than Chicago’s, there are more than 100 trucks in operation.

The good news for Hyde Park’s food truck community is that some trucks have trickled back to the area. But Velásquez stated on October 25 that according to the fire

department, only two of the approximately seven trucks forced to leave South Ellis Avenue on October 5 have received new or updated licenses. El Buen Taco #2 is one of them. Some other vendors appear to have taken a different route, now parking their trucks on South University Avenue instead of South Ellis Avenue. This parking on South University Avenue began soon after October 5. While BACP informed The Maroon that South University Avenue is not a restricted area for food trucks, Kelly stated that none of the trucks operating on this street were licensed.

“I informed the city that they are over there,” he said on October 21, citing fears

of propane explosions. When asked his thoughts about the trucks on South University Avenue, Kelly added, “I can’t say shit about them. I can only speak about myself.”

It should be said that soon after these comments were made, the number of food trucks on South University Avenue diminished.

While Velásquez worried that an explosion might occur in one of these unlicensed trucks, she also expressed more empathy towards such vendors. “They have my best wishes,” she said. “All the equipment is so expensive. They’re just trying to make money.”

Taking the World by Storm: Introducing Four of This Year’s Obama Foundation Scholars

By CASEY KIM | Senior News Reporter The University and the Obama Foundation announced the 2022–23 class of UChicago Obama Foundation Scholars.

The cohort comprises 18 students from the Harris School of Public Policy; Booth School of Business; and the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice.

The students will have access to networking opportunities, leadership development programming, and educational support.

The program selects students in their final year of study at the three UChicago professional schools. Over the course of a year, scholars will equip themselves with the proper tools to improve communities around the world.

Four Obama Foundation Scholars from Harris and Crown spoke with The Maroon about their endeavors and how the Obama Foundation has guided their efforts to create change.

Christine Goggins (Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice) Chicago resident Christine Goggins is a lead violence recovery specialist at UChicago Medicine and clinical social work A.M. student with a focus on trauma response. She

hopes to utilize the Obama Foundation’s resources to provide crisis intervention care to victims and families of intentional violence.

“I get to work with so many people across the world,” Goggins said. “We’re getting to talk to amazing thinkers, amazing people in different fields. What I like about the Obama Foundation is that we look at our problems across different sectors and its emphasis on the change narrative.”

Goggins has wanted to work in the spheres of social services and violence prevention ever since she lost her friend Blair Holt to gun violence in 2007. But once she entered the workforce, Goggins developed an interest in housing insecurity.

“Because I worked with a lot of at-risk populations, I began to think about how important housing was. If you don’t have that foundational piece of housing, all of the other additions won’t stick. For example, if I give you a referral to an amazing therapist but you don’t know where you’re going to lay your head at night, how would you make it to any of those therapy sessions?”

In her Obama Foundation project, Goggins is focusing on addressing housing insecurity as a critical solution to gun violence.

She also discussed the importance of recognizing institutional racism as a key factor behind violence in Chicago.

“People don’t readily think of [structural racism] when they see the violence here,” Goggins said. “They see it as very concentrated in specific areas. And yes, there is a high prevalence of violence, but what is often lost upon people is the very dark nature of how this city was founded in general. So in light of what I want to do, and my goals, I want to heal some of that structural racism and take a very holistic approach to it.”

Goggins also shared her excitement about being part of the Obamas’ legacy. The Obama Foundation was started by Barack and Michelle Obama in 2014 as a nonprofit organization. In addition to operating the scholarship program, it oversees the Barack Obama Presidential Center and the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance.

“Being a Black woman from the South Side of Chicago, I’ve always been inspired

by Michelle Obama,” Goggins said. “To be a part of her legacy at UChicago Med, and also remembering President Barack Obama’s campaign committed to community and change, I knew that the Obama Foundation Scholars program was aligned with my values already.”

Deqa Aden (Harris School of Public Policy) Deqa Aden, who is pursuing her master of public policy degree (M.P.P.) with certificates in international development and markets and regulations, hopes to build a holistic advocacy center for victims of gender-based violence in Somaliland. Somali-land is a de facto sovereign state in Africa; it is considered internationally to be part of Somalia and is not recognized as a country by the United Nations. The center would provide victims access to legal services as well as medical and psychosocial treatments.

Though currently still in development, the advocacy center has been a passion project of Aden’s since her days working as a manager of a business incubator in Somali-land. She is hopeful that the Obama Foundation can help bring it to life.

“I just saw a big gap when it comes to services that support victims of [gender-based violence],” Aden said. “Watching the stories from the news and even just hearing from other people, I was frustrated that there was a lack of accountability. Also, there are really no holistic services for these people to have transformative healing.”

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nent of the program, which requires scholars to partake in weekly classes and leadership training, the extensive network of leaders has proven invaluable, Aden said.

“When you meet people who are so committed to service and impact, they really do inspire you,” Aden said. “Some of our scholars in the program already are running their own nonprofits. I get to learn from them, learn what they did differently, and how to build sustainable projects. I’m very lucky that my project is in the idea stage because I just have so many connections and people to advise and guide me.”

After graduating from Grinnell College in 2018 with a double major in political science and psychology, Aden worked at the World Bank Group’s Finance Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice in Washington, D.C. In 2020, she moved back to Somaliland and became a manager at HarHub, a business incubator that provides access to finance to vulnerable youth and women.

Aden said that seeing the challenges women face on a daily basis inspired the vision behind her project.

“Women across the world, they’re just still proving who they are as human beings,” Aden said. “You see women struggling at the corporate level, you see women constantly struggling within their own family, within their own communities. So even though the issues are particular to my country, it is a problem that’s more predominant. Women are still suffering across the world. They are still trying to find their own freedom, liberty,

and voice.”

Heena Mohammed (Harris School of Public Policy) Unlike the majority of the students at the Harris School, who tend to have fewer than five years of work experience, Heena Mohammed has eight. Before matriculating, she served as Deputy Head of the Police Powers Unit at the UK Home Office in London, senior private secretary to the British Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service, and policy advisor for the British government. Her extensive political work allowed her to examine the racial disparities in policing powers and the way they are used, she said.

Until recently, Mohammed, a graduate of the University of Manchester, also worked as a Graduate Assistant at the Institute of Politics, where she was able to engage directly with incarcerated people. Mohammed said that she was motivated to come to Chicago in order to study the space of police powers and criminal justice at an academically credible institution.

“If you want to study race or crime policing in an urban setting, for me, Chicago is the place to do that,” Mohammed said. “There’s so much data in this city, and there’s also so many challenges. Because there have been so many historical challenges in the city, people are really forced to be a lot more creative, whether that’s on the academic and intellectual side or whether that’s the wealth of community organizing in that city. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Mohammed’s Obama Foundation– sponsored project envisions bringing the

city government closer to the nonprofit sector, the private sector, and the public sector.

She hopes to improve community-based solutions and considers them essential to eliminating racial disparities in crime and law enforcement policy in Chicago.

“What’s fascinating to me is that they don’t talk to each other and there’s nobody that’s being the intermediary,” she said. “The one thing that we have so much work in in the South Side and West Side of Chicago is people who know their communities and do things on a block-by-block level.”

Mohammed highlighted experiences at Harris that allowed her to learn from and alongside her peers.

“I remember that first day, we were all like, ‘I think I found my people,’” she said, “and we really came out of it going, ‘This is the kind of culture and experience I wanted when it came to grad school.’”

Nishit Shukla (Harris School of Public Policy) After graduating from the Manipal Institute of Technology in 2015 with a degree in mechatronics engineering, Nishit Shukla returned home to India to work as a full-time teacher in disadvantaged communities in the Maharashtrian city of Pune. For four years, he worked with nonprofit Teach for India as a fellow and later as a program manager. During his time as a teacher, Shukla was inspired to work on climate change solutions after witnessing how floods and droughts disproportionately affected the communities he served.

“In one particular year, the entire houses of my students would be inundated with wa-

ter, and the next year, the same houses would be having severe water crisis issues,” Shukla said. “That kind of really forced me to look at climate change from a broader perspective, a broader lens. And that’s how the journey began.”

Shukla started by examining the role of education in solving climate issues at the community level. In 2017, he initiated the Unprint Challenge, a program that offered high school students the tools and experiences to launch their own social entrepreneurship initiatives. However, he realized that while education played an important role in creating long-term change, it could not address immediate concerns.

In 2019, Shukla joined the Pune International Center, where he conducted research on economic development and climate change policy. He also coauthored a policy paper on how the city of Pune, with a population of five million people, will be carbon-neutral by 2030.

He was admitted to Harris in 2020 but deferred his starting date by a year. In the interim, he co-founded ReHive, an investment platform for promising climate adaptation start-ups in India that combat urgent climate issues. With the help of the Obama Foundation, Shukla is working to expand this project.

“The biggest strength of the foundation is the people,” he said. “Just having conversations with them, understanding their journey and their challenges and learning how they overcome their challenges, has been a huge inspiration for me because working on your own start-up can be a lonely journey.”

UChicago Scientists Collaborate on ALS Research, Outreach in New Center for Motor Neuron Disease

By NAINA PURUSHOTHAMAN | News Reporter The University of Chicago is establishing the Center for Motor Neuron Disease (CMND) after a $10 million gift from the Lohengrin Foundation. Headed by Director of the ALS/Motor Neuron Disease Clinic Raymond Roos and assistant professor of neurobiology Paschalis Kratsios, the CMND will conduct collaborative research into the genetic mechanisms be-

hind amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

ALS is a rapidly progressing disease.

After initial disease onset, patients usually have up to five years of life, and most affected individuals die sooner than that.

“ALS is a very horrible disease,” Roos said.

To further ALS research, the CMND will host a collaboration between the mo-

tor neuron labs of Roos and Kratsios.

Kratsios’s research specializes in the use of C. elegans, an roundworm with only 302 neurons, to discover genes and potential therapeutic targets to treat ALS. Kratsios did not start in the area of ALS, but when he saw the effects of the disease, he wanted to get involved.

“I saw with my own eyes how devastating the disease is,” he said. “I really wanted to do something for these pa-

tients.”

Roos has been involved in several different research areas and has been interested in muscle development, especially motor neurons.

“I got involved in ALS research a number of years ago, and I think it was probably related to my mother’s early issue related to polio,” he said.

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gether five years ago. Their research is focused on the C9orf72 gene, which contains an unusual mutation that is one of the main causes behind inherited ALS. “Part of our investigations is to identify what abnormalities are induced as a result of these proteins being made,” Roos said.

Roos and Kratsios have many goals for their collaborative research as a part of the CMND. Kratsios hopes that, by combining two different labs with different skills and expertise to attack a single problem, they can find a cure and therapeutics for ALS. “[Roos] has influenced my thinking a lot,” he said.

Roos added that another goal of this research is to understand ALS more generally.

“I’d like to think that the collaboration of Paschalis Kratsios, who’s a Ph.D. in neurobiology, and me, a neurologist in the department of neurology, will be a very important collaboration because he provides a spectrum of talents, and I provide an understanding of motor neuron disease research and some of the genes that are important in inherited ALS,” Roos said. “I’m very fortunate that Paschalis was recruited and is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago.”

In addition to collaborative research, the CMND will fund an annual symposium, conferences, internships, and programs that will introduce local high schoolers to ALS research. The Office of Civic Engagement is working with the CMND to link public high schools in the area to the center. Both research scien-

tists and graduate students will visit these schools and bring microscopes and equipment to the classrooms to explain why they study ALS and what they aim to achieve.

“In every type of research, science education should start early,” Kratsios said. “We want to educate students about STEM careers as early as possible. I think that’s one important step in educating the next generation of scientists. We have to start early.”

Roos is also passionate about having school outreach be one of the goals of the new center.

“We’re especially targeting schools that might not have that educational background and might not have those resources,” he said. “[The students] have different ideas about things that may

be very distinct from individuals in the University of Chicago schools, in general.

I want to bring them into ALS research and treatment because I think it’s going to be very important for the field.”

The center will provide internship opportunities for these high schoolers and will also extend some opportunities to undergraduates to be involved in this research.

“The University of Chicago undergrads are talented individuals, and they bring something into the lab, for sure,” Roos said. “So yes, we’re interested in our center being an educational resource for postdoctoral fellows, for graduate students, for medical students, for college students, and for students who haven’t yet reached college.”

Your Guide to Cook County’s Down-Ballot Races Here’s everything you need to know to cast an informed vote in Tuesday’s municipal elections.

By LAURA GERSONY | Grey City Editor Tomorrow, residents of Hyde Park and Woodlawn will vote on a dizzying 34 races and ballot items. Among them are nine municipal elections for Cook County government.

While lesser-known to the public, these positions hold a lot of power over the county’s operations, from tax collection to infrastructure planning.

Likewise, they have rich—and sometimes recent—histories as key footholds for local corruption. Here’s everything you need to know to cast an informed vote in Cook County’s municipal elections.

Precinct polling places will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, November 8. You can find your polling

place by entering your address at the Election Board’s website. You can register to vote at your polling place on Election Day by presenting two forms of ID, one of which must have a current home address.

Cook County Board of Commissioners: President and Third District With a $9 billion budget, the Cook County Board of Commissioners manages all the county’s operations, from the Office of the County Auditor to the Zoning Appeals Board. It’s composed of 17 commissioners, each with a four-year term. The Cook County Board has made headlines in recent months for piloting a guaranteed income program and for its

scramble to fill more than 4,000 vacant positions in the county government due to a nationwide shortage of healthcare workers. The Board is also responsible for crafting the annual county budget.

This year’s version was released last month.

The Board has been solidly Democrat-run for the party’s entire modern history. The question is whether the Republican minority will stay at a mere two members or shrink even further.

The Board president’s race has become a flashpoint for partisan debates over the role of police and public safety in the city. Running for a fourth term is incumbent Toni Preckwinkle, longtime Chicago City Council member and runner-up in the 2019 mayoral election. Up against Preckwinkle is former Second

Ward Alderman Bob Fioretti, a practicing attorney whose campaign emphasizes a “tough-on-crime” platform that promises to bolster police presence in the county. After six unsuccessful bids challenging Preckwinkle as a Democrat, Fioretti is now running as a Republican.

The Third District, which represents Hyde Park, Woodlawn, and Kenwood, is also up for grabs. Commissioner Bill Lowry, a Democrat who has represented the district since 2018, is running uncontested.

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cottage industry of corruption, against Libertarian Nico Tsatsoulis and writein candidate Clifton Graham Jr. Kaegi made a splash in 2018 by unseating Joseph Berrios, whose overvaluation of large commercial properties shifted the property tax burden onto homeowners. Kaegi’s 2021 assessment of property values in Cook County found an increase of more than 50 percent in the value of commercial properties in Chicago—a finding which has shifted the tax burden off homeowners and renters.

Kaegi goes up against Tsatsoulis, a graduate of UChicago’s Booth School of Business and self-described “irate citizen.” Tsatsoulis is running against tax assessment increases, seeking to limit the tax to one percent of property values, though these rates are set by the County Clerk, not the Assessor’s Office.

Cook County Clerk County Clerk Karen Yarbrough, a one-term Democrat, is running for reelection against former County Commissioner Tony Peraica (R-16th) and Libertarian Joseph Schreiner.

The Clerk’s office manages elections across Cook County, and maintains Cook County files such as birth, death,

and marriage certificates. Incumbent Karen Yarbrough is currently under fire for violating anti-patronage laws, unfairly favoring some workers and punishing others, during her first term. She faced similar allegations at her previous post, the county recorder of deeds.

She faces former County Commissioner Tony Peraica, a Republican running on making the office more efficient, and Joseph Schreiner, a Libertarian whose platform rails against COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates. If either candidate is successful, they would be the first non-Democrat to hold the office in more than a century.

Cook County Sheriff As the top law enforcement officer in the county, the Sheriff oversees the County’s policing and prison systems.

They manage the Cook County jail, coordinate policing throughout the county, and provide security at county and court facilities.

The race saw a chaotic Democratic primary election, with a last-minute ballot change rendering tens of thousands of ballots invalid. Nevertheless, fourth-term incumbent Sheriff Tom Dart won the nomination in a landslide with 85 percent of the primary vote—a supermajority that would have held even

The Maroon has Hyde Park and UChicago voters covered with information on Election 2022.

if all the lost ballots had gone to his challenger. Dart’s office has expanded mental health care for incarcerated people and launched a co-responder model that deploys mental health clinicians along with police officers when responding to mental health episodes.

Dart’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a polarizing issue for the campaign, as his office faced a civil lawsuit for cramped conditions in the county’s prisons. However, the office’s sanitation and social distancing measures are credited with averting 30 deaths and 400 cases of COVID-19. His office has also faced FBI scrutiny for allegations of “ghost payrolling,” though no criminal charges have resulted.

Dart faces Republican Lupe Aguirre, a former lawyer and Chicago police officer. Aguirre is running on a staunchly pro-policing platform, criticizing Dart as a “social justice warrior” for the prison reforms his office has overseen.

Cook County Treasurer The Treasurer’s race has incumbent Democrat Maria Pappas facing off against Republican Peter Kopsaftis and Libertarian Michael Murphy.

During six terms in office, Pappas is widely regarded to have transformed the position by publishing regular “Pappas studies” that analyze inequities in Chicago’s property tax system: including analyses of redlining, the distribution of debt across the city, and a property tax loophole that has cost Chicago $280 million over the last seven years.

Chicago Board of Review Commissioners The Board of Review Commissioner’s main job is to hear appeals about property taxes. In Cook County, board members are elected from three districts, each representing one-third of the county’s population. Wealthy interests have historically held an outsize influence in the office: Today, appeals are disproportionately filed by the county’s wealthier north and northwest sides.

All three members of the Board are up for reelection. Because redistricting last year cemented all three districts as solidly Democratic, the races are not expected to be competitive.

Representing the South Side is Third District incumbent Commissioner Lar-

ry Rogers Jr., who is running for reelection unopposed this election cycle. Rogers is one of three commissioners who violated Cook County’s ethics codes in 2018 by accepting donations from the property tax appeals business, according to a Chicago Tribune investigation.

Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioner A $1.3 billion agency, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District governs all things water-related in Cook County. This board of nine individuals is responsible for maintaining water and wastewater infrastructure, treating contaminated waterways, and preventing flooding and pollution. Controlling more than 9,000 acres of land, it’s the second-largest landowner in all of Cook County.

All of the members are “at large,” meaning that they all represent the entire county rather than one specific region, and serve staggered six-year terms.

The board is a policy-making entity, so it can establish policies for the county and perform financial oversight.

This year, there are four seats up for grabs. One of them is a special election to fill the absence of Debra Shore, who was tapped to serve as Region Five administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. Two people are running to fill this unexpired term: Green Party candidate Toneal M. Jackson, an environmental activist and author, and Democratic Party candidate Daniel Pogorzelski, a former union organizer and former director of Avondale, Illinois’s chamber of commerce.

The other three seats will serve sixyear terms per usual. Five people are running to fill these seats: Republican Cary Capparelli, a businessman who has run for the position four times before, twice as a Democrat and twice as a Republican, and whose platform emphasizes “cost-effectiveness”; Incumbent Democrat Mariyana Spyropoulos, who has served on the board since 2010 and is running for reelection on “fiscal responsibility, transparency and an environmentally progressive policy”; Green Party candidate Mark Buettner, a wastewater treatment operator who names urban flooding as a key issue of his camCONTINUED ON PG. 7

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paign; Democrat Yumeka Brown, an environmental lawyer and small business owner; and Democrat Patricia Theresa

Flynn, 12-year Village Trustee in the suburb of Crestwood, Illinois.

For information about judicial races, please see the local nonprofit Injustice

Watch’s voter guides.

election.

This story was first published online on November 8, 2022, prior to general

What Is the Workers’ Rights Amendment, the First Amendment on Illinois Ballots?

On November 8, Illinois could become the first U.S. state to ban “right-to-work” laws.

By EMMA JANSSEN | Deputy News Editor On November 8, Illinois voters will be faced with a question on their ballots: whether or not to vote in favor of an amendment to the state’s constitution—“Amendment 1” on the ballot, also known as the Workers’ Rights Amendment (WRA).

The amendment would guarantee workers’ right to unionize in the state constitution, and it would ban “right-to-work” laws, which prohibit employers from requiring their workers to join unions. Such laws are present in 28 states across the country. If passed, Illinois would be the first state to ban them.

The exact text of the WRA’s provision on right-to-work laws is as follows: “No law shall be passed that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively over their wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment and workplace safety, including any law or ordinance that prohibits the execution or application of agreements between employers and labor organizations that represent employees requiring membership in an organization as a condition of employment.”

The Illinois Constitution was ratified by the people on December 15, 1970, and became effective on July 1, 1971. Since its adoption, 14 amendments have been approved and amended, with the most recent being added in 2016.

1935-2022: A Brief History of Labor Legislation If passed, the WRA would build on decades of labor organizing nationwide, statewide, and citywide. Workers across

the U.S. have been afforded the protection to unionize and collectively bargain since 1935, when the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), also known as the Wagner Act, was passed. Then-President Franklin Roosevelt signed the bill into law, officially establishing the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and guaranteeing workers “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection.”

Since its establishment, the NLRB, consisting of five members appointed by the President, has arbitrated labor disputes and enforced workers’ right to unionize. Most NLRB members are attorneys with labor law experience, often holding either staunchly pro-union or pro-management positions.

By the end of the 1930s, the number of women who belonged to unions had skyrocketed to 800,000, a threefold increase from the years before the NLRA. These successes were hard fought, built on the backs of workers who spent years striking, clashing with police, and taking over factories to gain the right to unionize.

Over the years, labor-friendly Illinois has passed legislation to make up for gaps in the NLRA. One gap is its scope: The law applies to all employers involved in interstate commerce except for airline, railroad, agriculture, and government sectors.

Individual states legislate the protection of workers’ rights in these sectors. In 1984,

Members of the Illinois chapter of National Nurses United. courtesy of national nurses united

Illinois passed two laws, the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act and the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act, that sought to add additional protections on top of those guaranteed by the NLRA. Together, these two laws gave public employees like first responders, sanitation workers, and teachers the right to unionize.

The NLRA also does not engage with right-to-work laws. At the moment, a company is allowed to enforce one of four union-membership systems.

The Labor Management Relations Act, passed in 1947, outlawed the closed shop, which requires employees to be union members as a condition of employment.

It also allowed state governments to outlaw the union shop, which allows hiring of non-union employees on the condition that they eventually join a union, and the agency shop, which allows hiring of nonunion employees as long as they pay the cost of union representation. Many states

have opted to ban these practices through “right-to-work” laws that only permit the open shop, according to which employees are not compelled to join or pay the union.

Proponents of right-to-work laws argue that these laws give employees more choice in the workplace, letting them decide whether or not to be members or financial supporters of unions. Those against right-to-work laws see them as a means to target unions, decreasing their membership and thus their bargaining power and financial resources.

Twenty-eight states have right-towork laws; Illinois is not one of them.

If passed, the amendment would make nationwide labor history and add to Illinois’s centuries-long history of labor activism. The first major chapter in this narrative was the Haymarket Affair of May 1, 1886, a general strike that saw tens of thousands of Chicagoans walk off CONTINUED ON PG. 8

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the job to demand an eight-hour workday.

Two days later, two workers died during clashes with strikebreakers and police officers outside of Chicago’s McCormick Reaper plant. The very next day, during a rally to support McCormick workers, someone threw an explosive device that killed seven police officers and left dozens wounded.

Since the Haymarket Affair, Chicago has been at the center of other labor movements, including a recent resurgence of labor activism during the first half of 2022.

Recently, a number of Chicago-based union initiatives have made nationwide news, notably the organizing of Amazon and Starbucks workers. More recently, in 2021, a group of workers called Amazonians United Chicagoland organized a pre-Christmas work stoppage in two Amazon warehouses, one in the Gage Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side and another in Cicero. Though not a formal union, the group organized walkouts and petitions out of the two warehouses to promote safer working conditions, including water for employees and COVID safety measures such as reducing the volume of workers in the warehouse and establish-

ing a temperature check.

Additionally, out of the 258 Starbucks stores that have unionized nationally, seven are located in the Chicago area, including the Starbucks at East 55th Street and South Woodlawn Avenue, which has been unionized since June 2022.

What Would the WRA Mean for Illinois?

The WRA’s banning of right-to-work laws wouldn’t affect public sector employees. According to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Janus v. AFSCME, public sector employees across the country operate under an open shop model, with no requirements to join or contribute to unions. If passed, the amendment would only block right-to-work laws affecting the private sector.

Opinions vary on the effects of the amendment. Some see it as a leap for workers’ rights and a boon to the middle class.

Others argue that it would curb economic growth by pushing cash-strapped companies out of Illinois.

Recent research from the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign assessed the potential impacts of the amendment and found that its net effects would be-

UChicago Graduate Students United Co-President for Bargaining, Claudio Gonzales, addressed representatives of several Chicago-area graduate student unions.

Graduate students rallied for unionization in front of Levi Hall on the Monday before a 2021 vote. positive for the average taxpayer. The WRA, the study found, “would not only promote superior safety outcomes and a strong middle-class economy for Illinois workers and businesses, but it would also reduce burdens on state taxpayers while reducing turnover costs for employers and ensuring labor market competitiveness in the state’s most essential jobs.”.

The study noted the benefits that unionized employees in Illinois already see—they earn 14 percent more than their nonunionized counterparts and are nine percent more likely to have health insurance coverage. After credits and deductions, they contribute eight percent more in state income taxes. The study concluded that the amendment would only increase these benefits, preventing 70,000 Illinois workers from falling below the federal poverty line, protecting $43 billion in annual income for Illinois workers, and saving 900 lives over a decade. Illinois experiences 32 percent fewer on-the-job fatalities than states that “do not support collective bargaining,” the report finds.

Endorsements for the amendment have rolled in from unions across the state, including the Chicago Teachers’ Union, the Illinois chapter of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO),

and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Additionally, many Illinois Democrats, including Governor. J. B. Pritzker, have expressed their support for the amendment.

The amendment’s main source of opposition comes from business groups like the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association.

Additionally, the Illinois Republican Party has come out against the amendment.

The conservative Illinois Policy Institute has argued in a research report that, if passed, the amendment would “prevent commonsense reforms to reduce homeowners’ tax burdens while giving government union leaders virtually limitless new ways to demand higher costs from taxpayers.” Illinois’ property taxes have been increasing by several hundred dollars every year; the Institute argues that the amendment would prevent lawmakers from implementing cost-cutting measures that might slow this trend. Research suggests that higher union density is correlated with increases in both income and property taxes.

To be passed, the Workers’ Rights Amendment will either need “yes” votes from 60 percent of those voting on the amendment or from 50 percent of all ballots cast.

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VIEWPOINTS

Open Letter to President Paul Alivisatos on the Possible Dissolution of UChicago’s Urban Teacher Education Program

By UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO URBAN TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM Dear Dr. Alivisatos, We are educators, current students, and alumni of the University of Chicago’s Urban Teacher Education Program (UTEP). We are writing to voice our strong disappointment at the possible dissolution of the teacher education program that has made a profound impact on our personal and professional growth as teachers and the larger landscape of teacher education in Chicago and beyond.

Since its inception in 2003, UTEP has graduated nearly 400 educators, who work at over 50 public, private, and charter schools across Chicago and other cities, such as Boston and Los Angeles.

In its recent Illinois Education Preparation Profile scorecard from the Illinois State Board of Education, UTEP received exemplary designation overall and on

multiple indicators, including the number of diverse graduates of the program, demonstrated teaching skill, retention, and placement of graduates in high-needs schools.

The program has a unique design by Dr. Kavita Kapadia Matsko, Dr. Marv Hoffman, and Dr. Anthony Bryk, past director of the Urban Education Institute. In the first year of the program, cohorts of students engage in classes to examine their own identities, participate in fieldwork to gain understanding of local school contexts, and tutor students as they learn literacy development. In their second year, or residency year, students are placed in two different classrooms and school communities to learn from experienced teachers, create and implement curricula, and build relationships with students. In addition, graduates are provided

with individual coaching for the first three years of their careers, which is a critical time for more support.

Graduates of UTEP are passionate, thoughtful, and resilient.

They are advocates for their students and school communities.

They are committed teachers in it for the long haul, many of whom become mentor teachers for UTEP or instructional leaders within their schools. They are recipients of Golden Apple awards, Teacher of the Year awards, and other accolades. They become school coaches and administrators, nonprofit leaders, Ph.D. candidates, activists within their local school communities, and writers who document their experience as teachers. UTEP alumni are committed to “being the change” by envisioning and working towards a more equitable education system.

The University of Chicago prides itself on supporting K–12

education in Chicago through its investment in community-based initiatives and programs, including urban education. Disinvesting from teacher preparation, a fundamental piece of the education system, would be a huge loss to the overall work that the University is doing to transform education. At a time when there are many policies leading to the nationwide teacher shortage and devaluing of the profession, cutting off an important pipeline for well-prepared teachers in Chicago is unwise. In addition, the University’s possible withdrawal of leadership within teacher education spaces and from the deep connection within communities that UTEP has developed seems antithetical to its goals of more fully engaging and partnering with the surrounding communities and city.

We request that you commit to a series of conversations with alumni and current and former

UTEP staff about the future of UTEP. We hope that the University decides to invest in UTEP through financial resources and staffing required to maintain the graduate-level courses and programs in place and eventually grow the program. We also believe the University can support UTEP’s marketing and recruiting efforts to nurture diverse cohorts of future teachers in Chicago.

We thank you for your consideration and look forward to your response.

Note: This letter was delivered to the Office of President Paul Alivisatos on Monday, October 24 with over 150 individual member signatures.

The authors and signatories are students, educators, and alumni of the University of Chicago Urban Teacher Education Program, a teacher residency program for urban teacher preparation.

Global Society’s Failed Attempts to Pop the Core’s Western Bubble Despite its efforts to break the mold, Global Society remains a stark reminder of Sosc’s obsession with the West

By TEJAS NARAYAN | Columnist For all the different options that the College offers to fulfill the Social Sciences Core requirement, the most popular courses tend to follow a similar blueprint: read a book about a particular element of Western social, political, or psychological theory; reflect on the

idea it presents; compare it to the work of other influential thinkers; and move on. Depending on the class, the subject matter of these texts and the narrative that they form together can differ considerably, but nearly all of them center on the perspective of Europe

or America. In fact, apart from Religion: Cosmos, Conscience, and Community, the sole Sosc sequence supposedly subverting this shortsighted standard is Global Society. And while the very existence of the Religion sequence already plays into the stereotype that the non-white world is worth examining primarily for its relationship

with mysticism and spirituality, Global had the opportunity to apply the traditional Sosc formula to a much wider array of schools of thought. As a consequence of its confused and disjointed identity, however, the sequence ultimately falls short of truly giving voice to the rest of the world. By trying to be simultaneously an exploration

of more diverse perspectives on social theory and historical events, a study of empirical population behavior, and a contemporary research project, Global fails to give any of these objectives the rigorous treatment that the Sosc requirement aims to facilitate.

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da, Global’s starkly distinct quarters barely give each subtopic room to breathe. Since the theory-based first quarter is expected to provide a representative sampling of the entire world, it’s locked into a cycle of distilling a book to a few representative excerpts, discussing them for a few days, and moving on to the next. Whereas other Sosc classes can dedicate up to a month to understanding the subtler implications of a single text, Global’s model only allows for a SparkNotes summary at best. Because of these time constraints, each source is expected to represent the ideology of an entire region of the world single-handedly, which makes roughly as much sense as deciding that a week of reading Marx constitutes a sufficient portrayal of European social thought. Meanwhile, the second quarter’s focus on population statistics requires most of its time to be dedicated to the technicalities of data analysis rather than the actual trends being examined.

Finally, as the spring quarter relies on research skills with which students have little to no experience, the first few weeks amount to a crash course meant to somewhat alleviate that gap in knowledge.

The quarter’s early readings are mostly technical briefings on research practices, and what remains of the shortened time leaves little leeway for major hurdles in the research project. In an ideal world, this would be addressed by having previously established a strong foundation of research experience, but winter quarter’s focus on specific numerical analysis as opposed to more widely applicable practices prevents this from being the case.

This lack of cohesion between Global’s quarterly courses is a recurring problem that hurts the sequence as a complete experience.

As much as readings define the first quarter, the slate of world-

views that students examine becomes irrelevant by the winter.

Furthermore, because the statistical tools provided by the second quarter center specifically on examining populations, they have no guarantee of proving useful for the third quarter’s relatively unconstrained research project. My project, for instance, examined the political and economic factors surrounding European and Central Asian energy policy; the Lexis diagrams, population pyramids, and life tables that defined the second quarter unsurprisingly didn’t have much to contribute to my final paper. The three-quarter scope of Sosc offers the chance to achieve a deeper understanding of the core material by constantly building on prior knowledge, but Global’s failure to properly capitalize on this opportunity severely limits the sequence’s ability to leave a lasting impression on its students.

A Sosc class focused on practical research certainly isn’t a bad thing. Rather, the larger problem with Global lies in its marketing.

The course descriptions allude to a marriage of theory and empirical observation that helps students understand social phenomena through a broader framework. In actuality, these elements are rigidly separated from quarter to quarter and are never given room to engage. Global only lives up to its name in the first quarter, when it tries to touch on a new text—colored by a different cultural background—every week. But by the second quarter, the course abandons this attempt to listen to a scope of voices beyond Europe and the U.S. The wider world is relegated to being an object of study to be observed and analyzed according to a rulebook predominantly written from the perspectives of white men. After establishing Warren Thompson’s demographic transition theory and Thomas Malthus’s

fears of overpopulation, any treatment of the rest of the world is solely within the context of applying these Western models rather than presenting a more comprehensive scope of beliefs. The third quarter, however, is perhaps the most offensively miscommunicated; it’s not at all obvious from its description that Global III is essentially a loosely guided research project.

While studying “the effects of… large social patterns on individual persons” appears to imply a curriculum that actively explores this relationship, the actual course format doesn’t address it at all. Instead, students are left to depend on the chance that their research leads them to the stated course themes for themselves. It’s simply

JANICE CHO

not true that Global’s third quarter invites examination of “state repression, civil resistance, religious transformations, [and] technological and economic changes,” for each student only learns about a single topic through their own independent study. Without intimate prior knowledge of the sequence, students are initially drawn to Global because of its promise to explore what a more diverse group of thinkers has to say about the world.

For me, at least, discovering the course’s actual objectives came as a nasty shock.

As easy as it would be to blame these problems on poor teaching, the truth is that Global is taught by incredibly talented instructors who do a phenomenal job

with their curriculum. But no matter how capable a professor is of bringing each reading to life or supporting their students through the turbulent waters of research, the structural limitations of the sequence itself undermine the experience professors are ultimately able to provide. In order to fully realize the nuggets of potential that it offers over the course of the year, Global needs to settle on an identity to which it can devote itself for all three quarters. The current first quarter, for instance, could easily be an entire sequence on its own; its multifaceted search to explain what holds societies together and how they behave would flourish if given more time for more rigCONTINUED ON PG. 12

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“Global comes across as weak and half-hearted.”

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orous analysis of its readings. On the other hand, a research-focused sequence about explaining contemporary facts amid the noise of the messy real world, as sampled in quarters two and three, would boast a novel approach to understanding the way the world works.

This change, however, would come with a catch—shifting Global’s priorities away from centering marginalized voices leaves the Sosc requirement as a whole with a strong bias toward European perspectives. Of course, this is only an issue if one assumes that UChicago has an inherent responsibility to provide equal representation to cultures outside the one in which it’s situated. On a strictly pedagogical level, engaging with un-

explored and underrepresented schools of thought clearly upholds the philosophy of open discourse to which the University claims to adhere. Immersed as we are in a society built on the writings of Western thinkers, continuing to confine ourselves to those same ideologies only serves to imprison us in a bubble of the familiar. On a personal note, though, it feels distasteful to appeal to the Chicago principles just to claim that Asian, African, Latin American, and Indigenous peoples around the world deserve a seat at the table. Arguing that all institutions of higher learning—not just UChicago—are responsible for reaching beyond their own cultural context could take up a whole essay of its own, but once we accept that much, it

follows that the post-Enlightenment European canon shouldn’t be the final authority on the social sciences.

While Global is a particularly damaging symptom of this bias, it’s far from the only opportunity for improvement. Splitting the course into two separate sequences that focus on worldwide theory and research respectively seems like an obvious solution, but casually introducing more courses comes with a slew of logistical challenges for the department leadership and faculty. When the administration does have the capacity to launch new Sosc courses, however, it should do so with questions of inclusivity in mind. Sadly, the newest addition to the roster—Democracy: Equality, Liberty, and the Dilem-

mas of Self-Government—has failed to uphold this duty; its obvious focus on Western history and principles makes it an irresponsible course to introduce in light of the existing lack of diversity.

In any case, the obstacles and charges that come with adding new sequences don’t stand in the way of restructuring our existing Sosc offerings to incorporate a broader pool of readings. Europe didn’t invent power, identity, or resistance, as far as I know—nor have I heard of self, culture, or society being unique to the American way. Why, then, are the readings for these courses trapped within this arbitrary geographical boundary? Despite the importance of instilling an understanding of the world that incorporates a variety

of perspectives on it, the Socival Sciences Division’s attempt to do this through Global comes across as weak and half-hearted. If anything, this kind of lackluster effort only serves to lampshade Sosc’s struggle with diversity, making it that much harder to push for any lasting, significant change. As long as UChicago doesn’t expand its Sosc offerings beyond their current Eurocentric bias—whether by restructuring Global or by introducing a new Core sequence entirely—its perfunctory approach does its claims of ideological diversity a disservice.

Tejas Narayan is a third-year in the College

On Patience and Accessibility: An Elevator Pitch Quietly seething in a full elevator won’t make it go any faster. Instead, practice patience and understanding for those who take the elevator for accessibility reasons and for those who take it for no reason at all.

By KATHERINE WEAVER | Columnist Anyone who’s lived in a multistory residence can tell you that every second spent waiting for the elevator dilates into about a thousand years of inter-floor purgatory. As the clock ticks closer and closer to the beginning of the first class of the day, your average student will often give up on waiting for the elevator in favor of a mad dash down several flights of stairs—provided they live on a floor from which this is feasible.

Arguably even more painful is the wait for the elevator to bring you back to your room: After a long day of classes, RSOs, sports, office hours, and the like, it’s much harder to take a full backpack up a

flight of stairs than down it.

Woodlawn West Residential Commons stands at a monstrous 16 stories tall—a veritable monolith south of the Midway that houses about half of the more than 1,200 undergraduates living in Woodlawn as a whole. Within the Woodlawn community, there is a sort of unofficial, unspoken elevator rule observed by many in the houses: If you live on the third floor or below, you better not take the elevator. No one ever says anything, but if you step into the elevator on the first floor and press “2,” you’re going to get some funny looks. While a long, crowded wait for the elevator is a completely un-

derstandable frustration, it is also egregiously misplaced: For those who need to take the elevator and for those who don’t but still prefer to, annoyance at one another only creates discomfort and animosity between strangers.

The fact is, there are an uncountable number of reasons that a person might feel the need to take the elevator up just one floor.

They might have bad knees. They might not have eaten for a while.

They might just be really tired.

You wouldn’t want someone to blame you for taking the elevator in these situations, so why would you hold a grudge against someone else?

In addition, students with disabilities should not feel pres-

sured to announce their disabilities every time they get in the elevator in order to dispel the silent judgmental stares of their fellow riders. This is a common enough problem in the world outside of college—there are countless stories of disabled people needing to prove themselves disabled for things like parking spaces and food allergies. For those with stigmatized conditions, sharing medical information can be an embarrassing ordeal, and it can lead to discrimination in the professional world. Plus, nothing says “dehumanizing” like having a bunch of strangers debate whether you’re “disabled enough” for your accommodations.

And here’s the kicker: Some-

times people will take the elevator up just one floor for no reason at all—and that should be acceptable too. There’s simply no way to know if someone has a “valid” reason for taking the elevator or if they’re just “being lazy,” and more importantly, it shouldn’t even matter. The elevator is there to be used by anyone and everyone, and whether you live on a high floor or a low floor, whether or not you have a disability, no one reserves the right to tell you when to use the elevator. If there is an unreasonable amount of elevator delays, the onus is on the University of Chicago administration to find solutions—not on students to police themselves and others CONTINUED ON PG. 13

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on their elevator usage.

This philosophy extends to other accessible spaces as well and highlights a trend in UChicago facilities. In Renee Granville-Grossman Residential Commons, for example, each bathroom has one larger accessible shower and two smaller showers. My spine was

fused a couple of years ago for scoliosis; I cannot use the smaller showers because I am physically unable to reach below my thighs in a small space. Staying in that dorm over the summer, I was often faced with people who appeared able-bodied using the accessible shower. At first, this was a source of frustration for me: I needed to

use that one. Eventually, though, it occurred to me: Regardless of whether someone is able-bodied or not, why should I hold it against them for wanting to use the larger shower? Shouldn’t the dorm have been designed with facilities of a reasonable size so that able-bodied individuals can be comfortable in the non-accessible spaces

as well?

There are enough accessibility issues on campus to write a whole series on, and this piece is not meant to be an exhaustive critique of campus facilities. My aim here is to encourage students to be more patient with one another, to remember that disability isn’t always visible and can affect

anyone, and to consider the possibility that maybe it isn’t such a bad thing that people want to be comfortable.

Katherine Weaver is a second-year in the College.

ARTS

AstonRep Theater Brings Disillusionment to Life—and Death—With Buried Child At The Edge Theater, AstonRep’s production of the Pulitzer Prize–winning 1978 play is deep, disturbing, and dashing.

By ZACHARY LEITER | Associate Arts Editor At The Edge Theater, north of Chicago, AstonRep Theatre Company opened its 15th and final season with a searing and beautiful production of Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize– winning Buried Child. Written in 1978, the play depicts the disillusionment that accompanies 22-year-old Vince’s return to his family’s Midwestern home. There, he finds his petulant grandfather, Dodge; nostalgic grandmother, Halie; mentally disturbed father, Tilden; and violent uncle, Bradley.

Shepard’s play is a masterful examination of Americana and the disintegration of the American dream, featuring characters that both display great depth of personality and serve as stand-ins for a large population of people in a struggling nation. This production lived up to that sweeping, Pulitzer Prize–winning potential.

The family’s secret—that of the Buried Child—is hidden more than it is unknown.

Though this play has been around for half a century, I will not spoil the story, for its slow

reveal is truly terrifying. Buried Child possesses a great depth of sorrow and dejection, but this production is as much a horror play as it is a tragedy. Throughout the play, thunder, rain, and periods of darkness produce a spectacle of fear felt by audience members not for themselves but for the play’s characters. And this fear at once fear evokes a genuine sympathy for the people trapped in this tragic tableau vivant and a genuine anguish by play’s end at having felt that sympathy for such people. Buried Child’s characters are menacing, but at their core, they are disheartened. Perhaps the greatest strength of this production and of Shepard’s work is that there clearly seem to be whole lives these people have lived before they walk or hobble onto the stage.

Buried Child’s cast is particularly spectacular. Jim Morley, as Dodge, is magnificent. Bringing an aura of death and decay to the entire show, Morley delivers fully. He and the entire cast are near flawless in their

Jim Morley as Dodge, Roberto Jay as Vince, and Robert Tobin as Tilden in AstonRep’s Buried Child. courtesty of paul goyette controlled movements. As Morley stumbles and coughs his way through the play, slowly sinking further and further into the ground,

he does not for a second appear to be acting.

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“Buried Child possesses a great depth of sorrow and dejection, but this production is as much a horror play as it is a tragedy.”

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crankiness to lonely misery, one moment screaming at his sons and the next crying for them to stay with him. Dodge is a character caught up not only in existential fear but also in perpetual stupor. He sits day and night watching TV, hiding a flask of whiskey, and hoarding a sad gray blanket. Dodge is hanging on to life by the thread of his family’s horrific secret. When he finally, in a brilliant and eerie monologue, divulges that secret to Vince, he dies. Dodge dies almost as he lived: shrunken, putrid, and difficult to witness.

This exploration of suffering turned to sorrow and sin is clear in all the family mem-

bers, but uncle Bradley and grandmother Halie especially stand out. As Bradley, Rian Jairell, at first entrance, suggests an almost otherworldly beast. Jairell is genuinely terrifying in the role, his thumping walk and erratic demeanor aided in part by strong hair and makeup, creating a contorted visage.

And Liz Cloud as Halie is exquisitely, willfully delusional, demonstrating great strength of inflection and emphasis. She seems to float across the stage, pulled earthwards only in proximity to her husband. Cloud’s costuming is particularly well done: As her family members spiral downward around her, Halie changes from a gloved funeral-es-

que black dress to a light yellow sundress to re-emphasize her deliberate obliviousness.

The visual design of Buried Child, on the whole, is keen-eyed and pretty. Other than Halie, most characters wear simple, wellworn clothes, and Halie’s costumes also stand out from Buried Child’s overall color scheme. This is theater with an almost entirely unified palette and appearance. Dulltoned costumes—blues and grays, mostly— complement a green backdrop of corn stalks and an array of earthy brown furniture. And Buried Child’s lighting, by Samantha Barr, is consistently harmonious and evocative.

Barr’s design, a series of near monotint spot-

lights and floodlights, creates a succession of startling vignettes.

Buried Child is, in its entirety, a series of startling vignettes. As Tilden shucks corn onstage, as Bradley assaults Shelly, and as Tilden walks upstairs—carrying something he dug up, let’s just say—at the play’s end, Shepard and AstonRep shock and worry the audience into fascination. This is the kind of insanity that seizes rather than repulses. Buried Child is tender; it is terrifying; and above all, it is near transcendent, terrific theater.

SPORTS Julianne Sitch Keeps Her Eye on the Ball The new head coach of the men’s soccer team reflects on her career, coaching philosophy, and a recordbreaking season.

By AMMAN KEJELA | Sports Reporter For head men’s soccer coach Julianne Sitch, the road to a record-breaking soccer team starts with the little things. “My coaching philosophy is ‘getting better every single day’… I want people to make mistakes, I want people to feel like they can try new things. If we fail, that’s ok. It’s all about getting better,” she said. “If you just get 1% better every single day, imagine how much better you’re going to be at the end of the year.”

Sitch, an Illinois native, has always worked towards big goals. She started playing soccer at the age of five in her hometown of Oswego, where there was no girls’ soccer program. “I was actually the only girl on the team,” she said, laughing, “but as a young kid, I always dreamed of being on the national team.”

Over the next twenty years, she worked to make that dream a reality. After playing in youth leagues throughout her childhood, Sitch joined the Illinois

Olympic Development Program, a group which looks to help youth further their soccer skills in hopes of making it as professionals, while still in high school.

She then went on to an award-winning career at DePaul University on their DI women’s soccer team, where she still holds the school’s records for career goals and assists.

In 2004, Sitch was called up to the U.S. under-21 women’s national team, winning the Nordic Cup in Sweden. “I went to Sweden because it was the highest level you could play at… [being on the field] was an incredible experience.” From 2005 to 2015, Sitch played for professional club teams at the highest levels of women’s soccer, including the Chicago Red Stars, where she was later also the coach of the reserve team.

When asked what she was proudest of in her soccer career, though, Sitch didn’t mention any awards or trophies. “I know

I showed up every day, laid it all out there, [and] wore my heart on my sleeve,” she said. “A champion mindset doesn’t relate to just winning…but how you approach your everyday life, on and off the field.”

Sitch retired from professional soccer in 2015. That year, she joined the UChicago Athletics staff as assistant women’s soccer coach. During her time, the women’s team went on to win a record 22 matches and reached the Final Four of the NCAA Championships.

“The student athletes at UChicago are very talented… they want to work, they want to achieve a lot, and that’s very inspiring to me. [Head women’s soccer coach] Amy Reifert was a huge mentor and leader for me. I learned a lot from her,” she said. “I was honored to start my collegiate coaching career at a place like UChicago.” In 2018, Sitch briefly left UChicago to be the assistant women’s soccer coach at the University of Illinois Chicago.

This year, Sitch has returned to UChi-

cago as head men’s soccer coach. Her appointment makes her one of a handful of women coaching a men’s team at the collegiate level, and the only female head coach of a men’s team at UChicago. “Really it was [the outgoing head men’s soccer coach] Pat Flinn who encouraged me to look at the position,” she said. “He called me and told me to go for it.” Sitch was undeterred by the prospect of coaching the men’s team; for her, coaching requires the same skills whether it’s on the men’s or women’s side. “The way that I look at it, I’m coaching athletes. I’m helping athletes push themselves to be at their best, to go after their dreams, to continue to develop.”

The bigger transition for Sitch was becoming head coach after seven years as an assistant coach. “It’s my first head coach position at the collegiate level. I coached the [Chicago Red Stars] reserve team, but it’s a different role, and there are new responsibilities.” When Sitch took over, she CONTINUED ON PG. 15

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“I hope that we can continue to leave the team a legacy where the athletes can walk away feeling very proud and happy of their time here.”

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found an already excellent team she could elevate. “Pat Flinn and [assistant coach] Michael Mauro created an unbelievable culture and competitive environment,” she said. With an already proven team, Sitch “was looking to add what I’ve gained throughout my career and experiences,” she said. “Coaching really is a team effort…I feel that with my staff, and the

team as well, it takes everyone.”

Under Sitch’s leadership, the men’s soccer team has broken a school record in going undefeated in the regular season, with 16 wins and one tie out of 17 matches. The team is also undefeated in the University Athletic Association (UAA) conference and ranked first in their region of the NCAA’s Division III, a double honor which has only been achieved three

times since UChicago joined the UAA in 1987. While the men’s soccer team excels, Sitch is still focused on improvement.

“The team has been phenomenal…they’re gritty, they’re relentless, they’re hungry to go after more,” she said. “I hope that we can continue to leave the team a legacy where the athletes can walk away feeling very proud and happy of their time here.”

After their November 5 win

against Washington University, the men’s soccer team secured the outright UAA title and will advance to the NCAA DIII Championships. UChicago Men’s Soccer will be one of five teams with no losses going into the postseason. Their first match in the NCAA championships will be a home game on November 12 against Birmingham Southern.

Top-Ranked Maroons Win UAA Cross Country Championships The women’s cross country team has their sights set on a national title after a dominant performance in their conference championship.

By AUSTIN ZEGLIS | Sports Reporter The first-ranked UChicago women’s cross country team won the University Athletic Association (UAA) conference championship meet on October 29, securing their first conference title since 2013.

Harris student and Class of 2022 College graduate Anna Kenig-Ziesler finished third in the six-kilometer race with a time of 21:42.2. Third-year Maddie Kelly took fifth, finishing at 22:00.4. Both Kenig-Ziesler and Kelly received First Team All-UAA honors.

Third-year Lucy Groothuis and fourthyear Frances Schaeffler came in eighth (22:10.3) and ninth (22:13.1) respectively.

Rounding out the Maroons’ top five was fourth-year Katarina Birimac, who took 11th with a time of 22:15.3. Groothuis, Schaeffler, and Birimac, along with second-year Sophie Tedesco and fourth-year Caitlin Jorgensen, were named to the AllUAA Second Team. Tedesco and Jorgensen placed 12th (22:19.0) and 13th (22:25.5).

Schaeffler, a team captain, said the conference championships were always tricky for the Maroons because of the academic calendar.

“Historically, we have trouble at our conference meet because it lies during midterms. Even so, we knew that if we did what we always do, we could push through the fatigue,” she said.

“At the beginning of the season it was kind of a far-reaching goal,” said Jorgensen, the other team captain. “But as the season progressed, we were more confident going into the conference meet.”

The Maroons ended with 36 points, beating runner-up Washington University in St. Louis by 10 points to claim the conference title for the third time in the past 20 years. “Saturday felt surreal. It was so great to share the win with my teammates knowing it was because of all the hard work we put in together,” Groothuis told The Maroon.

“It was fun to win the championship,” head coach Chris Hall told The Maroon.

“And what stood out to me is that it was such a great team effort. Our women have done such a wonderful job of working together, staying in packs, and moving together as groups all season long.”

Hall also noted that key athletes were missing from the team, including Claudia Harnett, last year’s UAA Champion, MVP, and Rookie of the Year. Harnett was an All-American last year, placing 17th at the NCAA Championships with a time of 21:26.8. She hasn’t raced this year due to a stress fracture.

Hall called team chemistry “the most important thing” when it comes to success

in long distance running. “Our sport is really hard. You’re going out and working hard every day. What makes it fun is the personalities within our team and the fact that our kids enjoy coming to practice because they enjoy being around their teammates.”

Hall, along with assistant coaches Nicole Murphy and Justin McQuality, won UAA Coaching Staff of the Year at the end of Saturday’s conference championship meet.

“Chemistry is integral to any success,” Groothuis agreed. “The dynamic that Frances, Anna, and I have cultivated through workouts and races together has pushed us all to new limits, [personal records], and race strategies. And the fun thing about distance running is that this energy that we create in our group can be easily transferred to our next groups and everyone draws from each other in practice.”

Schaeffler also believes team chemistry was key to how well the team has been performing this year. “Coach always stressed how we need to run in packs because that’s where the energy comes from. Even during easy runs, we always stressed running together because it’s not like track and field, where you’re running just for yourself,” she said.

The team’s championship victory comes after they were unanimously ranked No. 1 in NCAA Division III in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Associ-

ation’s Week 6 Coaches’ Poll. They maintained that ranking in the Week 7 poll, which was released on November 2.

Hall and the team have their sights set on the NCAA DIII cross country championship on November 19 in East Lansing, Michigan.

“You can’t control what everybody else is doing, but we can control what we’re doing,” Hall said about his expectations for the national championship meet. “I think that ideally, we want to be among the top four teams in the country, but we now feel that on our very best day, we might have a chance at winning the title.”

Schaeffler is optimistic about the Maroons’ chances in both the regional and national meets.

“I think we could very well win both. We know what we’re capable of, so our eyes are set on the national meet and making sure everything comes together for that,” she said.

“Regardless of what happens, I’m confident we are all going to put our best foot forward and make some team history, and have some fun while doing it,” Groothuis said.

The Maroons’ next race is the NCAA Midwest Regional meet in Batavia, Illinois, on November 12.

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CROSSWORD 49. Quarter System

ACROSS 1.“You’re looking at the culprit” 6. Ward with an award 10. “It’s a ___!”

14. Places from which people used to listen to conversations secretly 15. Liz Cheney’s “The GOP is at a turning point. History is watching us.” for The Washington Post, for example 16. Roosters woo them 17. A quarter 20. Word aptly hidden in “cochlear implant” 21. Attractive 22. “You shouldn’t have trusted me with

that” 23. Wear for West Bengal women 25. Plural verb that sounds like 64-Down 26. A quarter 32. Home of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum 33. Admirable man, in modern slang 34. “___ Smile” (Hall & Oates song) 35. Actress de Armas 36. Textspeak initialism that’s an anagram of 38-Down 39. “That is correct” 41. IM apology 42. Every note you can play on a cello is higher than it 44. Took a bite

46. Yellow-and-white app 48. A quarter 52. Duke and UNC compete in it: Abbr.

53. “Mea ___” 54. Scoop in Bob the Builder, for example 58. Affixation to Apple or Walmart 59. “The package industry has had its ___ and downs” (pun) 62. Quarters 65. Humorist Bombeck 66. Ostinato, colloquially 67. Look over 68. Bambi’s mother and others 69. Affirmative votes

DOWN 1. French thinker?

2. Convenience store chain with a duck in its logo 3. Allege 4. Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya 5. “You have anything else to tell me?”

6. One who’s easily pressured 7. Commercial lead-in to Pen 8. Name in jeans 9. Capital of South Australia 10. His ship is a thought experiment 11. Pay for a crib 12. 2016 Rihanna album that is also a prefix 13. “Hey, you there,” discreetly 18. The olden days 19. It is produced in greater numbers globally than wheat or rice 23. West Coast air travel hub 24. TV show whose 48th season premiere guest-starred Kendrick Lamar 26. The Wretched of the Earth author 27. Flabbergasted 28. UChicago house that is one letter off from the building it’s in 29. “You have great ___” 30. Forgot to divide by x, maybe 31. Opens one’s mouth 32. 2001 video game subtitled Combat Evolved 37. Fowl play?

38. “Are you kidding me?!” in textspeak 40. Yellow-and-white app 43. Bodily focal points 45. The key to go back 47. Singer-songwriter Rita 49. Stomach woe 50. Some hairstyles 51. Radius’s partner 54. Like racehorses 55. Prefix to -dynamic 56. Arrived 57. The Sopranos actress Falco 59. SALC specialty 60.

Polygamma function letters 61. Problem ___ (weekly homework assignments) 63. García Márquez novel Chronicle ___ Death Foretold 64. Plural possessive that sounds like 25-Across