Of all Chicago’s neighborhoods, Bronzeville boasts some of the most hotly contested real estate in the city. Developers of the South Loop’s upscale condos threaten to build their way down State Street, gentrifying Bronzeville from the north. The University of Chicago campus extends in an ever-encompassing radius from the south. And now, with the possibility of a 2016 Olympics promising extensive redevelopment in the neighborhood, territory wars are set to escalate. Read the rest of this entry »

In his essay on civil disobedience, Henry David Thoreau wrote of the government to which he refused to pay taxes, “I saw that the State was half-witted…and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.” Thoreau—followed by generations of non-violent protestors—argued that an essential part of civil disobedience was following one’s own ideals while accepting often hypocritical dictums imposed by the ruling order. The theory is that all punishment shows the problem with the system itself—which is why we cannot be quite sure of what we are watching when we see a video of students who claim to operate by “democratic consensus” milling around a cafeteria full of security guards, shouting vague phrases at one another, and refusing to hand over their identification in favor of reaching a communal decision about whether or not they are about to be arrested and disciplined (they are). Such actions make us question exactly what a protest is and what it can achieve. Read the rest of this entry »

In the library of Ida Noyes Hall, in front of an ornate fireplace and wood- paneled walls, underneath the carved ceilings and hanging chandeliers, Bill Ayers sat behind a table and spoke to an attentive crowd of fifty or so student activists: “The world is too fucked up to look at all at once. You can’t. If you do, you’ll kill yourself.” The educational theorist and former member of the militant revolutionary organization the Weather Underground spoke honestly about the life of social justice activism. Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday, February 24, the Organization of Black Students brought famed and decorated social psychologist Dr. William Julius Wilson to deliver the 2009 George E. Kent Lecture. Dr. Wilson worked as a professor at the University of Chicago for twenty-four years, until 1996, and also served as the chair of the sociology department. He now teaches at Harvard University. Between teaching stints at two top-tier universities, he found the leisure time to write several critically acclaimed books, serve as president of the American Sociological Association, and receive forty-one honorary degrees from schools including Princeton University and Columbia University. Read the rest of this entry »

Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s February 10 appearance at Rockefeller Chapel was more of a sermon in three acts than the workshop it was billed as. He opened with a meandering anecdote loosely centered on University of Chicago professor Dwight Hopkins, who along with Wright was part of a coterie that coaxed Cuban dictator Fidel Castro back into a Christian church in the late 1980s after a two-decade absence. Next, Wright contextualized the topic of his talk, “Who Is My Neighbor?” with an extended retelling of the Good Samaritan parable. In his “update,” a UofC student (privileged member of the ruling class) is nursed back to health by a gay ex-gang member (despised minority). Wright included some more landmarks and local color, much to the delight of the audience, a mix of Wright loyalists (one man in a Graduate School of Business T-shirt explained that he’d been baptized by Wright) and curiosity-seekers primed for provocative sound bites, even if they had to provoke them themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

Education administrators in business suits are gathered, miniature complimentary bottles of San Pellegrino in hand. This is the “CPS Senior Staff Retreat,” and at the front of the Gleacher Center meeting room sits Ron Huberman, the newly-ordained CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, recently transferred by Mayor Daley from his position as the head of the Chicago Transit Authority. The meeting is nearly at an end, but first Huberman approaches the podium and declares his delight in introducing two final speakers, who turn out to be administrators from the CTA. As the woman at the podium begins to describe in-depth the methods of reducing gap times between city buses, I turn to look at the faces around me, searching for signs of incredulity or disbelief to match my own. Read the rest of this entry »

Scrawled in bold letters across the classroom’s blackboard was the evening’s topic of discussion: Wage Theft. Billed under the title “Thou Shall Not Steal: Putting an End to the National Epidemic of Wage Theft,” the event aimed to both define the phenomenon of wage theft and to recognize the various ways in which Chicago workers have mobilized to fight back. Organized by University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration doctoral student Jacob Lesniewski, speakers included members of several interfaith worker organizations and representatives from the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110. Read the rest of this entry »

The University of Chicago’s bureaucratic machinery usually runs quietly in the background, unnoticed and unknown to all but those that keep it humming. Only in times of strain or controversy do its organization, governance, and finances come under public scrutiny. Now, with the recession pushing the administration to impose budget cuts, the University is likely to experience a fresh round of exposure as it becomes the site of bureaucratic conflicts and staff reductions. Read the rest of this entry »