Also speaking out about the mayor’s comments, albeit in a more measured tone, is Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke. The county’s top prosecutor called Mayor Brandon Johnson’s statement “disappointing and disheartening.”

“I get so sick and tired of people in this country and in this city that believe that the only thing that you can offer Black people and poor people is jails, incarceration and police officers,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “Dr. King said this right here in Chicago, the National Conference on New Politics. What did he say? He said, ‘Militarism is a sickness.’ I am trying to eradicate the sickness from this city and from this country.”

Ald. Scott Waguespack and Ald. Anthony Beale disagree with the mayor’s claim that Chicago does not have a spending problem.

Chicago’s activists have quickly dispatched volunteers to sightings of immigration agents. They record video and gather information to notify families. Activists circulate the license plates of suspected ICE vehicles on social media and take part in disruptive demonstrations outside hotels where agents are believed to be staying. Bike patrols look out for agents, while some follow vehicles on foot and warn those in the vicinity.

The feds demanded CPS abolish the Black Student Success Plan it unveiled in February and issue a statement saying it will require students to compete in sports or use locker rooms and bathroom facilities based on their biological sex at birth, among other demands. But CPS’ Acting General Counsel Elizabeth K. Barton responded that the district’s “policies and practices are prescribed by state and local law, and CPS remains in compliance with those laws.”

“Chicago has an annual personnel budget well in excess of $4 billion, and it hired permanent employees with temporary federal money that was designed to provide COVID relief. Those workers now have ballooned the city’s workforce in size without raising any more revenue or delivering incrementally more (or better) services. Making any kind of inroads into the budget hole will require a smaller city government. Period. Freezing some vacant positions won’t do the trick. This is all going to take some courage.”

Northwestern admits NU-Q operates under Qatari law, enforcing nondisparagement clauses that restrict journalism, research, and U.S. civil rights protections. These provisions chill academic freedom at the flagship Evanston, Illinois campus, limiting seminars, speakers, and even course design, since testing or acknowledging the restrictions is off-limits.