Trump’s assault on higher ed
Donald Trump and his cronies are continuing their fascist assault on higher education. In recent weeks, the federal government has announced multiple probes into Chicago-area universities intended to stifle dissent and expel immigrants and other marginalized students.
The Department of Justice, under former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi, notified the mayors of Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York on March 13 that it was escalating retaliation against pro-Palestine demonstrations on college campuses. Justice department agents, under the guise of the Federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, plan to visit each city and meet with local leaders, students, law enforcement, and residents to determine “whether federal intervention is warranted,” according to a press release.
Northwestern, already under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education for a pro-Palestine encampment that cropped up at the school last April, appears to be copying Columbia’s strategy of appeasement in the face of Trump’s attacks. Northwestern has scrubbed mentions of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” from nearly all its webpages and assigned students a mandatory “anti-bias” training, according to WBEZ, that at one point equates criticism of Israel with comments made by the Ku Klux Klan’s David Duke.
Separately, the education department on March 14 announced civil rights investigations into more than 50 colleges for their supposed antiwhite admissions practices. Most of the schools, including the University of Chicago, are under fire for their partnerships with the PhD Project, a nonprofit that recruits students from underrepresented backgrounds into graduate business degree programs.
City Council OKs misconduct payouts
On March 12, the City Council voted to approve $3 million to settle four separate lawsuits related to police misconduct. In recent years, alderpeople have spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to resolve allegations of wrongdoing by the Chicago Police Department (CPD).
The most expensive settlement, $1.5 million, stems from a fatal car crash in February 2020. The family of Ezell Ricky Island sued the city after he was thrown from the back seat of a car and killed when he was hit during a chase by police in an unmarked car. A second settlement, for $1 million, will be paid to the family of Mignonne Robinson, who was struck and killed in February 2020 by a car fleeing the CPD.
Alders also approved $400,000 for Eyraechel Meiang. In 2020, a Chicago cop drove through a red light and hit Meiang with his cruiser. WGN reports the officer driving the vehicle, Charles Gavin, is no longer on the city’s payroll.
A fourth payment, for $280,000, settles a lawsuit from Miracle Boyd, whose tooth was knocked out by CPD officer Nicholas Jovanovich during a fraught protest at the since removed Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park. With the settlement in Boyd’s case, the city has spent nearly $8.7 million in lawsuits related to misconduct during 2020’s protests against police violence, according to WTTW.
In 2024, Chicago spent at least $107 million to settle police misconduct lawsuits, WTTW reported, far exceeding the $82 million officials set aside for CPD litigation last year.
Save the Orphanage
Supporters of the Orphanage, a longtime Bridgeport community space and DIY venue, are fighting to save the building from demolition.
Midwest Books to Prisoners, an organization that mails books to incarcerated people across the country, said in an Instagram post on March 16 that the venue is “under imminent threat of eviction.” The group has operated from the Orphanage since the 2010s, but they—and Comedor Comunitario, which serves weekly meals to recent migrants—are looking for a new space in case the owner follows through with plans to demolish the property.
The community center was previously owned by First Trinity Community Church, according to a petition calling on the building owner to stop the eviction, which voted in 2023 to close the Orphanage and sell the property. But groups, including Midwest Books to Prisoners, Commodore Comunitario, a free store, and a pop-up community clinic, have continued to operate. They’re now hoping to pressure the new owner, identified as Howard Mui, to keep the space open.
The Orphanage has been open for more than two decades and has hosted hundreds of events, from punk shows to film screenings to skill-shares. “If we lose The Orphanage, we not only lose our one of a kind space, we also lose a piece of Chicago organizing history,” the petition reads.
CTA to install AI-powered cameras
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is moving forward with plans to install artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cameras aboard buses as part of a pilot to automatically ticket drivers for parking in bike and bus lanes.
On March 12, the Chicago Transit Board approved a contract with Hayden AI to deploy the company’s automated bus lane enforcement (ABLE) system on six buses. The system uses onboard cameras with “computer vision” to gather photos, video, license plate information, and more from cars illegally parked or standing in bus or bike lanes. The cost for the first six buses is $315,852, according to a CTA press release, though the contract allows the agency to purchase up to 94 additional cameras.
The city launched the pilot project, called Safe Streets, in November through the Chicago Department of Transportation. Th e two-year test run is limited to violations within the downtown business district. According to the CTA, the city issued more than 11,000 warnings and nearly 1,400 violations through the end of February. (Drivers are first given a warning; subsequent violations result in fines.)
Make It Make Sense is a weekly column about what’s happening and why it matters.
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