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“Flagrantly Unlawful”: UChicago Sues NIH

By ANUSHREE VASHIST | Managing Editor and ZACHARY LEITER | Deputy Managing Editor

The University of Chicago and 15 other plaintiffs sued the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Monday following a Friday NIH directive that slashed “indirect” cost funding for university research, effective Monday. The directive would threaten $52 million in University funding annually.

On Monday night, Massachusetts District Court Judge Angel Kelley issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking

the directive, following a separate Monday morning lawsuit by Illinois, Massachusetts, and 20 other states against the NIH and HHS, which oversees the NIH. The order only applies within the 22 states that were plaintiffs in the suit.

A third lawsuit, brought by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and four other medical associations, resulted in a nationwide TRO later on Monday night.

The University of Chicago was joined in

its lawsuit by the Association of American Universities (AAU), American Council on Education (ACE), Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, and 12 individual universities. UChicago is a member of the AAU and the ACE.

“At stake is not only Americans’ quality of life, but also our Nation’s enviable status as a global leader in scientific research and innovation,” the lawsuit reads.

Indirect costs are expenses that support administrative functions and maintain buildings, utilities, and equipment. Generally, grant money supporting direct costs of research cannot be allocated to indirect

expenses.

When the NIH awards research grants to a scientist at an institution of higher education (IHE), the agency includes additional funding for indirect costs at a rate negotiated between HHS and the institution.

Prior to the directive’s issuance, the NIH covered indirect costs of on-campus organized research at UChicago at a rate of 64 additional cents for every dollar of direct grant funding, a number in line with rates at other major research universities.

The University negotiated the rate of indirect costs with HHS for a five-year

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Bill Callahan, Former Woodlawn Tap Owner, Dies at 78

By KAYLNA VICKERS | Senior News Reporter

William (Bill) Callahan, former bartender and owner of the Woodlawn Tap, passed away on January 14. He was 78 years old.

A Chicago native, Callahan spent much of his life in Hyde Park, attending St. Thomas the Apostle School and Mount Carmel High School. He eventually worked at and then operated the Woodlawn Tap, also commonly known as Jimmy’s, for 55 years. Three years ago, he retired and sold the Woodlawn Tap to his friend and colleague of 33 years, Matt Martell (A.B. ’95).

Callahan is survived by his wife, Jan Hartley Callahan, and his two children, Will Callahan and Kristen Callahan Alyn. Those who knew Bill Callahan described him as more than just the owner of a bar.

“He always sat at the end of the bar. You just never got the sense he was the owner of the bar because there was no air of being

better than anybody else,” said Will, his son. “It was almost like he was the mayor of Woodlawn Tap.”

His wife, Jan, described him as having a rare ability to connect with people from all walks of life. “He loved being there. He loved the people who came into the bar, whether they were the professors or the construction workers or the students. I mean, he related to everybody, no matter what their position in life,” she said.

Callahan’s Renewal of the Woodlawn Tap

Founded in 1948 by Jimmy Wilson, the Woodlawn Tap is nestled in the heart of the University of Chicago community at the corner of East 55th Street and South Woodlawn Avenue. Callahan’s first professional job was teaching at St. Thomas the Apostle School, working part-time as a bartender at the Woodlawn Tap at the same

time. Under Wilson’s mentorship, Callahan transitioned from bartender to manager, and upon Wilson’s passing in 1999, he took over as owner. Over the course of five decades, Callahan shaped the bar into the establishment it is today.

In the late ’90s, Callahan helped steer the Woodlawn Tap as it faced an uncertain future, Jan and Martell explained. After Wilson passed away, the city initial-

ly refused to renew the bar’s liquor license, forcing it to close for nearly a year between 1999 and 2000.

“Bill in particular saved the bar when Jimmy passed away and really went out on a limb to make sure that it didn’t go away,” Martell said. “Bill and [his brother] Jim just put their faith and their money into the bar.”

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SPORTS: The Bad News Bears

Bill Callahan bartending at Woodlawn Tap. courtesy of kristen callahan alyn .

“There’s no question that it’s going to compromise the mission of the University and [its] research program.”

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period ending in June 2026, but under the new directive, all indirect costs would be set at a flat rate of 15 cents per dollar, effective Monday.

The change to the flat rate would apply both to new grants and to “existing grants to IHEs retroactive” to February 9, per the NIH announcement.

The University has 3,258 active NIH awards, totaling $1,012,945,241. For fiscal year 2024, the University received approximately $338 million in NIH funding, of which $241 million went to direct costs and $97 million supported indirect costs.

In a Tuesday morning email titled, “Regarding the policy landscape,” University President Paul Alivisatos wrote to faculty that he authorized Monday’s lawsuit because the NIH’s funding cuts “would immediately damage the ability of our faculty, students, and staff… to engage in health-related fundamental research and to discover life-saving therapies.”

“NIH funding supports UChicago faculty, researchers, and students to make critical advancements in patient care including for diabetes prevention and treatment in children and adults, the treatment of celiac disease and advanced metastatic prostate cancer, and cognitive resilience in aging,” the University’s lawsuit reads.

The University estimates in the lawsuit that the new decreased indirect cost rate of 15 percent would cost UChicago about $52 million in reimbursement over the next 12 months.

In 2023, the NIH spent $35 billion of its $47.7 billion budget on funding research at universities, medical schools, and other research institutions.

“We don’t yet know all the consequences of a decision of this sort, but there’s no question that it’s going to compromise the mission of the University and [its] research program,” Daniel McGehee, professor of anesthesia and critical care at the UChicago Pritzker School of Medicine, told the Maroon. McGehee is the principal investigator of the McGehee Lab, which receives support from NIH awards.

“It is going to limit what’s possible in exploring and discovering new treatments for all sorts of diseases, from cancer to pain modulation.”

NIH Claims Cuts Will Promote Research

In the Friday directive, Acting NIH Director Matthew Memoli stated: “The United States should have the best medical research in the world. It is accordingly vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead.”

The NIH, which is the world’s largest public funder of biomedical and behavioral research, commits $9 billion toward paying indirect costs annually. The NIH claimed that slashing and standardizing indirect cost rates will save $4 billion a year.

The NIH’s annual budget of $48 billion accounts for less than 1 percent of the annual federal budget of $6.75 trillion.

In the directive, the NIH stated that most private foundation grants to university researchers carry low or no coverage for indirect costs.

“Most private foundations that fund research provide substantially lower indirect costs than the federal government, and universities readily accept grants from these foundations,” the NIH wrote in its statement.

Private foundations provide lower rates for indirect costs but typically classify a broader range of expenses as direct costs of research.

William Parker, a pulmonary care doctor and medical ethicist at the UChicago Pritzker School of Medicine, told the Maroon that the NIH’s declared 15 percent rate was “clearly just made up to align with what some other major philanthropy organizations use.”

Friday’s cuts to NIH spending come as the Trump administration slashes spending across the federal government, and in particular grant spending. On January 22, two days after Trump’s inauguration, the administration imposed an abrupt cancellation of all NIH meetings, communications, and hirings.

President Donald Trump has long argued that more scientific research in the U.S. should be funded by private entities, rather than by the federal government.

Project 2025, a sweeping Heritage

Foundation policy framework developed by members of Trump’s first and second administrations, stated: “Funding for scientific research should not be controlled by a small group of highly paid and unaccountable insiders at the NIH, many of whom stay in power for decades. The NIH monopoly on directing research should be broken.”

When asked for comment, the NIH referred the Maroon to HHS. When asked whether Friday’s directive might compromise researchers’ ability to cover indirect costs within university systems, HHS referred the Maroon to the directive.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Critics Say Cuts Threaten Research

In an update on its “2025 Federal Administration Actions and Updates” page, the University wrote, “We are working with our internal and external partners to understand the impact of and response to this change in policy.”

That site, which shares information on recent executive orders and federal agency actions affecting University research, reads: “The University of Chicago is dedicated to supporting our researcher community and the impactful, field-defining research produced across all academic disciplines. As the broader landscape of federal funding for academic research evolves, the University will continue to explore ways to support research while minimizing disruptions.”

“Following an election, policy changes are an expected part of our democracy,” Alivisatos wrote in his Tuesday email explaining the lawsuit. “Yet today, some of these, if implemented, would have far-ranging adverse impacts on institutions of higher education and academic medical centers, including ours.”

Alivisatos also emphasized University values of academic freedom and freedom of expression and inquiry.

“This is a place where we are committed to open debate, to rigor and to excellence, and where we recognize that diversity of viewpoint and experience enriches our ability to seek truths. Realizing these values is a constant and good struggle, and academic freedom and freedom of inquiry and expression are the fundamental principles

that make them possible. The work of the members of this community is important,” the email continued. “For these reasons, since the University’s founding, this community has been committed to upholding those ideals–and will remain steadfast to honoring them.”

“We are collaborating with other institutions and utilizing the tools available to us to counter actions that would adversely affect our ability to fulfill our calling,” Alivisatos’s email concluded.

Although they did not join the lawsuit, both Yale and Harvard filed supporting declarations to UChicago’s lawsuit and issued public statements of support.

The University did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.

On Saturday, the AAMC released a statement denouncing the cuts.

“Make no mistake,” the statement read. “This announcement will mean less research. Lights in labs nationwide will literally go out. Researchers and staff will lose their jobs. As a result, Americans will have to wait longer for cures and our country will cede scientific breakthroughs to foreign competitors.”

Access to funding for indirect costs is especially important for early-career researchers, according to Parker.

“When you’re starting out,” he told the Maroon, “the university has to take a bet on you and give you resources to start your lab [before you] go on to secure independent funding for your direct costs…. That’s all funded by indirects from other researchers that [have] been recovered. But now that whole chain will be broken for future generations.”

Indirect costs also support administrative needs, such as federal regulatory compliance and the lengthy process of submitting NIH grants.

“An indirect cost would be the preaward administrator who helps you put in the grants,” Parker said. “NIH grants are incredibly long and complicated and very difficult to assemble and do well. Without the support from the URA [University Research Administration], it would literally be impossible for PIs [principal investigators]

“It’s hard not to read this as part of a larger aim to undermine universities and their role in society.”

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to put in these grants.”

Parker acknowledged problems with the current NIH funding process but noted the damaging effects of the directive.

“I think it’s good that we’re having an open conversation about that as a community, and there should be more explanation for why these indirect rates are so high,” Parker said. “But that being said, if the major source of support for all universities receiving NIH grant funding gets cut off overnight, it’d be devastating for higher education overall.”

One specific problem, Parker said, is that senior investigators “have so many grants that they’re bringing to the University and such a huge amount of indirects that they can use that as leverage to negotiate some of that cut coming back to their lab and get higher salaries and cement themselves in academia.”

In a social media post uploaded Friday evening, the NIH defended the directive by highlighting Harvard, Yale, and Johns Hopkins’s respective 53.2, 41.4, and 13.1 billion dollar endowments. Johns Hopkins is also a party to the lawsuit jointly filed by UChicago on Monday.

HHS suggested in a statement to the Maroon that universities should pay down indirect costs with endowment money.

“Most of these higher education institutions already have endowments worth billions of dollars,” the statement said.

“Can you believe that universities with tens of billions in endowments were siphoning off 60% of research award money for ‘overhead’?” head of the Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk wrote on X. “What a ripoff!”

The University of Chicago’s endowment is valued at $10.4 billion, but much of that sum is tied up in investments or restricted to specific purposes.

“Most funds that are in an endowment are restricted in use,” UChicago Law tax policy lawyer Julie Roin told the Maroon “People have donated money to the University with restrictions on what money can be used for.”

“Our University happens to be in a very serious position,” Roin said, referring to the University’s budget deficit, which

reached $288 million in fiscal year 2024.

“If the NIH says we’re not providing you with reimbursements, then this University is probably not going to be in a position legally where they can take money from the endowment to cover these costs.”

Unlike biomedical research at private companies, research at universities generally does not produce profit with which to pay overhead costs.

According to Classics and history professor Clifford Ando, who raised the alarm on the University’s budget crisis in 2023, UChicago’s high debt means the University has “less elasticity to absorb this than other similarly ranked institutions.”

“The University only pays its operational costs at this point by borrowing,” Ando told the Maroon. “So the question for the University is whether it can borrow at an even greater rate without risking a downgrade in its debt.”

Two Lawsuits Raise Wide-Ranging Objections

Legal experts who spoke to the Maroon said that the lawsuits raised multiple administrative, statutory, and contract concerns. These conversations took place before the University’s lawsuit against the NIH and HHS was made public.

The stakes of the legal questions were particularly high, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law administrative law professor James Speta wrote to the Maroon in an email, because “cuts would damage fundamental research: research that saves lives, promotes education and basic knowledge, and keeps our economy advancing.”

“This suit challenges a flagrantly unlawful action by the National Institutes of Health (‘NIH’) and the Department of Health and Human Services (‘HHS’) that, if allowed to stand, will devastate medical research at America’s universities,” the University’s lawsuit reads.

In that lawsuit, the 16 plaintiffs allege that the NIH’s actions threaten the constitutional separation of powers and violate federal law.

“Medical schools, scientific research institutes, and other grant recipients across the country have structured their programs and development of physical infrastructure

assuming that the substantially higher indirect cost recovery rates would remain in place, and that any changes to those rates would be based on actual changes in cost. The rates were negotiated with the relevant federal agency through a well-understood legal process and in reliance on NIH’s longstanding approach,” the University’s lawsuit reads.

According to UChicago Law lecturer and contract lawyer Elizabeth Kregor, whether the NIH could retroactively change the rate of existing grants depends on specifics of the contract negotiated between UChicago and the HHS. The Maroon was unable to obtain a copy of that contract.

“This is a decision (yet another) Congress must make, not an action that can be

taken unilaterally from the White House,” Speta wrote. “And, even apart from the appropriations law, the decision is very sparse on reasoning, and a challenge under the Administrative Procedures Act has a significant probability of success.”

The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) regulates the process by which federal agencies engage in rulemaking.

UChicago Law administrative lawyer Jennifer Nou told the Maroon that the NIH’s directive could reasonably be seen as “arbitrary and capricious,” saying, “Where does 15 percent really come from?”

However, Nou said, “the Administrative Procedure Act says there are exceptions for guidance documents, so the NIH will try

CONTINUED ON PG. 4

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“The Trump administration is trying to get the courts to tip their hand as to what the confines of the law are on this matter.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 3

to argue that this is a guidance document.” Nou said the government would likely also argue that the directive was not final and therefore not covered by the APA.

According to Speta and Nou, the NIH’s rate-cutting likely also violates a Congressional appropriations rider passed as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 to prevent the first Trump administration from slashing indirect cost rates to an across-the-board rate of 10 percent.

Both Nou and UChicago law professor and economist Anup Malani expressed skepticism that lawsuits would ultimately

restrain Trump’s NIH from cutting indirect cost funding.

“If the court says that this is just a procedural violation, then [the NIH] can simply follow the correct procedure, they can just go through notice and comment…. And if they say that this directive is arbitrary, then the agency has something of a do-over to just make the number and language not arbitrary,” Nou said.

Malani told the Maroon that whether the NIH’s directive would hold up in court was only part of the story.

“In law school, we teach that litigation is the be-all and end-all,” Malani said. “In

real life, litigation is not the be-all and endall because it’s part of a broader process of negotiation. Even if the government loses, the Trump administration has made credible its threat to negotiate hard on indirect costs. Getting obsessed with the first step is missing the point. This is how negotiations go… [especially when] the Trump administration is brash in how they pursue their agenda.”

“The Trump administration is trying to get the courts to tip their hand as to what the confines of the law are on this matter…. In football, very often an offense will line up, and the goal isn’t to run that formation,

it’s to see the defense’s plan, and then you reorient your offense or call a timeout. This legal strategy is exactly that. Go out there and call your play and you can see the defense’s strategy—the strategy of the courts and of the [states and universities],” Malani said.

“If you look at this [directive] against the backdrop of the other things Trump has said, it’s hard not to read this as part of a larger aim to undermine universities and their role in society,” Nou said.

This is a developing story. Updates can be found at chicagomaroon.com.

Ruby Bridges Speaks at 35th Annual MLK Commemoration Celebration

By NAINA PURUSHOTHAMAN | Senior News Reporter

The University held the 35th annual Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Commemoration Celebration at Rockefeller Chapel on January 29 with featured speaker Ruby Bridges, a civil rights activist who, at the age of six, was the first Black student to attend her elementary school.

The focal point of the event was a fireside chat with Bridges moderated by associate professor of U.S. history Rashauna Johnson. During the conversation, which lasted nearly an hour and a half, Bridges recounted what she remembered from elementary school and her activism today.

The event also featured remarks from University President Paul Alivisatos, fourth-year and Timuel D. Black Community Solidarity Scholarship recipient Arsima Araya, and Maurice Charles, dean of Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. There were also musical performances by Uniting Voices Chicago, a nonprofit organization that provides music education programming for youth.

In his opening remarks, Alivisatos reflected on the significance of the event being held in Rockefeller, the site of one of MLK’s first major speeches in Chicago in 1956.

“We gather each year not only to honor the extraordinary power of Dr. King’s vision, but also to consider the unmet opportunities of our time and to seek inspiration in his words and example to help us meet them,” he said.

After Alivisatos, Araya, and Charles spoke, the event moved into the conversation with Bridges, who began by recounting her experience on her first day at William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans.

“I remember them chanting, ‘Two, four, six, eight, we don’t want to integrate.’ And they were throwing things, waving their hands, there were barricades, there were police officers everywhere,” Bridges said. “I need you to understand that what protected me was the innocence of a child.

A six-year-old.”

Bridges then described the isolation she felt during that school year. Many teachers had quit their jobs, and parents refused to send their children to school. Bridges recalled her teacher, Barbara Henry, and the impact Henry made on her.

“This woman that taught me, showed me love,” she said. “She is my best friend. She’s still alive. She lives in Boston, and she’s still my best friend.”

The conversation focused largely on what Bridges learned about racism from her experience as the first Black student to attend her elementary school. She recounted the day she first came face-to-face with racism, when a classmate at her elementary school told her she couldn’t play with him because his mother had forbidden it, repeating a racial slur she had used.

“I looked at him, and honestly, it felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders,” Bridges said about the experience. “He made [the nature of racism] make sense, and I can honestly say today and tell you that I wasn’t angry with him…. He was repeating what was told to him.” Bridges con-

tinued, “Racism is a grown-up disease, and we must stop using our kids to spread it.”

Bridges concluded by speaking about how losing her son to gun violence shifted her perspective on the state of the United States today. “This fight that we are in today has absolutely nothing to do with what we look like,” she said. “The fight that we are in today is good and evil, and good and evil comes in all shades and colors.”

“Stop thinking this has something to do with what we look like. It doesn’t,” Bridges continued. “Yes, racism is alive and well, but racism is just another tool used to divide us, and I believe with where we are today, we’re going to soon figure that out.”

Ruby Bridges speaks during the 35th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Celebration. natalie earl

Trump Targets International Students Involved in Pro-Palestine Protests

By EVGENIA ANASTASAKOS and KALYNA VICKERS | Senior News Reporter

President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday instructing federal agencies to identify and investigate non-citizen college students and staff involved with pro-Palestinian protests since 2023.

“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Trump wrote in an accompanying fact sheet. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”

The order, titled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” gives federal agencies 60 days to submit reports “identifying all civil and criminal authorities or actions” within their jurisdiction “that might be used to curb or combat anti-Semitism,” along with inventories of pending antisemitism complaints “against or involving institutions of higher education.”

The order will “marshal all Federal resources to combat the explosion of anti-Semitism on our campuses and in our streets,” per the fact sheet.

University of Chicago Law School constitutional law professor Genevieve Lakier told the Maroon that “this is signaling a willingness [by the Trump Administration] to use these legal instruments to deport or prosecute students for protesting, but I think for now, [the executive order] does very little…. Most of this is bluster meant to intimidate and sow terror and anxiety.”

“The president could just tell the attorney general [to do inventories]. The president is doing this by executive order as a political move,” Lakier said. “As far as we can tell, there is no requirement for universities to do anything. It is suggestion piled upon suggestion.”

The order also instructs the secretary of state, secretary of education, and the secretary of homeland security to provide recommendations for “familiarizing institutions of higher education with the grounds for inadmissibility under 8

U.S.C. 1182(a)(3),” which states that any immigrant who has “engaged in a terrorist activity” or is a representative of “a political, social, or other group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity” is inadmissible to the United States.

“I think it would be hard to show that a student is a member of a terrorist organization,” Lakier said, though she noted that 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3) could be applied to students who are members of groups that publicly support or express “terrorist beliefs.”

“If you’re a member of [Students for Justice in Palestine], then that could be deemed support of Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization,” Lakier said.

Students for Justice in Palestine at UChicago, which is a coalition member of UChicago United for Palestine (UCUP), declined to comment on this story.

The Department of State, Department of Education, and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

The action expands on Trump’s Executive Order 13899, issued in 2019, which enforced Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against antisemitic discrimination.

Title VI “prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance,” which include most private colleges and universities.

The Wednesday executive order further states, “The Attorney General is encouraged to employ appropriate civil-rights enforcement authorities, such as 18 U.S.C. 241, to combat anti-Semitism.”

18 U.S.C. 241 concerns conspiracy by two or more persons to infringe on civil rights, possibly referring to the order’s claim that since October 7, 2023, Jewish students have faced “denial of access to campus common areas and facilities.”

“I don’t think temporarily barring someone from using a pathway could be deemed conspiracy against civil rights,” Lakier said, referring to 18 U.S.C. 241 and pro-Palestine encampments in the spring

of 2024.

In a statement released Thursday, Palestine Legal director Dima Khalidi called the order “the latest in a growing list of dangerous, authoritarian measures aimed at enforcing an ideological strangulation on schools by attempting to scare students into silence about Israel’s genocide in Gaza with threats of prosecution and deportation.” Palestine Legal, a project of the nonprofit Tides Center, is a legal organization that supports causes related to the movement for Palestinian rights, including UCUP.

“Targeting Palestine rights activists for punishment violates the First Amendment,” Khalidi wrote. “The implications of this executive order go far beyond the Palestine movement. It encourages government agencies to find ways to target any dissent from Trump’s agenda, and aims to enlist universities themselves as its censors and snitches.”

Ben Wizner, interim director of the American Civil Liberty Union’s Center for Democracy, told the Maroon in a statement, “The president should not be in the business of policing speech on college campuses. The administration has many tools at its disposal to combat rising antisemitism that don’t involve targeting people who participate in this country’s political debates.… Trump’s order and accompanying fact sheet are intended to silence viewpoints the president disagrees with and will have a serious chilling effect across the country.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a press release on Wednesday that the organization is “eager to see every federal agency and department take concrete measures to address this scourge [of antisemitism].”

Rabbi Yossi Brackman of UChicago Rohr Chabad declined to comment on the executive order but wrote in an email to the Maroon, “The shocking rise of incidents of hate against Jews and Jewish institutions in the USA, including on campuses should be of grave concern to any intelligent person who values this country, freedom, and liberal values.”

Brackman added, “I do not see hatred

of Jews as an ongoing issue at UChicago, even though there have been incidents.… I have seen the university leadership respond to issues related to Jew hatred with the seriousness required.”

Speaking in a personal capacity, Maroons for Israel President Joachim Sciamma told the Maroon that antisemitism on campus is “not a question of speculation. There are students at this school who every day come up to me and tell me that they are being harassed, they are being stalked, they are being spat on.”

When asked about Trump’s threat to deport international students involved in pro-Palestine protests, Sciamma said, “I think the United States government has the right to enforce the laws and the legislation that it passes in a way that’s consistent with the First Amendment and the Constitution of the United States.”

A Jewish student, who spoke to the Maroon on condition of anonymity, said: “Trump is co-opting Jewish identity for general anti-immigration politics that he pushes heavily. And I think to have the collective Jewish identity used in such a manner can be dangerous for Jews in the long term. I think it puts us in a place where we’re expected to have loyalty in a certain capacity.”

UChicago Hillel Rabbi and Executive Director Anna Levin Rosen did not respond to a request for comment.

The Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish League, and the Combat Antisemitism Movement all published statements pledging their support for Trump’s executive order.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Bend the Arc, Nexus, and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression all released statements opposing the order.

The University did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.

The White House Office of Communications did not respond to repeated requests for comment by email and has not been accessible by phone since early Wednesday.

Zachary Leiter, Nathaniel Rodwell-Simon, and Elena Eisenstadt contributed reporting.

Short-Lived Federal Grants Freeze Threatened UChicago Research Funding

By NATHANIEL RODWELL-SIMON | Deputy News Editor

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a twopage memo on January 27 freezing federal grants, potentially restricting UChicago researchers’ access to hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. OMB Acting Director Matthew Vaeth rescinded the memo on January 29 after a federal court temporarily blocked the freeze.

The order threatened hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for research conducted at UChicago and prompted University Provost Katherine Baicker to email faculty on the morning of January 28, asking them to “temporarily suspend their non-personnel spending on federal grants.” A second email from Baicker sent on January 29 told faculty to “continue your research normally unless you’ve received direct communication otherwise from your funding agency.”

A federal judge temporarily blocked most of the freeze in the evening of January 28, hours before it would have gone into effect. Separately, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, along with attorneys general of 21 other states and the District of Columbia, filed suit against the Trump administration that afternoon, seeking an emergency temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing the implementation of the OMB directive.

District Judge John McConnell issued the TRO against any further implementation of a grants freeze, arguing that the White House had rescinded the directive “in name-only.” On February 10, after states presented evidence that the grant freeze had continued, McConnell issued another ruling ordering the White House to comply with the TRO.

“The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the Court found, likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country. These pauses in funding violate the plain text of the TRO,” McConnell wrote.

“The Defendants must immediately restore frozen funding during the pendency of the TRO until the Court hears and decides the Preliminary Injunction request.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Maroon in a statement on January 29 that the OMB rescinded its memo solely to end confusion on the policy, not to affect reviews of federal funding instituted by a number of recent executive orders.

“In light of the injunction, OMB has rescinded the memo to end any confusion on federal policy created by the court ruling and the dishonest media coverage. The Executive Orders issued by the President on funding reviews remain in full force and effect and will be rigorously implemented by all agencies and departments,” the statement read.

According to the OMB memo, the freeze would have allowed federal agencies to “identify and review all Federal financial assistance programs and supporting activities consistent with the

President’s policies and requirements.”

Programs inconsistent with the President’s agenda include funding for “foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”

The freeze is one of the Trump administration’s most significant moves to dramatically reshape federal spending priorities. Immediately after taking office, Trump also froze funding to foreign aid and “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs within the federal government.

Each year, the University receives hundreds of millions of dollars from federal programs and agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Naval Research, Department of Justice, and Department of Education. The exact federal funding totals are not publicly available.

When asked for comment on the im-

pact the freeze may have on University research, the University directed the Maroon to Baicker’s email.

Monica Peek, the Ellen H. Block Professor for Health Justice of Medicine at the UChicago Pritzker School of Medicine, told the Maroon that the freeze had broad implications for her colleagues’ research.

“Today, I had a colleague who was ready to submit something for reimbursement of a federal grant,” Peek said before the freeze was blocked. “So that purchase will just sit with his credit card until there’s further clarification about how to resolve this issue.”

“If we don’t have grant funds, we’re not able to do the research that results in breakthroughs for science, for medicine, [and] ultimately for patients,” Peek added.

OMB issued a second memo on the afternoon of January 28 clarifying that

According to Nou, the memo will likely face constitutional challenges, particularly on grounds of illegal impoundment.

CONTINUED FROM PG. 6

the freeze would not affect “any program that provides direct benefits to individuals,” including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Medicare, and Social Security. The second memo has since been removed from the White House website.

Additionally, “any payment required by law to be paid will be paid without interruption or delay,” the memo read.

Department of Education spokesperson Madison Biedermann told the Maroon in a statement on January 28 that the initial OMB memo would neither affect Pell Grants nor direct student loans.

“The funding pause directed by the January 27, 2025, OMB memorandum only applies to discretionary grants at the Department of Education. These will be reviewed by Department leadership for alignment with Trump Administration priorities,” the statement read.

When asked for comment on the impact the freeze may have on hospital operations and Medicaid, a spokesperson for UChicago Medicine (UCM) referred the Maroon to the second OMB memo but declined to comment further on the potential impact on UCM operations or research.

In their lawsuit, the attorneys gener-

al highlighted the impact that a freeze on federal grant access would have on a variety of services, including those pertaining to healthcare and research at institutions of higher education.

“States likewise rely on federal funds to maintain vital programs for their residents, including Medicaid, the single largest federal funding stream to the States— over $600 billion in funding in Fiscal Year 2023 designated for reimbursing the States’ cost of providing healthcare to their poorest residents,” the lawsuit read. “State institutions of higher education also receive billions of dollars in grants, not including direct student aid, that fund essential research in every conceivable area of study.”

In a press release accompanying the lawsuit, Raoul said that “OMB’s policy violates the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act by imposing a government-wide stop to spending without any regard for the laws and regulations that govern each source of federal funding.”

Despite the court’s order and the administrative stay on the grants freeze, community health centers in states including Illinois have continued to report issues accessing their funding, according to PBS .

U.S. Representative Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.), whose district includes Hyde Park, shared a statement with the Maroon “denouncing the Trump administration’s unprecedented and unlawful directive to halt the distribution of billions of dollars in federal funding approved by Congress.”

Jennifer Nou, the Ruth Wyatt Rosenson Professor of Law at UChicago Law School, told the Maroon that it is not uncommon for OMB to conduct extensive federal funding reviews in new administrations, but that the Trump administration’s memo was “striking [in] explicitly couching this in terms of presidential political priorities.”

“One of the memo’s main problems is that it just sweeps too broadly,” Nou said. “There is a good chance that [Judge AliKhan’s administrative stay] will eventually result in a permanent injunction.”

According to Nou, the memo will likely face constitutional challenges, particularly on grounds of illegal impoundment as defined by the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). Passed in 1974 to restrain then-President Richard Nixon, the ICA generally prevents presidents from withholding funds for political reasons without a specific, congressionally approved proposal.

Trump’s campaign agenda challenged the ICA and outlined a plan to use impoundment “to cut waste, stop inflation, and crush the Deep State.”

Despite significant confusion regarding the memo’s effects among the professors and lawyers who spoke to the Maroon, Leavitt said during a January 28 press conference that there was “only uncertainty [in] the media. There’s no uncertainty in [the White House]” about the memo’s meaning.

Administrators at other universities, including Yale and Stanford, had shared messages similar to Baicker’s but notably did not ask faculty to halt most research without an explicit stop-work order. Brown University clarified their commitment to preserving the academic freedom of students and faculty but did not provide specific guidance on how researchers should proceed.

UChicago’s emails were sent only to faculty, whereas Yale’s went to both faculty and students. Stanford and Brown published public statements.

Anushree Vashist and Zachary Leiter contributed reporting.

This is a developing story. Updates can be found at chicagomaroon.com.

With Trump Taking Aim at Department of Education, University Could See Major Changes

By ZACHARY LEITER | Deputy Managing Editor and EVGENIA ANASTASAKOS | Senior News Reporter and KALYNA VICKERS | Senior News Reporter

The Trump administration is considering dismantling the Department of Education, per the Wall Street Journal—a move that could have significant implications for institutions of higher education like UChicago.

The dismantling of the Department of Education would threaten federal financial aid, Title I administration, Title IX enforcement, and student loans.

President Donald Trump’s draft order would shut down all Department of Education functions not written explicitly into statute and direct the agency to begin to diminish itself, per the Wall Street Journal. The executive order would also call for a Congressional proposal to abolish the agency.

Established in 1979, the Department of Education administers federal finan-

cial aid for education, oversees research on American schooling, and enforces civil rights statutes in educational institutions.

Among the Department of Education’s responsibilities is awarding federal Pell Grants to undergraduate students “who display exceptional financial need.” 14 percent of students in UChicago’s Class of 2024 received Pell Grants.

The agency is also responsible for administering the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which the University’s financial aid office uses to de-

termine eligibility for University grants and Federal Work-Study.

Along with providing financial support for students, the Department of Education enforces Title IX’s civil rights protections. This enforcement also applies to private colleges, like UChicago, which receive federal financial assistance.

The University did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

Stuart Eizenstat, chief domestic policy advisor to President Jimmy Carter, told the Maroon on Tuesday that the creation

“The

Department of Education

CONTINUED FROM PG. 7

of the Department of Education in 1979 was “one of President Carter’s most important legacies.” From 1953–79, federal education policy was set by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

“If there are areas [of Department of Education policy], such as DEI, where the current administration has issues,” Eizenstat said, referring to Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, “their removal can be done with a scalpel, not with a bludgeon.”

Republicans have campaigned against the Department of Education’s existence since its inception, but according to Eizenstat, “the difference this time is that the president seems to be making it a top priority.”

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to “get rid” of the Department of Education. In its 2024 platform, the Republican Party pledged to “close the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. and send it back to the States, where it belongs, and let the States run our educational system as it should be run.”

Trump’s recently established Depart-

ment of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk, has campaigned to cut spending across the executive branch.

On Monday, Musk posted on X, “Reagan campaigned on ending the federal Dept of Education, which was created by Carter in 1979, but it was bigger when Reagan left office than when he started! Not this time. President @realDonaldTrump will succeed.”

Neither DOGE nor Musk could be reached for comment. DOGE has neither a working website nor a press contact. Multiple individual employees of DOGE did not respond to requests for comment.

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law administrative law professor James Speta told the Maroon that the “wholesale elimination of a Congressionally created agency would have to go through Congress.”

However, Speta said, whether an agency could refrain from acting on its congressional authority or shift its responsibilities to another agency depended on specifics of the legislation that created the agency and on unresolved legal questions concerning separation of powers.

In the past few months, both U.S.

is not in the U.S.

Constitution.”

Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and U.S. Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) have introduced legislation to curtail or abolish the Department of Education.

Neither Rounds’s office nor Massie’s office responded to requests for comment.

“The Department of Education is not in the U.S. Constitution,” Jonathan Butcher, a senior fellow in education at the Heritage Foundation, told the Maroon when asked why the Heritage Foundation believes the Department of Education should be abolished.

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank and the publisher of Project 2025, a sweeping policy framework aimed at expanding executive power under a Trump administration. The plan, published in January 2023, advocates for the Department of Education’s abolition.

Underwriting student loans is “not the job of the federal government,” Butcher said. “We should be collapsing some of the loan programs.”

Butcher recommended that the government “move the entire student loan program to the Treasury, and ultimately [that the Department of Education] should be downsized significantly.”

Downsizing or closing the Department of Education “would put pressure on schools to bring their tuition more in line with the cost of education,” Butcher said.

Eizenstat said it would be “disastrous” to move the Department of Education’s responsibilities to the Department of the Treasury or anywhere else in the executive branch.

“Those responsibilities would then be fulfilled by people without an education background,” Eizenstat, who served as deputy secretary of the treasury under President Bill Clinton, said.

The Department of Education and the Department of the Treasury did not respond to requests for comment.

In a January 30 message to Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) staff, Illinois State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders wrote, “At this time, there have been no changes to federal legislation, regulations or funding that would warrant a local response, and all Illinois state laws remain intact.”

When asked about the effects of a possible abolition of the Department of Education, the ISBE referred the Maroon to a post on X by Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker, which reads, “If Trump dismantles the Dept. of Education, he will be jeopardizing public education for our most vulnerable communities. Rural schools. Low-income areas. Special ed teachers and students with disabilities. Our families, kids, and teachers deserve more.”

Trump has nominated Linda McMahon as secretary of education. McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive, led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first presidency. McMahon’s Senate confirmation hearing is set for Thursday, February 13.

When asked on Monday about his decision to appoint McMahon, Trump said he wanted “states to run schools” and for “Linda to put herself out of a job.”

McMahon could not be reached for comment.

The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Anushree Vashist and Nathaniel Rodwell-Simon contributed reporting.

This is a developing story. Updates can be found at chicagomaroon.com.

On Tuesday, hundreds of demonstrators joined Democratic lawmakers outside the Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C. to protest Elon Musk’s role in the new Trump administration. courtesy of amanda leiter .

Li, Eisenstadt, and Anastasakos Elected to Lead the Maroon in 2025–26

By ISAIAH GLICK | Senior News Reporter

Third-years Tiffany Li, Elena Eisenstadt, and Evgenia Anastasakos will become the Chicago Maroon ’s 2025–26 editor-in-chief, deputy editor-in-chief, and managing editor, respectively, following an election on February 1. They will succeed co-Editors-in-Chief Eva McCord and Kayla Rubenstein, along with Managing Editor Anushree Vashist and Deputy Managing Editor Zachary Leiter.

The incoming slate, which will begin its tenure on March 16, ran on a platform of developing different forms of coverage, incorporating more multimedia in reporting, building relationships with University and South Side communities, and decreasing turnaround time for new articles.

Additionally, the Maroon elected third-year Haebin Jung to serve as chief production officer. Jung will replace Allison Ho, who has held the position for the past two academic years. Jung plans to explore new layouts and formats for print, increase communication with other sections, and improve productivity and workflows.

Second-year Crystal Li and thirdyear Chichi Wang will serve as co-chief financial officers, replacing Kaelyn Hindshaw and Arjun Mazumdar. Li and Wang plan to reassess the Maroon ’s print strategy, establish an endowment to provide a financial safety net for the paper, and diversify and expand advertising.

In his opening remarks to Maroon staff, Leiter advised the upcoming slate, “Be hard on yourselves, hold each other accountable. We are all still learning, and it is all of your commitment to continue striving and improving that has carried me through this past year.”

Li currently serves as a news editor, senior copy editor, arts editor, and podcast editor. A political science and economics major, she joined the Maroon in her second year after transferring from Middlebury College, where she wrote for the Middlebury Campus.

In her speech, Li emphasized the strong community she found in the Ma-

roon after transferring to the University.

“[I found] a group of people at the Maroon who believed in me, probably more than I believed in myself, and pushed me to challenge myself and grow,” Li said.

“By the end of my first quarter, I knew UChicago was the right place for me, and a large part of that was due to the community I had found at the Maroon.”

Eisenstadt currently serves as a Grey City editor and a news reporter. Eisenstadt, a history and Romance languages and literatures major, joined the Maroon in her first year as a Grey City writer before becoming an editor later that year. She has covered the University’s financial troubles, investigated UCPD wage discrepancies, and reported live from the pro-Palestine encampment on the quad last spring. She has also served on the Maroon’s Editorial Board.

Eisenstadt referenced her time reporting on the encampment during her speech, noting how she “watched [her] fellow Maroon reporters rise to the occasion of covering a news event with national and international implications and reporting in this public service capacity.”

“It felt like the journalists around me had a sense of duty to contribute to this coverage, not for themselves, but because of an obligation to provide transparent reporting to the general student body. That sense of obligation is what led me to contribute to the Maroon.”

Eisenstadt’s view of the Maroon is of a paper that “strives to speak to people who hold different beliefs or perspectives, even and especially when those people do not want to directly encounter each other. In doing so, we can write with clarity about the nuances of an issue. This simple act of communication is the best tool that I know of for humanizing

people, and it is why I believe that journalism is a service for the public.”

Anastasakos currently serves as a Grey City editor and news reporter. Anastasakos, a history and English language and literature major, joined the Maroon during her first year. Anastasakos joined as a Grey City writer before becoming an editor in her second year. She has reported on the trades and supply chain workers strike at UChicago Medicine, the forcible eviction of a third-generation Woodlawn homeowner and her tenants, and the regular swimmers at Promontory Point.

“I hope to continue to make this a welcoming place for students to learn about journalism and to feel like they’re making an impact,” Anastasakos said. “Serving you all as your managing editor is an exciting, although daunting, idea, and I want you all to know that my main goal is to help you produce work that you’re proud of here at the Maroon.”

Anastasakos,

Eisenstadt,

“It feels almost every night like 1993 in there.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 1

The brothers ultimately won an appeal with the city liquor control commission and were able to reopen in May of 2000.

Callahan’s Relationship with the University of Chicago Community

Martell explained that throughout his time as the Woodlawn Tap’s owner, Callahan employed over 100 UChicago students, providing them not only with jobs but also with a sense of belonging. In this way, Callahan continued Wilson’s legacy.

“His predecessor, Jimmy Wilson, in an interview with the Maroon from maybe the 80s, said that [Wilson] had employed over 300 University of Chicago students while he owned the bar. And so, [the Woodlawn Tap] has a big impact on the neighborhood but also on the University community and the students,” Martell said.

Beyond employment, the bar became a haven for students, faculty, and alumni. “Even if you didn’t get engaged there, a lot of

people around UChicago met there or dated there—or did get engaged. And it’s just a remarkable memory for so many people,” Martell said.

Jan added that Callahan made sure that the Woodlawn Tap remained a space for conversation and connection, resisting the pull of modern distractions.

“He had a hard time with the whole concept of cell phone use and the computers and the iPads and everything. He used to talk about how he would walk in the front door and everybody would be chatting with each other, and then all of a sudden came the age of all the electronics,” she said. “He finally got people to come around to have the conversations anyway.”

To many, including Martell, the Woodlawn Tap has remained largely unchanged throughout its history. “It feels almost every night like 1993 in there,” Martell said. “The nightlife, the joy, the looks on the students’ faces—it really hasn’t changed. The model is pretty much the same: a safe place

where people can sit around a table, enjoy each other’s company, and talk about their lives.”

For 77 years, the bar has maintained its cash-only policy, and Callahan’s family joked about the recent switch to an electronic menu board, which Martell had installed to keep up with changing prices.

Jan shared that when Callahan took over, “The University said, ‘It’s okay if you’re running this bar, but it’s got to look exactly the same: same dark walls, same dark floors.’ But that’s what Jimmy’s has always been, and so it has to remain that way.”

Will added, “I know Matt feels the exact same way, which is why it looks the way it does today, except for the electronic menu board.”

Callahan’s Legacy

Although Callahan retired three years ago, Martell emphasized that his legacy continues to shape the Woodlawn Tap.

“Bill ran the bar with a sense of humor

and kindness, and he had a really good understanding of what Jimmy’s meant to students, alumni, faculty, staff, and the neighborhood,” Martell said. “Bill’s vision, and we really talked about it quite a lot, was what people want from a bar like Jimmy’s. Whether it’s a quiet place to talk, not being overwhelmed by TVs or loud music, or having spaces for people to read or work, that was his hope, and it was my intention to keep that going.”

Kristen explained that her father wasn’t just a bar owner. “He was welcoming. People just came in and they became friends. They became like family,” Kristen said.

“I think his legacy is that the bar is still there. I think he’s going to go down as one of the last very great bar owners,” Martell said. “I’ve hung out at the bar with Bill well over a thousand times over the years. I can tell you that Bill was the kind of guy that when you walked in and he was sitting down at the end of the bar, you were really, really glad to see him.”

Alumna Catina Latham Named UCMed’s Senior VP for Community Health

By AVA IWASKO | News Reporter

In November, Catina Latham (A.B. ’95) was announced as UChicago Medicine’s (UCM’s) new senior vice president for community health transformation and chief equity officer. The role bridges the gap between the health services the hospital offers and the community members it serves.

After graduating from the College with an anthropology degree, Latham worked at a senior center in Nashville, providing care to patients struggling due to poor healthcare policy.

Latham said she learned that a new policy stated that beneficiaries in Tennessee had to receive care through managed care plans, which meant that, if their providers were not contracted with those plans, they could no longer see them.

“I remember thinking, ‘How did they roll this out? How could it have been improved?’ Because I saw the patient side of it,” Latham said. “That was my introduc-

tion into health policy.”

Because Latham saw how the policies were negatively affecting individual patients, she had a unique perspective on what could be improved and how. According to Latham, that was the moment she decided she wanted to make a difference in health policy.

Before coming to UCM, Latham worked on healthcare policy at the Government Accountability Office as an assistant director and spent time as the deputy director of new initiatives and quality management for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. Latham had previously worked at UCM as executive director of community benefit programs and evaluation in 2017 before she was invited back to UCM to begin her new role in 2025. According to Latham, the nationwide search to fill the position was extensive.

“I appreciated [the thoroughness of the search] because it allowed me to think

about all aspects of the job and to reflect on my experiences and what I would need to bring to the table,” Latham said. “It allowed me to think about areas for next steps, in terms of what I would do if I had the role.”

Brenda Battle, who had held the role since 2012, led the search.

“Catina brings considerable strengths to this critical leadership and community-facing position,” Battle said. “That includes her experience in public health policy evaluation, data-driven strategies, and community collaboration and partnerships—factors that have contributed to the growth of UChicago Medicine’s community health initiatives.”

According to the UCM website, these initiatives include supporting holistic recovery by treating more than physical wounds in UCM’s trauma centers, connecting residents to care and resources, preparing high school and college students for pursuing careers in medicine, and promoting healthier communities by targeting health priorities and disparities among

South Side residents.

Latham added that she is excited to begin working in her new position, particularly since she will be working closely with the community surrounding the University.

“It’s an awesome opportunity where you are allowed to be in the community, communicating the messages of promoting health, [and] you also are in the community hearing the voices and concerns to then go back and share with the hospitals to help improve the care,” Latham said. “You’re the community arm, and you’re also the community voice, too.”

As Latham steps into her new position, she hopes to build on the “phenomenal” foundation that her predecessor has left behind.

“As I embark on this, I’m excited that there’s this position that has this intersection for me of the things that I enjoy doing,” Latham said. “It’s in a community that I not only love, but I live in, and I’m a part of. It’s just a great next step.”

Faculty Members Express Confusion and Concern as University Responds to Trump Administration

By AARYAN KUMAR | News Reporter

In an open letter to University Provost Katherine Baicker sent on January 29, faculty members expressed concern over the University’s request to “temporarily suspend” non-personnel spending on federal grant projects in response to a Trump administration freeze on federal spending.

“We are troubled that our University administration seems so eager to over-comply with this vague and problematic Memorandum, which seems designed to chill the free activity of members of civil society and its institutions, including scientists, professors, and universities,” the letter, signed by more than 100 faculty members, read.

After the freeze was blocked by a federal judge on January 28, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rescinded the initial memo implementing it, but the White House later signaled that grants may still be frozen in the future.

Peer institutions issued messages to their communities in response to the freeze in federal funding. In a statement to the community, the president of Brown University emphasized the university’s commitment to academic freedom. Students, faculty, and staff at Stanford University were instructed to continue research activities as normal.

Baicker’s initial response to the OMB memo caused concern for several faculty members, including David Pincus, an assistant professor of molecular genetics and cell biology.

“It seems like either a signal that UChicago is going to be overly compliant with whatever administrative directives are issued, or the underlying finances of the institution are such that we can’t continue to support research even for 20 days,” Pincus told the Maroon on the morning of January 29. “Either of those things gives me, personally, less confidence in the provost’s leadership.”

In a follow-up email sent to faculty members and researchers on the evening of January 29, Baicker instructed researchers to continue with normal operations unless they received direct communication from federal agencies.

“We are committed to supporting our research community and reaffirming its centrality to our work at the same time that we address in real time a changing regulatory environment,” Baicker wrote. “The broader landscape of federal funding for academic research remains uncertain, and in the days ahead we may face similar challenges to our core work. We will continue to do all we can to protect and

support your research and scholarship and minimize disruption to researchers, staff, and students, while striving to share clear information as we learn more.”

Joseph Thornton, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, told the Maroon that Baicker’s second email was more reassuring.

“Everyone is waiting to see what the White House’s next attack on civil society will be, including universities and science,” Thornton said. “And we will have to meet that moment when it happens, and we hope that the University leadership will take a strong role in protecting the research mission and the educational mission of the University. They made a misstep with that initial message from the provost, but I’m hopeful that that was an aberration.”

Sarah Cobey, another professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, said her colleagues at the National Institute of Health (NIH) had been faster to respond to the Trump administration policy than the University.

“Frankly, the speed of communication that I have with my colleagues and some of these NIH-funded consortia is a lot faster than the University’s communications. And so, I really am getting most of my information from my network of colleagues,” Cobey said of policy changes

made by the Trump administration. “But I do think the University is trying to communicate with us too.”

Pincus, who supervises the Cellular Adaptation Lab, told the Maroon that between 80 and 85 percent of the federal grants his lab receives are spent on personnel expenses. He estimated that the lab has “six months of runway where we could at least continue operations as normal” in the event of a funding freeze.

Cobey told the Maroon that Provost Baicker’s initial request, that faculty “temporarily pause” non-personnel spending, would have had a substantial impact on research projects across campus, halting travel and the purchase of new equipment.

“What I was immediately concerned about was with travel that we needed to book and UChicago’s ability to issue subawards, which would cause substantial delays in our research,” Cobey said. “And right now we have a randomized clinical trial that’s finishing up and for which we really badly need to send money to some of the researchers to finish analyzing the specimens.”

The Trump administration has issued several other directives that could affect the University, such as ending federal DEI programs and pausing official NIH communications.

Alivisatos, Chicago Principles Authors Speak on 10th Anniversary of the Chicago Principles

By OLIVER BUNTIN | Senior News Reporter

The University and the Chicago Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression hosted “Chicago Principles at Ten Years” on January 31. University President Paul Alivisatos and the original authors of the 2015 “Report of the Committee for Freedom of Expression”—now known as the Chicago Principles—discussed the document’s legacy and ongoing importance on its 10th anniversary.

Over 100 institutions have now adopt-

ed the Chicago Principles, which have become central to the University’s identity.

Alivisatos opened the event with a keynote address highlighting the uncertain future of free inquiry and expression at colleges and universities across the United States.

“We face a crisis regarding free expression and academic inquiry in universities,” Alivisatos said, pausing for effect.

“The headwinds we face are twofold.

First, deference to conventional wisdom has stifled inquiry in a number of disciplines, some quarters of higher education prize activism over inquiry, important social questions go unaddressed because of fear of the answers, and errors persist because of fear of disagreeing with popular positions. This itself is an emergency,” Alivisatos said.

“The failure of academia writ large to engage with this problem substantively has eroded trust amongst a large segment of our citizenry, and even the most basic

benefits universities provide to society are now in dispute.”

However, a lack of social trust is not the only problem facing universities, according to Alivisatos. Equally threatening to academic freedom, he continued, is the rise of “government intervention” resulting from the loss of societal trust in the academy: “Consider the example of the adoption of policies in many states that explicitly ban the teaching of certain controversial ideas and theories in public

From his perspective as an administrator, Warren observed that “in some ways, the Chicago Principles make a dean’s life easy.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 11

higher education institutions.”

“It is of the utmost importance that political dictation of American universities be resisted, for each concession… encourages new encroachments,” Alivisatos said, quoting former University President Edward H. Levi.

“I could not agree more [that] when governmental entities or external forces censor the free expression of faculty and students and seek to compel conformity, the possibility for universities to remain places of genuine truth-seeking is put at dire risk. This kind of remedy can kill the patient.”

Alivisatos then asked the audience what the “path forward” was for the University.

“Today we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Chicago Principles, and in doing so, we have a chance to think together about how they can lead us toward resolution to this crisis a decade ago, when the principles were written… so-called cancel culture, shutting down speakers, the call for safe spaces, and more heralded a new and rather terrible moment,” Alivisatos said.

“[Former University President Robert] Zimmer understood the threat this posed, and he worked with a remarkable group of

faculty to codify the Chicago principles, to state them plainly and forthrightly as they had arisen from our history and practices to reaffirm [that] education should not be intended to make people comfortable. It is meant to make them think.”

Alivisatos concluded by urging students and faculty to maintain the culture that allows the Chicago Principles, stating that “the relative lack of diversity of political orientation on campuses compared to society at large puts [a] severe onus on the need to be even more open to minority viewpoints.”

Five of the seven authors of the Chicago Principles—Geoffrey Stone, former chair of the committee and Edward H. Levy Distinguished Service Professor of Law at UChicago Law; Kenneth Warren, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor of English; Marianne Betrand, Chris P. Dialynas Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the Booth School of Business; Amanda Woodward, dean of the social sciences and William S. Gray Professor of Psychology; and Columbia University Provost Angela Olinto—were in attendance for a conversation moderated by Forum Faculty Director Tom Ginsburg.

Stone began by discussing the historical roots of the Chicago Principles.

“It’s important to understand that universities in this country have not historically been committed to what we today would call academic freedom. Until the Darwin era, universities basically regarded themselves as institutions committed to advocating and teaching a particular set of principles and a particular set of views. That’s what they were that began to change in the Darwin era. But even then, there was strong pressure on institutions not to go too far in that direction, as they became increasingly dependent upon donors around the turn of the 20th century,” he said.

“[But] Chicago was unique in this regard, because from our very founding we made clear that we are an institution committed to free, open discourse, debate and discussion without any kind of censorship of ideas. And so, in creating a committee, the basic idea was not to simply state that reality, but to offer a set of views about how that manifests itself in practice.”

From her perspective as an administrator, Woodward observed that “in some ways, the Chicago Principles make a dean’s life easy.”

“I have had on several occasions petitions signed by thousands of people, many of them academics, calling for the

punishment or even firing of somebody in my division who has expressed an idea that they don’t like,” she continued.

“And the Chicago Principles give me a very clear way to respond to that situation, which is… to say that person’s views are their own, and we absolutely defend their right to express them.”

While Warren was initially reluctant to join the committee, he was convinced of the need for a report while working on it.

“It was really over the course of the committee’s work, [that] I came around to the idea that a statement might be a good idea, and this was particularly after having heard from our staff members in student affairs who were, so to speak, on the front lines and said that some delineation of the University’s principles would help them feel they were not flying by the seat of their pants as they tried to advise and direct students as events were unfolding,” he said.

Ginsburg concluded by asking the audience to remember that “we all share responsibility for a healthy civic space.”

Following the conversation, a number of breakout faculty panels examined issues including free expression and technology, the current political environment, and the future of free speech.

Trump Nominates Economics Professor as Small Business Administration Advisor

By ISAIAH GLICK | Senior News Reporter

Casey Mulligan (Ph.D. ’93), a professor in the Department of Economics and the College, has been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as chief counsel for advocacy at the Small Business Administration (SBA).

During the previous Trump administration, Mulligan served as chief economist on the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) from September 2018 to August 2019. The appointment is subject to Senate confirmation.

Trump announced the nomination in a January 11 post on Truth Social, highlighting Mulligan’s tenure at the University and

his work in the last Trump administration as key to his decision.

“Casey is a fantastic Economist from the University of Chicago and a highly respected expert on the regulations that are crushing our Small Businesses,” Trump wrote. “During my First Term, Casey was the Chief Economist of my Council of Economic Advisers where he helped craft the Economic policies that gave us the best Economy in American History.”

During his tenure with the CEA, which is responsible for advising the president on economic issues, Mulligan had a key role in researching and promoting Trump’s

economic policy with a focus on regulation and healthcare. In 2020, Mulligan published the book You’re Hired! Untold Successes and Failures of a Populist President, detailing his experience as chief economist.

The chief counsel for advocacy is responsible for representing the views of small business owners and researching the impacts that regulations have on small businesses.

Mulligan’s appointment will fill a position that has been vacant since Darryl DePriest, appointed by President Obama, left the SBA in 2017. Major Clark III served as acting chief counsel from January 2017 to November 2021, when he took over as

DATA

deputy chief counsel. In the absence of a Senate-confirmed appointee, Clark has performed the duties of chief counsel for advocacy since 2017.

Mulligan will assume the position following his confirmation by the U.S. Senate. His confirmation hearings, which will be held before the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, have not yet been scheduled.

The Committee to Unleash Prosperity, where Mulligan serves as chief economist, said in a statement on their website that, as chief counsel, Mulligan will “assess the costs and benefits of federal rules on small businesses. If they’re a net negative – as most are – they can be rescinded.”

Mapping the University of Chicago’s 135-Year Expansion Into Hyde Park and Beyond

Drawing from University archives, campus maps, academic literature, and news clippings, the Maroon charted the University’s contentious property acquisitions from its charter in 1890 to the present.

By CELESTE ALCALAY | Grey City Editor and NIKHIL PATEL | Lead Developer and AUSTIN STEINHART | Lead Developer

In 1890, the newly chartered University of Chicago aimed to “remove the mind of the student from the busy mercantile conditions of Chicago.” Architect Henry Ives Cobb envisioned a campus with one central quadrangle surrounded by six others, covering 22 acres of land.

Today, the University owns or invests in over 250 properties in Hyde Park and the surrounding neighborhoods, spanning from 38th Street to 65th Street and from I-90 to Lake Michigan. Including its previous holdings, the portfolio has exceeded 300 properties.

As the University of Chicago has expanded its property footprint on the South Side, conflicting priorities, land use disputes, and racial tension have characterized a historically fraught “town and gown” relationship with the surrounding neighborhoods. Setting the stage for others to follow, the University was the first higher education institution to embark on an urban renewal campaign of its kind, a topic University scholars and students have written on extensively.

The following narration is not an exhaustive history; rather, it traces the

contours of shifting values and priorities that have contributed to the University’s current institutional identity. Read the full story online using the QR code for a visual history of the University’s role in shaping its built environment over its 135-year history.

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ARTS

Local Kids Call the Tune in Student-Run After-School Music Program

Founded by a UChicago undergraduate student over a decade ago, the South Side Free Music Program encourages neighborhood children to express their creativity.

By CELESTE ALCALAY | Arts Reporter

Sixth-grader Eric Williams is learning to play the Super Mario Bros. theme song in the basement of the University’s Logan Center for the Arts. It may seem his attention wanders from his teacher’s hands at the piano, but he processes the musical information carefully, then plays back the tune fragment.

“It’s surprisingly hard,” said Eric of his selection. However, he is certain he will triumph by his spring recital.

His teacher, Sean Won, is a fourthyear student majoring in economics and data science and the president of the South Side Free Music Program (SSFMP). A student-run after-school program, SSFMP was founded by then-undergraduate Noah Moskowitz (A.B. ’12) 15 years ago in response to budget cuts across Chicago public schools. Moskowitz said he formed the program to “jam” with the kids.

Before private lessons were held on campus, UChicago volunteers worked with students in South Side school classrooms. Won says his vision for the program aligns with Moskowitz’s original policy of prioritizing reach over exclusivity.

“The expectation isn’t to get your student to be the next Mozart. The goal is to inspire [a] love of music,” Won said.

Eric has professional aspirations: “I want to be a musician when I’m older— or an artist.”

“He’s a very artistic person, so I take inspiration from that,” said Won, a classically trained pianist. Many classical musicians don’t know how to improvise, but Eric, who enjoys hip-hop and jazz, updates Won on his improvisational progress on the piano, drums, and guitar.

SSFMP currently consists of about 75

student-teacher pairings. According to Won, another 50 children are on the waitlist, and the program is trying to recruit additional volunteers. It’s an effort to fill a small part of the music education gap on the South Side, exacerbated by budget cuts that have continually hampered arts education.

Nearly half of Chicago public schools have only one arts teacher position, some of which are not yet filled, according to WBEZ. Low enrollment in those schools, most of which serve fewer than 500 students, is also an obstacle to making an arts education more accessible.

Nurturing her son’s musical talent was a priority for Eric’s mother, Renye Owens. Owens said that teachers at Jane Addams Elementary in East Side can’t provide individualized attention in a large class, and Eric sometimes struggles to focus due to his ADHD.

“He’s musically inclined, so we just wanted to make sure that he was learning,” Owens said, adding that extracurricular music lessons can be expensive. The Music Teachers of Hyde Park, an alliance of independent teachers who serve South Side neighborhoods, charges varying rates, according to flute teacher Irene Claude. Ethan Sellers, a working musician who has taught for decades, typically charges $60 for a one-hour piano lesson, while another teacher in the alliance, who asked to remain anonymous, charges $82.

Connections Beyond the Campus Practice Room

For David Richmond, his two daughters’ participation in the program is a full-circle moment.

“Both my older siblings played music,

but I never had this when I was a kid, and I wish I would have had that opportunity,” said Richmond, who was born “just three blocks away” at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

Musical connections forge bonds between teachers and South Side families that extend beyond the practice room. Each year, one of Won’s piano students sends him an invitation to his birthday party— “And I show up,” he said.

“I feel like I’m a meaningful part of their lives,” Won said. He attends events held by Eric’s grandmother, who runs Sacred Grounds Ministries, a local nonprofit anti-violence organization.

Many of the student volunteer staff begin as underclassmen at UChicago and remain with students until they graduate. “It can be disruptive when a student graduates, and we make a new pairing,” said Won. He added that parents inquire about graduated teachers to emphasize the emotional attachments that form.

Nine-year-old Elle Watson sings in a

general music class at South Loop Elementary School, but since they don’t have a formal orchestra, she has been taking violin lessons with third-year student Ava Cho for two years through SSFMP.

“All the way from back then, looking at me now, it’s like, ‘Oh wow, I have so many more skills,’” Elle reflected.

“She’s very positive, and she brings that energy into the music,” Cho said. “I get to see her not only grow as a musician but her growing up and maturing.”

This year, Elle is considering playing Beyoncé’s “Halo” for the spring recital. The piece is difficult, but “if she puts in the work, she’ll be good,” Cho said.

While some students, such as Eric, dream of a music career, others said the weekly lessons are a rewarding hobby. Regardless, sharing music is a source of joy for both the students and the teachers.

“Music opens the pathway to relationships with people,” Cho said. “Even if, after I graduate, Elle doesn’t do violin, at least I formed that connection with her.”

Teachers and students at last year’s spring recital. courtesy of the south side free music program

Hardcore: Violence, Religion, and Sex

Arts Reporter Navya Banga reviews Doc Films’ screening of the 1979 picture.

By NAVYA BANGA | Arts Reporter

It starts with those familiar winter scenes—red-faced children bobsledding, men shoveling the driveway, children sitting in front of the television watching a Christmas special. It’s Home Alone before the robbers show up. Everything seems as it should be: the girls are leaving for a church-sponsored trip, and their fathers will miss them. The opening scenes strike a dissonant chord as the title flashes on screen: Hardcore, in bold orange against a snowy backdrop. From the opening credits, director Paul Schrader introduces contradiction—the provocative title and provincial background, the fundamentalist and porn actress, the good church girl in California’s seedy underbelly.

Hardcore (1979), screened at Doc Films, follows Jake VanDorn, a conservative, Calvinist businessman whose daughter, Kristen, suddenly goes missing from a trip to California. VanDorn attempts to find her, first enlisting the help of a private investigator and his brother-in-law, but eventually striking out on his own. He grows disillusioned and desperate as he sinks deeper into the illicit world of pornography in search of his daughter, finally persuading Niki, a young woman deeply entrenched in the world he is growing increasingly horrified by, to assist him. VanDorn battles his resentment for the new sex-centric culture and his growing sympathy for and connection with Niki while confronting the question of whether Kristen was taken or chose to leave.

The movie shines when Schrader lets his incredibly compelling characters simply stand, talk, and look at each other. VanDorn is a man stripped of all context on a single-minded quest. He leaves behind his family, religious community, and, upon realizing that his outward appearance arouses suspicion within the illegitimate tides he has waded into, even his way of dressing and speaking. He explains the principles of his sect to Niki, speaking to his passionate faith in

his role as one of God’s chosen, making it all the more jarring how easily he slips into his performance of a sleazy producer and how quickly he gives into his violent urges. Upon finally finding ‘Jism Jim,’ an actor who starred across his

through to the audience. His religious values fall away as quickly as the Christmas decorations come off the telephone wires, leaving them bare and a little ugly in the light. Worst of all, Van Dorn’s violence doesn’t spark any personal interrogation, and he doesn’t seem to perceive it as antithetical to his religious beliefs

pelling not when father and daughter reunite but when the audience realizes, alongside the characters, that Van Dorn will not rescue Niki; he will go back to his small-town life with his daughter, and she will return to her drifting life. The film falters near the ending, famously a studio-imposed change, diverting into

daughter in a pornographic movie, VanDorn nearly beats him to death during an interrogation. Jim is hardly positioned as a likable figure, and the violence enacted against him is shocking primarily for its abruptness and extremity. It isn’t until later when VanDorn slaps Niki, his unlikely partner in his search with whom he develops a touching and almost paternal relationship, that the hollowness of his supposed principles comes

at all. Schrader suggests that regardless of their purported values, or lack thereof, men’s violent behavior pervades the whole spectrum of life, from an upstanding member of a religious community to the participants in a world of cruel and taboo pornography.

VanDorn is an avenging knight on behalf of respectable society, but Niki is the one who truly earns the audience’s sympathy. The film is at its most com-

action movie territory and abandoning its core emotional themes only to return to them suddenly. Still, the messiness and slightly unsettling tone of VanDorn’s reconciliation with his daughter echo the movie’s preoccupation with challenging his straightforward Calvinist ethos. Schrader reveals that VanDorn’s rigid religious upbringing prevented him from connecting with his daughter

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Chairs outside Max Palevsky Cinema. nathaniel rodwell-simon

VanDorn will return to his world with his daughter, presumably to live happily ever after, but the melancholy of his goodbye with his unlikely companion reminds the viewer that he will also return to blissful ignorance.

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and cultivated the feelings of isolation that motivated her disappearance. In running away to the unseemly world of pornography—particularly to the film’s attempt at a real villain, Ratan, a creator of snuff films—Kristen replaced one neglectful and unsatisfying father figure with another.

With Niki, VanDorn feels little of the

restrictions of his religious background due to their unconventional relationship, and he is free to open up to her. Their honest conversations about sex and religion are a stark contrast to his stilted interactions with his daughter earlier in the movie. Even when VanDorn and Kristen seemingly have an honest, revelatory conversation stripped of inhibitions later in the movie, their dialogue

is desperate and accusatory, each word a struggle as they try and reveal themselves to each other. The stark disparity between his and Niki’s worldviews seems to allow them to have an honest dialogue without the expectations of a conventional relationship weighing them down. All the same, in the end, they go their separate ways. Niki is like the movies her world produces: “Nobody

SPORTS

The Bad News Bears

sees it. It’s like it doesn’t even exist.” VanDorn will return to his world with his daughter, presumably to live happily ever after, but the melancholy of his goodbye with his unlikely companion reminds the viewer that he will also return to blissful ignorance. He will be blind to the world around him, to his own daughter, to his beliefs, and to what lies ahead of and within him.

The Bears have been a constant carousel of head coaches and quarterbacks over the years. Why are they so dysfunctional? What have they been doing wrong, and how can they turn things around with Caleb Williams?

By HENRY NOONAN | Sports Reporter

The Chicago Bears have been around for more than 100 years now, and yet, since their fearsome 1985 defense obliterated every team in sight, they’ve become a league laughingstock rather than a seasoned contender. But why is the NFL’s most storied team a constant carousel of coaches and quarterbacks incapable of limping into the playoffs more than a couple times per decade? Where did things go so wrong?

The only way a team can be so lackluster for so long is a fundamental flaw in team-building philosophy, starting with the ownership. In the Bears’ case, the McCaskeys have refused to adapt to new league-wide trends and fundamental evolutions in the sport. From roster construction to coaching, they just aren’t changing with the times. To win football games now, teams have to be aggressive in trades and free agency and be willing to invest heavily in offensive coaching staff. The Los Angeles Rams have ridden close to a decade of

success on the backs of wunderkind head coach Sean McVay, also selling their entire war chest of draft picks to land quarterback Matthew Stafford and linebacker Von Miller en route to a 2022 Super Bowl title. Philadelphia’s willingness to push the salary cap to its limits and take advantage where the rest of the league is too timid (see Saquon Barkley and A.J. Brown, the 2022 Georgia Bulldogs defense) has rewarded them handsomely with three Super Bowl appearances in seven years. The San Francisco 49ers do not rebuild, they reload—it seems like every year they find a future All-Pro in the fifth round of the draft or fleece some unsuspecting team at the deadline (see Christian McCaffrey). This doesn’t even mention the incomprehensible genius of Coach Kyle Shanahan, who could pull someone off the street and still run his offense as efficiently as the Montana and Rice 49ers of old.

This is all dancing around the fact that well-run teams succeed. In the Bears’

case, team building often errs before it can even properly begin. In a sport more dependent on competent coaching than most other sports, as evidenced by an elite coach like Sean McVay lifting a middling Los Angeles Rams team to prominence, the Bears’ recent coaching has been abysmal. Matt Nagy was the offensive coordinator (OC) for only two seasons under Andy Reid in Kansas City before getting hired in Chicago. Reid has never turned in a below-league-average offense and is routinely in or near the top five, and only ceded play calling to Nagy in December of his last season as Chiefs OC. After leaving Kansas City, Nagy then rode an all-time defense in 2018 (led by defensive coordinator (DC) Vic Fangio, not him) to Coach of the Year before falling in the Wildcard Round after putting up just 15 points and ending with the infamous “double doink.” Did Nagy learn from his mistakes and tutelage under Reid, and take an already elite defense to greater heights with his “offensive prowess?”

No—Nagy never got close to the suc-

cess he experienced in his first year, posting records of 8–8, 8–8, and 6–11, before being unceremoniously run out of town. After Nagy’s incredibly underwhelming tenure, especially on the offensive side of the ball, surely the Bears would hire an offensive wunderkind, right? Nope... Chicago went with Colts DC Matt Eberflus, who led a stellar defense during his time in Indianapolis. Unfortunately, his tenure with the Bears was straight-up offensive (ironic for a team routinely near the bottom of the league in offense every year), going 3–14, 7–10, and then 4–8 before being fired halfway through this season, the first midseason firing of a head coach in franchise history. Eberflus never quite hit his stride, and OC Shane Waldron only made things more difficult. Waldron came from the Seahawks in 2024 following their resurrection of Geno Smith, and when asked how he felt about Waldron, Seattle wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba quipped, “Um... this is live?” Waldron was swiftly fired nine games into the season.

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The Bears have already taken the right first step.

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Between Nagy, Eberflus, and failed OCs in Waldron and Luke Getsy, Chicago was perhaps the worst landscape in the NFL for quarterback development. With no real assets surrounding him, and worse leadership continuity than the newest Star Wars trilogy, it is no wonder former first-round pick quarterback Justin Fields failed to live up to the hype.

Speaking of lack of assets, a puzzling preference for short-term, Band-Aid free agent signings, rather than building a solid foundation of homegrown talent, leaves the Bears looking like a deformed version of the Steelers: stuck in the purgatory of being unable to win but refusing to bottom out and start from scratch. Take some of their moves to “compete” this past offseason, for instance. They signed tight end Gerald Everett, who put up just eight catches for 36 yards in a full season,

and traded a fourth-round pick for former Pro Bowl receiver Keenan Allen’s worst full season of his career. That list doesn’t even include former moves to trade away All-Pro linebacker Roquan Smith or take Mitch Trubisky over Patrick Mahomes. For context, Trubisky is now a career backup who has bounced around from Chicago to Buffalo to Pittsburgh and back to Buffalo, while Mahomes has made five Super Bowls in seven seasons as a starter and is on track to challenge Tom Brady’s claim to the GOAT throne.

Why is a team fresh off of yet another top-10 draft selection making veteran additions like they’re gearing up for a playoff push? What hurts most about the Bears’ moves is that they have some quality young players at key positions on both sides of the ball, but they just refuse to build around the few key pieces they have.

The Bears’ defensive line has sever-

al extremely promising young players in Zacch Pickens and Gervon Dexter Sr. alongside blossoming stars in the secondary like Jaylon Johnson and Kyler Gordon. This talent shone through in several impressive showings against offensive juggernauts in the Lions, Packers, and Rams, but more consistency is needed before they can even approach the heights of their dominant 2018 defense that ransacked the league. With more experience and improvement and an influx of talent via the draft, the defense will hopefully show further improvement and return to being among the league’s best. Though the Bears are historically a team known for their defense, the 2020s Steelers are the prime example of why that’s no longer enough. Even a defense led by All-Pro talent like T. J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick can only hold up for so long if the offense can’t put points on the board. Caleb Wil-

liams can’t focus on developing when he can’t even complete a pass because he’s too busy running for his life behind his nonexistent offensive line.

So, what hope do the Bears have? What can they do to fix this?

At the time of writing, the Bears have already taken the right first step, hiring a prolific offensive-minded head coach in Ben Johnson—color me impressed. Just look at what Kliff Kingsbury, OC for the Washington Commanders, has done for Williams’s fellow 2024 draft pick Jayden Daniels—guiding the rookie to a shoo-in Offensive Rookie of the Year award and a deep playoff run in one of the greatest rookie seasons ever. Johnson led Detroit to the league’s fifth, fifth, and first most points scored in his three years as OC. Maybe the most important part of a young quarterback’s development is offensive genius, and

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Soldier Field. nathaniel rodwell-simon .

Equipping themselves

with a new coaching staff and reinforcing the offensive line will go a long way in strengthening the foundation in Chicago.

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Johnson brings that in spades. And don’t forget the biggest motivator—spite. Johnson will be hell-bent on molding Williams into a better quarterback than Daniels after he passed on the Washington head coach position last offseason. Considering that Johnson will probably be driving the bus on offense, hiring an experienced DC in Dennis Allen will take some heat off of Johnson and allow the Bears to maintain real consistency in leadership. Chicago also hired former Broncos tight ends coach Declan Doyle as the new OC. Doyle is a relative unknown, having only spent five years on the Saints and Broncos, but if he’s

learned anything at all from his tutelage under Sean Payton, he should be a helpful #2 to Johnson’s prolific offensive wizardry. When it comes to what’s on the field, helping your team win (and protecting your quarterback) starts with—say it with me—building from the trenches! Just look at the star-studded offensive line Johnson had with him in Detroit—Jared Goff is no slouch, but his job was made worlds easier being protected by a top-five unit headlined by All-Pros Penei Sewell and Frank Ragnow. Chicago’s offensive line, by comparison, is paper-thin and middling at best. Take Darnell Wright: 10th overall in 2023 was a good start, but Wright and the rest

Recent Results

Men’s Basketball played against No. 3 New York University (N.Y.) and Brandeis University (Mass.) in their last four matches, suffering two games against the former and beating the latter 76–59 and 75–69. They are now 15–5.

Women’s Basketball recently suffered two tough losses against top-ranked New York University (N.Y.). They lost their first match against Brandeis University (Mass.) but beat them 69–55 on Sunday.

Swimming and Diving saw wins for both the men and women against Hope College (Mich.) on Saturday. The men are now 5–3 and the women are 4–4 heading into the UAA Championships this week.

Men’s Tennis saw big 6–1 and 7–0 wins against Roosevelt University (Ill.) and North Central College (Ill.) on Feb. 1. They followed them up with another 7–0 win at DePauw University (Ind.) on Saturday.

Women’s Tennis had three matches scheduled for the weekend, beating Milwaukee (Wis.) 6–1 on Friday and DePauw University (Ind.) 7–0 on Sunday, with their Saturday game against Purdue University Northwest (Ind.) being postponed.

Track and Field dominated at Chicago’s Windy City Rumble, with both men and women finishing first out of 10 teams, before competing in the Lewis Invitational on Friday.

Wrestling finished eighth out of 30 teams at the Pete Wilson Tournament, before competing in the Dubuque Invite on Saturday in Iowa. They are 5–3.

of his unit have struggled to build consistency. Williams certainly bears some of the blame for the struggles he’s had and sacks he’s taken thanks to his frenetic, improvisation-heavy playstyle, but it’s clear that there are some significant holes on the line and Williams isn’t receiving enough protection. The Bears again pick 10th overall this year and could desperately use the services of a tackle like LSU’s Will Campbell or Texas’s Kelvin Banks Jr. Adding Campbell or Banks to the offensive line should give Williams the chance to make the leap that we expect out of one of the best quarterback prospects of the past decade. Equipping themselves with a new

coaching staff and reinforcing the offensive line will go a long way in strengthening the foundation in Chicago. Add some new defensive edge rushers and other key spots to reinforce the young defensive core and the Bears could actually contend for the NFC North title sooner rather than later. Don’t run the team with blatant disregard for how Super Bowl winners are built and the Bears of the future won’t find themselves in the depths of football hell like their predecessors. To the McCaskey family, President Kevin Warren, Special Advisor Ted Crews, and General Manager Ryan Poles—you have a large task ahead of you. Don’t mess it up.

Upcoming Games

Baseball:

Chicago at California Lutheran University (Calif.), 4 p.m. CST Thursday, Feb. 13.

Chicago at CalTech (Calif.), 4 p.m. CST Friday, Feb. 14. Chicago at CalTech (Calif.), 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. CST Saturday, Feb. 15. Chicago at University of La Verne (Calif.), 1 p.m. CST Sunday, Feb. 16.

Men’s Basketball:

Chicago at Carnegie Mellon University (Pa.), 4:30 p.m. CST, Friday, Feb. 14. Chicago at Case Western Reserve University (Ohio), 1 p.m. CST, Sunday, Feb. 16.

Women’s Basketball:

Chicago at Carnegie Mellon University (Pa.), 6:30 p.m. CST, Friday, Feb. 14. Chicago at Case Western Reserve University (Ohio), 11 a.m. CST, Sunday, Feb. 16.

Swimming and Diving:

2025 UAA Championships, hosted by Emory University (Ga.), Wednesday–Saturday, Feb. 12 –15.

Men’s Tennis:

Chicago at Holy Cross College (Ind.), TBA, Saturday, Feb. 15. Chicago vs. Carthage College (Wis.), 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 16.

Track and Field:

Chicagolands Championships hosted by North Central College (Ill.), Friday–Saturday, Feb. 14–15.

Wrestling:

2025 UAA Championships, hosted by Case Western Reserve University (Ohio), Saturday, Feb. 15.

CROSSWORDS

85. Welcome to the Band, Ted!

By PIYUSH GARODIA | Crossword Constructor

This puzzle contains several clues you might find in a cryptic crossword. These are marked in italics and require more lateral thinking than a typical clue. Each clue contains both the real meaning of the answer, and a wordplay-based description that involves anagramming and reordering of letters.

of spiral pillars combines a charged atom with Iowa

59 Mistakenly pressed button over a Zoom call

60 They might live in 33-Across

Fool a donkey?

Thrash, like a fish in

Pious, or what one might say when a web programmer leaves the room 48 Bluegrass instrument often played by 40-Across

Resident of a faraway planet

50 Most desired location on a school bus, typically

Pirates’ drinks of choice

53 Professionals found in ambulances: Abbr.

54 Bad attribute for a neighbor

57 Scan for which you should remove all jewelry

Lead in to “little teapot”