NEWS: Professor Wendy Freedman Wins National Medal of Science
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FEBRUARY 26, 2025
EIGHTH WEEK
VOL. 137, ISSUE 10
University Began Scaling Back Websites’ References to Diversity Before New Department of Education Directive
By GABRIEL KRAEMER | Deputy News Editor
Offices, schools, and divisions across the University have quietly erased language and removed pages concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) on their websites since before President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
Many of the changes schools and divisions made to their websites came before February 14, when the Department of Education issued new guidance directing educational institutions to eliminate DEI programs and policies
within the following two weeks or risk losing federal funding.
The Maroon could not confirm exactly when before February 14 most of the changes were made.
During his campaign, Trump vowed to eliminate colleges’ diversity programs, promising legislation to fine universities with DEI policies “up to the entire amount of their endowment.”
Last month, he signed an executive order calling for an end to “illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates,
policies, programs, and activities,” including at private universities that receive federal funding, like UChicago.
“Diversity and inclusion are part of the University of Chicago’s longstanding values, as President Alivisatos and Provost Baicker have stated in the University’s statement on diversity,” the University said in a statement to the Maroon in response to questions to the Office of the Provost, the Division of the Humanities, and the Biological Sciences Division. “The University periodically works to maintain the consistency of these and other points on websites across campus.”
The Harris School of Public Policy appears to have removed its “Diversity & Inclusion” webpage sometime during the week before Inauguration Day, according to versions of the Harris website archived on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. The “Diversity & Inclusion” page URL now redirects to the former “Harris Experience” page, which has been renamed “Student Engagement and Belonging.”
Likewise, a page for Harris’s Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Board is no longer publicly accessible. The Harris
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Department of Education Claims DEI Programs
Violate the Civil Rights Act
By EVGENIA ANASTASAKOS | Senior News Reporter
Educational institutions were given 14 days to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and policies or risk facing investigation and losing federal funding. The U.S. Department of Education made the announcement on Friday, February 14.
The deadline was communicated in a February 14 letter sent to institutions of higher education and state educational agencies by Craig Trainor, the Department of Education’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights.
The Department of Government Efficiency also posted the letter on X.
The directive is the Trump adminis-
NEWS: Former Trump Attorney John Eastman Visits Campus, Speaks on Birthright Citizenship
PAGE 2
tration’s latest move targeting DEI policies in schools. Last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order instructing the attorney general and secretary of education to bring state agencies and educational institutions in line with the administration’s interpretation of civil rights law. That executive order also revoked many of the Biden administration’s DEI policies.
The University receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding annually. The exact number is not publicly available but includes funding for federal student aid, work-study, and research grants.
GREY CITY: Secret Places, Secret Faces
PAGE 15
“The Department will vigorously enforce the law on equal terms as to all preschool, elementary, secondary, and postsecondary educational institutions, as well as state educational agencies, that receive financial assistance,” Trainor wrote. “Additional legal guidance will follow in due course.”
In the letter, Trainor interprets Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as prohibiting DEI programs and other practices, which he calls “pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination.”
Title VI “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.” UChicago,
VIEWPOINTS: Against the Podcasters
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like most private universities, is covered by Title VI.
Trainor also cites the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (SFFA v. Harvard) as setting a legal precedent for the new guidelines.
The Supreme Court concluded that institutions of higher education cannot consider race as a specific factor in admissions, declaring affirmative action in college admissions unconstitutional and reversing the precedent set in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.
The University filed an amicus brief in the case, defending the use of affirma-
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ARTS: In Conversation with Blair Thomas, Puppeteer
PAGE 22
Former Trump Attorney John Eastman Visits Campus, Speaks on Birthright Citizenship
By CELESTE ALCALAY | Senior News Reporter
John Eastman (J.D. ’95), a leading opponent of birthright citizenship and a former Donald Trump attorney known for his attempts to help overturn the 2020 election results, spoke on February 17 at the University of Chicago Law School in a small roundtable discussion closed to the press. Members of the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression Student Advisory Board organized the event.
In response, several law student groups in partnership with the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression organized an event titled “A Conversation About the 14th Amendment and Birthright Citizenship” with professor Nicole Hallett, an expert in immigration law and policy, and professor Genevieve Lakier, a constitutional law scholar.
“Because we believe that there is nothing to learn about the Constitution from a man who faces disbarment for attempting to usurp it, we have organized responsive programming on the same day, at the same time as his appearance,” reads an email from the University of Chicago American Constitution Society (ACS) promoting the event to Law School students.
Eastman lost his law license after a California judge ruled that he “had exhibited gross negligence by making false statements about the 2020 election” and promoting a “wild theory” that then–Vice President Mike Pence could declare Trump the victor. He has been charged with conspiracy and other counts in election interference cases in Georgia and Arizona.
“There is much to lose from having him at our school,” the ACS email continued, calling Eastman a “bad faith political activist.”
“If you have this guy that’s so obviously willing to lie and make really frivolous arguments on one thing, why wouldn’t he be doing the same for this other issue?” said Vicente Alayo-Matos, the Law School co-chair of the inaugural Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression Student Advisory Board.
According to the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression website, student board chairs work to craft programming in which “members of the University of Chicago community can expand their thinking and views on critical issues.”
After Alayo-Matos’s co-chair proposed inviting Eastman to speak, Alayo-Matos said he then focused on generating dialogue through the event.
“I still don’t think he’s the best person at all to talk about birthright citizenship, but the Forum is going to bring speakers who any student asks for,” Alayo-Matos said. He remains doubtful of Eastman’s theories but said from what he has seen, “[opposing birthright citizenship] is an idea that’s now taking hold in a lot of people.”
“I’m seeing not just among my family, but people that I know that are seriously discussing this idea of [ending birthright citizenship]. Whether or not it’s legal is kind of beside the point,” Alayo-Matos continued.
Eastman and other anti-birthright citizenship scholars “have been contending for years—decades, really—that the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause does not provide automatic citizenship for everyone born on U.S. soil,” he wrote last month in an essay, “Birthright Cit-
izenship: Game On!” His argument echoes Trump’s recent executive order, which states that “the Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.”
The 14th Amendment of the Constitution, ratified in 1868, reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
Eastman believes the “right” interpretation of the jurisdiction language should lead to exceptions. He argues that U.S.-born children of immigrants or individuals on temporary visas should not be awarded citizenship because their parents are not subject to the “complete” jurisdiction of the federal government. (Earlier this month, a federal judge in Maryland indefinitely blocked Trump’s executive order, and the directive faces six lawsuits from 22 Democratic-led states and more than half a dozen civil rights groups, according to the Washington Post.)
When ACS learned of Eastman’s visit, they contacted Alayo-Matos, which resulted in the response programming sponsored by the ACS, the Latinx Law Student Association, and the Human Rights Law Society, in partnership with the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expres-
sion Student Advisory Board.
Alayo-Matos also revised the structure so that the roundtable with Eastman was the second in a two-part series. Professor Michael Ramsey, an originalist, spoke in favor of birthright citizenship earlier this month in an event titled “What is the Original Meaning of the Birthright Citizenship Clause? Part 1.”
Student Advisory Board co-President and joint Harris-Booth master’s student Syed Ahmad, one of the students in charge of approving events, told the Maroon the Forum isn’t selective about choosing speakers. “As long as we can feel that it’s an event that meets the mission, then we’ll approve it,” he said.
Forum Director of Programs Talla Mountjoy, who coordinates with students to approve and structure events, confirmed that the student board has “never said no to an event.” She described her role as guiding students in achieving the Forum’s mission of fostering free inquiry through the events they propose.
Forum Faculty Director Tom Ginsburg, who said he was not involved in approving the event, called Eastman’s views “contestable” in an interview with the Maroon
“It’s the University of Chicago, so we don’t disinvite people, but we do encourage people to come and ask tough questions,” Ginsburg said.
The
Office of the Provost now asks for log-in information
to access diversity
resources that were previously publicly available.
CONTINUED FROM PG. 1
Diversity & Inclusion Office is no longer listed on the school’s website.
“As part of a broader restructuring last year to enhance the Harris School student experience, the Harris School combined its Office of Student Engagement and Office of Diversity & Inclusion into the newly created Office of Student Engagement and Belonging, led by an associate dean,” the University wrote in a separate statement in response to a request for comment from Harris.
The Office of the Provost’s “Diversity and Inclusion” site now requires a CnetID for many of its previously publicly available resources, including the “D&I Planning Toolkit,” a University-designed “resource for leaders to advance diversity and inclusion in their units”; information about how to recruit diverse faculty; “Reflections on Race: A Multimedia Resource Guide,” a list of readings for community members about anti-racism, the justice system, and other diversity-related topics; and the “Scholarships and Funding” page, which used to direct students to scholarships aimed at members of underrepresented groups.
Those websites “are intended for members of the UChicago community; like other such sites, they are available to anyone with a CNet ID,” the University wrote in its statement.
The Office of the Provost now asks for log-in information to access diversity resources that were previously publicly available.
The Biological Sciences Division has significantly pared down its “Diversity and Inclusion” website since October, removing a directory of LGBTQ+ faculty in the division; its D&I Diaries podcast, which is still available on Apple Podcasts but has not released a new episode since August; and a “Related Links” page, which still appears on the website but directs to an error message. Other pages with information about D&I-related events held in 2024 have also been removed.
“At UChicago Medicine, [periodic maintenance] has included updating some websites to reflect the academic
health system’s mission and long-term strategic priorities,” the University said in the statement to the Maroon. “UCM upholds the same values of diversity that are reflected in the University’s statement [on diversity].”
The Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice eliminated a detailed mission statement for its Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity Committee from a page on its website, erasing goals including the incorporation of “diversity and inclusion content in the Crown Family School curriculum” and the “recruitment and retention of a diverse cadre of tenure-track and non-tenure-track instructors” and staff.
The updated page added links to Crown’s 2024 Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity Initiatives Report and Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity Strategic Roadmap, the latter of which outlines broad diversity goals, including ones related to recruiting and maintaining diverse faculty.
The Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) modified language on its former “Equity, Diversity & Inclusion” page—which has been rebranded to remove the word “Equity”—to eliminate a specific commitment to representation for “students across age, gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, ability and disability, religion, belief, and backgrounds.”
The Humanities Division deleted a clause on its “Diversity & Inclusion” page that had said it prioritized “matters of social justice and equality” and, in January, changed the title of its former assistant dean of students for diversity and inclusion, Loreal Robertson, to “associate dean of students for student support and engagement.”
According to the University’s statement, “in addition to other staff changes in the Division of Humanities last year, this position was updated from assistant dean of students to associate dean of students.”
Several pages on Harris’s website referring to the school’s Diversity Visit Day, a program offered for prospective
students to learn about support “for individuals from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in U.S. graduate programs and first generation college students,” were also removed on February 17, after the new Department of Education guidance was issued.
The Division of the Social Sciences removed a page dedicated to its Diversity and Inclusion Committee. The current page is now blank and displays a 404 error in the browser tab. The Maroon could not confirm whether the page was removed before or after February 14.
Representatives for PME, Crown, and the Division of the Social Sciences did not respond to requests for comment.
We ask anyone who has knowledge of changes to DEI-related content or policies to please contact us at editor@chicagomaroon.com or submit a tip through our tip form.
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Trump Administration’s Legal Strategy Raises Constitutional Concerns
By ZACHARY LEITER | Deputy Managing Editor and NATHANIEL RODWELL-SIMON | Deputy News Editor and EVGENIA ANASTASAKOS | Senior News Reporter
Three separate lawsuits were filed against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the Massachusetts District Court on February 10, following a February 7 NIH directive that slashed funding for “indirect” costs of university research.
The University of Chicago, alongside three academic associations and 12 other universities, is a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits.
All plaintiffs in that suit are represented by law firm Jenner & Block LLP, which could not be reached for comment.
Two other lawsuits were also brought against the NIH on February 10. One was filed by a group of 22 states including Illinois, all of which have Democratic attorneys general; the other, by five medical organizations, including Boston and New York hospitals.
Judge Angel Kelley, who is presiding over all three lawsuits, issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) in the states’ lawsuit, applying only within the 22 states, and later issued a nationwide TRO in the medical organizations’ lawsuit.
At the time of publication, no judicial action had been taken in the suit brought by UChicago.
The “indirect” costs that the NIH directive cuts support administrative functions and maintenance expenses for buildings, utilities, and equipment for researchers and their labs. Generally, researchers cannot use grant money intended for direct research costs to pay 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 the HHS and the institution.
The NIH currently covers 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 an indirect costs funding rate with HHS for a fiveyear 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. This change to the flat rate would apply to all new grants and to “existing grants to IHEs retroactive” to February 9, per the NIH announcement.
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.
Katie Miller, spokesperson for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), called NIH funding for indirect costs a “Liberal DEI Deans’ slush fund” in a post on X.
Neither the NIH nor the HHS responded to requests for comment.
DOGE could not be reached for comment.
The University did not respond to a request for comment.
All three lawsuits against the NIH allege violations of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The APA regulates the process by which federal agencies engage in rulemaking and requires agencies to provide advance notice of rules and an opportunity for public comment.
Georgetown University administrative and constitutional law professor David Super and UChicago Law constitutional law professor Alison LaCroix told the Maroon those APA violations were likely part of an intentional plan to challenge the confines placed on the executive branch through “overtly illegal actions.”
According to Super, NIH’s directive “doesn’t even attempt to comply with the APA.”
“Even if there are potentially problems with the indirect cost rates, the whole system is built up around those rates, and universities have made their budgets based on the current policy. The suddenness of this change alone could be
deemed arbitrary and capricious,” Super told the Maroon.
The TRO, issued by Judge Kelley, temporarily blocks the Trump administration from reducing the NIH’s indirect cost rate.
Judges can issue a TRO if they believe that a plaintiff will suffer immediate, irreparable injury without the order. TROs cannot be appealed and typically expire after 14 days. They last only until the court holds a hearing on whether to grant a preliminary injunction—a more enduring form of court order.
Over the weekend, Vice President JD Vance posted on X, “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” prompting many lawyers to raise concerns about a “constitutional crisis” in which the Trump administration refuses to abide by judicial rulings limiting the scope of Trump’s executive actions.
House Speaker Mike Johnson agreed with Vance, saying that although “the branches have to respect our constitutional order… there’s a lot of game yet to be played.”
When asked about Vance and Johnson’s statements, Super said: “Those claims are absurd and the people saying them know that. The courts’ powers here have been clear since the early days of the Republic.”
Neither Vance’s nor Johnson’s office could be reached for comment.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said during a meeting with reporters Tuesday that, while he believes the Trump administration will appeal court decisions blocking his priorities, Trump “has taken an oath to follow the law. And I assume he’s going to do that [if he loses on appeal].”
Just two weeks into the new administration, many parts of Trump’s agenda have been blocked in federal courts by TROs, including a Federal Bureau of Prisons policy denying gender-transition medical care and a sweeping attempt to freeze federal grants and loans.
On Monday, after states provided Federal District Judge John McConnell with evidence that Trump’s grant freeze had continued despite the TRO blocking it,
McConnell directed the White House to comply with court orders.
“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.
McConnell also ordered, “The Defendants must resume the funding of institutes and other agencies of the Defendants (for example the National Institute for Health) that are included in the scope of the Court’s TRO.”
Both Super and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law administrative law professor James Speta told the Maroon that McConnell’s rulings will likely benefit the plaintiffs, including UChicago, in their lawsuits against NIH.
According to LaCroix, “While [TROs] are not verdicts, they have the full force of the law. It is extremely well-settled constitutional law that these judgments of the federal court are binding.”
What that “bind” means in practice is up to some interpretation, especially in the face of an administration signaling a willingness to defy judicial orders.
Quoting Maness v. Meyers (1975) in his latest order, McConnell wrote: “Persons who make private determinations of the law and refuse to obey an order generally risk criminal contempt even if the order is ultimately ruled incorrect.”
“The issue with contempt of court is who enforces it,” LaCroix told the Maroon. “When it comes to [contempt of court] there are normal answers and there are ‘it’s a huge crisis’ type of answers, and these days we seem to always be in ‘it’s a huge crisis’ mode.”
According to Super, the judiciary has “extensive” means with which to guarantee compliance with a court order.
“People who’ve thwarted court orders universally come to regret that day,” Super said. “If it gets far enough, the courts can attempt to ascertain which officials are engaged in noncompliance and hold them in contempt of court—criminal or civil.”
“No matter what Trump says, there’s no way an executive order can, pardon the pun, trump the Constitution.”
CONTINUED FROM PG. 4
In the case of civil contempt, which typically carries a financial penalty, courts can tell banks to deduct from offenders’ funds without any executive enforcement necessary, Super explained.
If the President refuses to abide by a court order, “that’s where we would fall back on the notion that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is,” LaCroix said. “But past impeachment and removal, or not reelecting, there’s no other real check on the executive.”
“One thing that can get lost in all these [executive orders and directives] is that the principles [the administration are op-
posing] are in the Constitution. That’s the highest law we have,” LaCroix continued.
“That’s the ceiling, and it can’t be changed except by the incredibly onerous amendment process. So no matter what Trump says, there’s no way an executive order can, pardon the pun, trump the Constitution.”
“They are intentionally and overtly violating a number of statutes—choosing to act unlawfully to make changes that they could make legally,” Super said.
“When the VP tweets, that certainly suggests the administration is seriously considering defying the courts in addition to Congress.”
Super told the Maroon the Trump
administration’s regulatory strategy was “absolutely a constitutional crisis. This is the biggest effort to reshape the U.S. Constitution since the Civil War.”
“There have been debates over the long course of American history about the relationship between the executive and the courts, but [these questions of authority] have been settled since at least Marbury v. Madison in 1807 and probably since the U.S. Constitution in 1788,” LaCroix explained.
James Sparrow, an associate professor of American history at UChicago, told the Maroon that the Trump administration’s attempts to reshape the executive branch were unprecedented since at least
the late 1800s.
In a post on his Substack blog, Harvard constitutional law professor and conservative legal scholar Adrian Vermeule offered a different perspective.
“Even where courts have jurisdiction to decide, it is always legally valid to argue that their decisions ought themselves to respect the separation of powers, and are thus subject to limitations internal to the law, as it were,” Vermeule wrote.
Vermeule could not be reached for comment.
The White House did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Anushree Vashist contributed reporting.
Alivisatos Defends Lawsuit Against the NIH
By ZACHARY LEITER | Deputy Managing Editor
University President Paul Alivisatos emailed faculty on the morning of February 11 to explain why he authorized UChicago’s lawsuit against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) the previous day. The agencies’ February 7 decision to slash funding for “indirect” costs of biomedical research, Alivisatos wrote, would have “far-ranging adverse impacts” on the University.
“These matters stand to affect our institution substantially, and I have a duty to act in support of our core interests,” Alivisatos wrote.
Indirect costs of research include administrative functions and maintenance expenses for buildings, utilities, and equipment for researchers and their labs. When the NIH awards research grants to a scientist at a university, the agency includes additional funding for indirect costs at a rate negotiated between HHS and the school.
On February 7, the NIH released a directive stating that indirect cost funding would be reduced to 15 cents per dollar nationwide, effective February 10. Prior to the directive’s issuance, the NIH funded UChicago’s indirect costs at
significantly higher rates, with some on-campus research funded at a rate as high as 64 cents per dollar of direct grant funding.
In an update on its “2025 Federal Administration Actions and Updates” page that day, the University wrote, “We are working with our internal and external partners to understand the impact of and response to this change in policy.”
On February 10, two additional lawsuits filed against the NIH—one brought by 22 states and another brought by five Boston and New York area medical organizations—resulted in temporary restraining orders against the implementation of a funding cut.
UChicago, alongside 12 other universities and three university associations, brought the third lawsuit, which had not resulted in a court order at time of publication.
In justifying the University’s decision to sue, Alivisatos warned that cutting indirect cost funding threatened research.
“The precipitous timing of this move would immediately damage the ability of our faculty, students, and staff (and those of other academic institutions and medical centers across the nation)
to engage in health-related fundamental research and to discover life-saving therapies,” Alivisatos wrote. “For many, indirect costs may conjure images of administrative waste, but the truth is: this is a mechanism through which federal grants support essentials like state-ofthe-art lab facilities and cybersecurity to protect data privacy.”
Alivisatos also emphasized the University’s continued commitment to 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,” Alivisatos wrote.
“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. For these reasons, since the University’s founding, this community has been committed to upholding those ideals–and will remain steadfast to honoring them.”
The University has not released a public statement on the lawsuit or the NIH’s rate cutting.
The University has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Although only 13 universities are plaintiffs in UChicago’s lawsuit, a number of peer institutions, including Yale, Harvard, and Stanford, filed supporting declarations in court and issued public statements of support. All three schools and UChicago are members of the Association of American Universities, one of the other plaintiffs in the suit.
Classics and history professor Clifford Ando, who raised the alarm on the University’s budget crisis in 2023, told the Maroon that the University’s decision to sue was both the right choice and a warning sign.
“I applaud the coordinated action by the University and its partners in litigation,” Ando wrote in an email.
“At the same time, I think it’s clear that the courts alone cannot save research universities. Universities need also to heed the extraordinary loss of esteem they have suffered in public opinion, which afflicts research institutions far more than any other type of university. There’s no cost to the executive or any legislator for attacking an opponent that their voters despise.”
Anushree Vashist contributed reporting.
“[We’re] desperately looking for some intermediate position which is no longer on the table.”
CONTINUED FROM PG. 1
tive action in admissions programs.
“In recent years, American educational institutions have discriminated against students on the basis of race, including white and Asian students, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-income families,” Trainor wrote. “These institutions’ embrace of pervasive and repugnant racebased preferences and other forms of racial discrimination have emanated throughout every facet of academia.”
In a press release shared with the Maroon , the Department of Education elaborated on its interpretation of the SFFA v. Harvard decision:
“In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the U.S. Supreme Court not only ended racial preferences in school admissions, but articulated a general legal principle on the law of race, color, and national origin discrimination—namely, where an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another, and race is a factor in the different treatment, the educational in-
stitution has violated the law.”
The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Edward Blum, a conservative legal strategist and the president of SFFA, believes the letter is “likely a prelude to a forthcoming series of detailed directives that will identify discriminatory policies and programs that will be challenged by the Education Department.”
“Public and private educational institutions that have adopted policies that they consider race-neutral may soon have those policies declared as illegal race proxies,” Blum wrote in an email to the Maroon.
The University’s DEI programs currently include undergraduate and postdoctoral fellowships offered to “scholars from diverse backgrounds,” workshops on inclusion, and a “D&I Planning Toolkit” developed through the Office of the Provost, which provides resources for educators who want to implement diversity and inclusion initiatives within their academic units.
The Office of the Provost’s diversity
and inclusion team also periodically administers “Campus Climate Surveys,” which assess students’ perceptions of factors like racism, sexism, homophobia, and belonging at the University.
“While the University has made significant strides in creating a more inclusive campus, there is still much work to be done,” the provost’s website reads. “We promise to remain vigilant and dedicated—ceaselessly working to identify and remove barriers to full participation. For our efforts to be successful, this work needs to happen at a grassroots level and an institutional one.”
The University did not respond to a request for comment.
Former Vermont Law School civil rights law professor Marianne Engelman Lado thinks the letter is “intended to spread disinformation and distort federal law in order to chill lawful speech and activities that are designed to promote fairness and equal opportunity.”
Lado served in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and Civil Rights during
the Biden administration.
UChicago Law School civil rights law professor Darrell A.H. Miller told the Maroon that he predicts that Trainor’s letter will lead to more debate about the applications of Title VI. He stressed, however, that the letter likely does not affect research or classroom education.
“None of this letter could be construed to prohibit what a researcher or a teacher might present as just a matter of historical or empirical fact,” Miller said.
Richard Epstein, the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Law at UChicago Law School, told the Maroon that “the [federal government] has gone from moving 100 miles an hour in one direction to 100 miles an hour in the opposite direction after the Biden administration completely overplayed their hand on DEI.”
“To understand what’s going on with [DEI] you have to understand that [the Trump administration is] in an absolute boiling rage about it. This issue has become much too polarized. Trump has been doing payback for the Biden administration, and [so we’re] desperately looking for some intermediate position which is no longer on the table,” Epstein said.
“This isn’t just a disagreement. One side believes [DEI programs] are morally required, and the other side believes that they’re morally reprehensible,” he added.
According to Epstein, one of the University’s biggest challenges is the number of significant policy changes made by the Trump administration in recent weeks.
“Universities can try to bring lawsuits, but the [Trump administration] is also cutting indirect costs, which is madness, and doing lots of other things. There are too many issues to fight, and it’s very hard to fight a two-front war. Each university standing alone cannot win,” he said.
“The embellishments and the rhetoric of this letter are far outside the state of the law and previous administrations’ stances on the Civil Rights Act,” Lado told the Maroon “The import of the spirit and language of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is that the law came out of
“This letter and these executive orders don’t change the reality that the American dream is not equally accessible to all.”
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people striving to escape segregation in federally funded facilities [like schools and hospitals]. It was intended to breathe life into the Reconstruction amendments. It is applicable to all people.”
Epstein offers a different interpretation: “Without doubt, the Civil Rights Act was written and meant to be entirely color-blind,” he said.
“This letter and these executive orders don’t change the reality that the
By AVA IWASKO | News Reporter
Professor Wendy Freedman was awarded the National Medal of Science last month for her work in cosmology and astronomy and her research on the Hubble constant. According to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), this presidential medal is awarded for “outstanding contributions to knowledge… in service to the Nation.” The award recipients are chosen by a committee of distinguished scientists and engineers assembled by the NSF’s president. Only 14 of the nominations received by the committee were awarded this honor, including Freedman.
Freedman, UChicago’s John and Marion Sullivan University Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics, spoke with the Maroon about her research and its long-lasting impact on the scientific community.
Freedman was recognized for her groundbreaking research on the Hubble constant, a value that has allowed scientists to determine how old the universe is and the rate at which it is expanding. In 2014, Freedman brought her work to UChicago to further research how to increase the accuracy of Hubble constant measurements to determine whether something fundamental is missing from the modern understanding of physics.
“We were working on ways to improve the accuracy that we could [use to] measure these quantitiess,” Freedman said. “There arose this potential problem that the measurement that we were making of how fast the universe is expanding, we’re making this locally in our sort of astronomical backyard. We can now compare with measurements that people are mak-
ing of tiny fluctuations in the temperature of the microwave background.”
The question is, Freedman continued, ‘Is there a real discrepancy, or are there still unknown systematic errors that might be affecting the measurements?’”
Freedman, who grew up in Canada, explained that she has always been interested in astronomy but was only able to start pursuing it when she attended the University of Toronto for her S.B. in astronomy and Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics.
Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, Freedman was hired to Carnegie’s full-time staff in 1987. At Carnegie, Freedman used the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope to measure the distances to different galaxies.
Freedman later coled a team of 30 astronomers on the Hubble Key Project at Carnegie, an extension of the research being done on the Hubble constant using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The HST Key Project team measured the distances to 24 different galaxies using Cepheid variable stars—stars that brighten and dim periodically and are 500–30,000 times brighter than the Sun.
“When the Hubble Space Telescope was launched, I became the scientific lead for the project that was aimed at trying to solve this issue of how fast the universe is expanding,” Freedman said. “We resolved that debate people had been arguing about whether the universe was 10 or 20 billion years old.”
Freedman’s team estimated the universe’s age by her Hubble constant measurement of 72 km/s/Mpc, which indi-
American dream is not equally accessible to all,” Lado concluded. “Ultimately, if we limit these programs, we’ll weaken the economy and threaten our multicultural society. But it is now up to the universities to interpret this letter and to figure out how to move forward, consistent not with this letter’s language but with the actual case law.”
Zachary Leiter and Nathaniel Rodwell-Simon contributed reporting.
Professor Wendy Freedman Wins National Medal of Science
cates the universe is between 13.7 and 13.8 billion years old.
Freedman was the first woman ever to hold a full-time position with the observatory. According to Freedman, women were still getting turned away from fellowships with Carnegie until the mid1970s, with Freedman describing their excuse as that they “had no restroom facilities for women on the mountain.”
“I really do feel grateful that I entered
at a time when it was possible to become a leader of a major program on a new facility like the Hubble Space Telescope and to become director of a major observatory. Those just were things that were not open to women,” Freedman said. “It’s very pleasing to see how that has changed over the course of my career, and how many more women there are now entering the field.”
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Professor Wendy Freedman was recently awarded the National Medal of Science for her contributions to astronomy and research on Hubble constant measurements. courtesy of wendy freedman .
“Resolving this issue is central to whether our current model of cosmology will stand or fall, so the stakes are very high.”
At UChicago, Freedman’s team has measured the expansion rate of the Hubble constant with a new technique that studies the tips of red-giant-branch stars to obtain a reliable measurement for distance calculations. In 2019, Freedman published her team’s research with the conclusion that there was no real discrepancy in the Hubble constant measurements many scientists were analyzing.
However, according to Freedman, her team’s conclusion is that this is a scientific controversy that has yet to be fully resolved, as some scientists still believe the discrepancy corresponds to a real error in measurement.
In her recent work, Freedman is excited by the possibility that something is missing from the modern understanding of the standard model of cosmology,
because it could lead to determining, as Freedman describes it, “the ultimate evolution of the universe.”
“If both types of measurements are correct, the measurements of the microwave background and the local measurements, it would suggest that there’s something really fundamental that’s missing… and that would be really interesting,” Freedman said. “That would be how we could discover new physics.”
UChicago Astronomy and Astrophysics Department Chair Joshua Frieman, who worked with Freedman’s team many years ago to combine supernova data to constrain dark energy, says that he frequently relies on Freedman’s advice and “wise counsel.”
“Wendy is a fantastic colleague and devoted mentor to students and early-career scientists, who shows us all by
example what scientific excellence and leadership look like,” Frieman said.
Frieman noted that the projects Freedman has led throughout her career, at Carnegie and at UChicago, have been critical to the scientific understanding of the fields of astrophysics and astronomy.
“Wendy’s measurements using the Hubble Space Telescope 25 years ago resolved what had been a long-standing controversy in the field of cosmology in the second half of the 20th century,” Frieman said. “Her team’s more recent measurements using the James Webb Space Telescope appear to be on the brink of resolving a similar controversy that has dominated the field for the past 10 years. Resolving this issue is central to whether our current model of cosmology will stand or fall, so the stakes are very high.”
Freedman said her current work
with data from the James Webb Space Telescope has been exciting because she was part of the committee that first recommended the telescope be built over 25 years ago. She added that going from watching the telescope and its data measurement capacity develop over the years to now being able to use the telescope’s data has been “very rewarding.” She also underscored the importance of overcoming the obstacles in one’s path when it comes to pursuing a passion, explaining that she has been “guided” by the fact that she “just really love[s]” what she does.
“Don’t get discouraged by the hurdles. Find ways to get around them, get over them. Everybody will go through times when things will seem difficult, but don’t give up,” Freedman said. “If you are enjoying what you’re doing, you will find a path.”
Students Voice Frustration Over Lack of 24/7 Study Spaces
By GRACE BEATTY | Senior News Reporter
The Joseph Regenstein Library saw approximately 1.1 million entries by UChicago community members in the 2022–23 school year and acts as the University’s primary facility for research and study. But, for most of the quarter, Regenstein, alongside other easily accessible communal study spaces on campus, closes by midnight. The Maroon spoke to students about how this affects access to University resources and potential for group study.
“There’s certain programs on the University computers, for example, Photoshop or certain coding languages that are very expensive… and not having 24hour [entry] limits the [access] of, particularly, low-income students who may not be able to afford those yearly subscriptions,” second-year Alex Fuentes, the Undergraduate Student Government College Council chair, said.
Fuentes also pointed out that Regenstein’s limited hours have led to a lack of adequate study space on campus, particularly for students taking time-consum-
ing classes.
“An environment where students can safely study in a place that isn’t their dorm — where it may be less effective for them to study, less efficient for them to study, or they are just unable to study— we need these spaces for students who are taking academically rigorous classes at an academically rigorous school,” he said.
The study rooms found in individual dormitories seem to solve this issue for students like Hayden Jones, a second-year in the College who takes advantage of the Upper Judson study room in Burton Judson Courts on a regular basis.
“The study rooms are always open, so if it’s late, I usually just go there,” Jones said.
For others, Fuentes explained, these spaces are insufficient. Woodlawn Residential Commons, for example, has one large study room and three smaller rooms for the approximately 1,300 students it houses. First-year Anissa Wang
added that, even in dorms where these rooms are abundant, students who live in different dormitories are unable to host study groups due to the two-person guest policy.
Likewise, most academic buildings, including Eckhart Hall, which houses both the Tea Room and Eckhart Li -
brary, close at 5 p.m. Even during daylight hours, students like Wang find the options for communal study spaces lacking.
“I’ve had situations where I needed to do group work, and it’s very hard to find a space because the social parts of
The Joseph Regenstein Library. nathaniel rodwell-simon .
“Resolving this issue is central to whether our current model of cosmology will stand or fall, so the stakes are very high.”
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the Reg are always full, and besides that, we don’t have many options,” Wang said.
According to Wang, the lack of 24hour spaces on campus affects more than just student study habits. “Not everybody has a lot of close friends in their dorm, so when it hits midnight and everybody leaves the Reg, it could leave some people isolated,” she said. “There’s no curfew here, so it’s just weird that we’re all just confined to our dorms, basically.”
The primary concerns regarding
the 24-hour operation of Regenstein, according to Fuentes, are the financial strain from additional security and library staff, consistent electricity use, and the mental-health repercussions that may result from late-night studying.
Jones offered a different perspective, suggesting that, while the strong culture of academic achievement at UChicago can be unhealthy for students, students are ultimately responsible for their own habits.
“I think [at this school], people tend to be really competitive and overwork
themselves a lot, and [the closing of Regenstein at midnight] kind of gives people a deadline,” he said. “But students can be trusted to manage their time, and if you leave the Reg open later, there won’t be too many people that are pushing themselves to unhealthy amounts.”
During the reading and final exam periods, Regenstein provides extended study hours until 4 a.m. However, in a statement to the Maroon, a University spokesperson said that “in the past, we have heard from students who want a quiet study space during these extend-
ed study hours, in addition to the Regenstein 1st floor collaborative space.”
To address this, according to the statement, the Mansueto Grand Reading Room will also offer extended study hours until 4 a.m. on a pilot basis during reading and final exam periods for winter and spring quarter.
“As Regenstein usage statistics show that demand for study space drops sharply after 2:30 a.m., the 4:00 a.m. closure effectively addresses the vast majority of the observed need,” the statement concluded.
UChicago Students Reflect on COP29 Experience
By ALARA MIRZA | News Reporter
The United Nations’s 29th annual climate change conference, or COP29, is the birthplace of current and future international climate policy, bringing together over 50,000 participants from nearly 200 countries. In November, UChicago’s Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth sponsored a delegation of 25 UChicago students—15 under -
graduates and 10 graduate students—to attend the conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.
COP is divided into two zones: the Blue Zone, where negotiation between government officials takes place, and the Green Zone, a hub for climate organizations, corporations, students, and activists. In the Green Zone, UChica -
go delegates attended panels and networked with industry leaders and other attendees.
The Green Zone offered various topic-specific events for attendees to choose from. Emmanuel Mayani, a second-year at the Harris School of Public Policy, participated in a wide variety of discussions.
“I attended many events and many talks over there that touched on the challenges that small island states are facing—how tourists could be incentivized to empathize more with the challenges of the small island states,” Mayani told the Maroon. “We also discussed how companies will do a lot of environmental harm and then try to carry out a few sustainability projects and then amplify the impacts of that.”
For third-year undergraduate Seri Welsh, COP29 offered the opportunity to explore her interest in environmental policy. “Within classes, I have learned a lot about the policy side of the environment, but it’s not something that you can really fully conceptualize unless you’re in person watching the negotiations take place,” Welsh said.
Sam Marsden, a Ph.D. candidate at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, had the opportunity to engage with new aspects of sustainability at COP29, such as the economic considerations of divesting from fossil fuels.
“I have a very scientific, technical
perspective on things,” Marsden said. “[At COP29], I was able to learn more about the practical economic side of things, and that was a little disappointing, because I want to live in this ideal world where we have the technology and we implement it, rather than [having] the technology but [having] to play into all these other considerations as well.”
COP29 also serves as a platform to network with others either in or entering the climate field. Amid the 50,000 conference participants, Keya Debnath, a second-year at the Harris School of Public Policy, met the owner of a climate change organization based in Chicago. After a single coffee chat, she left with a potential future job offer.
Marsden added that while the learning and networking experiences at COP29 were invaluable, there was a notable divide between the discussions in the Green Zone and the impactful decisions being made in the Blue Zone.
“We were able to connect with other young people, but we weren’t able to have the conversations where it really mattered,” Marsden said.
However, on a broader scope, Mayani felt that the conference attendees’ motivation to fight climate change was inspiring.
“I was humbled, and my passion for sustainability was rekindled,” Mayani said.
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One Year Later, Lab Schools Community Reflects on Budget Cuts
In May 2024, the Laboratory Schools cut the German program to contribute to UChicago’s financial recovery plan. Nearly a year later, the budget cuts have sparked student protests and debates in the community about the realities of funding versus the Lab Schools’ mission to encourage intellectual pursuits.
By AGATHE DEMAROLLE and SENAI WALKER | Grey City Reporter
On May 6, 2024, parents, staff, and high school students received an email from University of Chicago Laboratory Schools Director Victoria Jueds where she revealed a number of measures intended to cut costs. The cuts included the elimination of the German language program and a number of competitive individual sports, including squash and sailing. It was the “institution’s [University] philosophy that all units should share equitably in the institution’s financial recovery,” Jueds wrote.
The decision sparked immediate outrage and disappointment from the Lab community, which is deeply interwoven with the University at large, with at least 50 percent of the Lab Schools’ 2,211 students having a parent employed by the University.
Three days after the announcement, members of the Lab community began protests on campus in opposition to the cuts.
Approaching one year since Lab announced these changes, Grey City took a deep dive into the impact of the cuts on students, teachers, staff, and administration. The situation has left members of the Lab community concerned about whether the Lab Schools’ administration adequately balances its financial and academic responsibilities.
A “laboratory for pedagogical research” rooted in student-centered principles
The story of the Lab Schools started in 1894, when William Rainey Harper, the University’s first president, convinced John Dewey, an up-and-coming philosopher and educational theorist, to become the head of the Department of Philosophy at the newly founded University of Chicago. Harper wanted to offer a complete education, from kindergarten to graduate school, built around the belief that learning was an organic and self-organized process. In Harper’s plan, Dewey saw the opportunity to test his educational theories. In 1896, the Dewey School was born as a “laboratory for pedagogical research,” as described by a 1996 exhibit at the Hannah Holburn Gray Special Collections Research Center.
This small elementary school on 57th Street was at the forefront of progressive education, a movement that emphasized “learning by doing” through collaborative hands-on activities. The exhibition catalog gave an example from the 1910s when, in a French class, students might find themselves learning practical vocabulary by reading and executing a recipe in French.
Between 1901 and 1903, the University acquired four different Chicago institutions, including Francis Wayland Parker’s Chicago Institute, another progressive
school. Their merger became the University of Chicago School of Education, a K-12 school. In Parker and Dewey’s words, as recounted in the catalog, its mission was to be “an embryonic democracy” granting students the “instruments of effective self-direction.”
Though Parker died in 1902 and Dewey left the Lab Schools two years later, their conviction that students were active learners who should shape their education remained ingrained in the school’s fabric over the following decades. In the 1950s, the school’s name changed to the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, highlighting its initial character as an experimental environment for UChicago’s researchers to advance their research. Today, the Lab Schools still emphasize this legacy on their website: “Nestled within the rich academic tapestry of the University of Chicago, our schools continue to serve as living laboratories where groundbreaking educational theories are tested and refined.”
The Lab Schools and the University’s financial recovery
The Lab Schools and the University not only share an educational philosophy, but they are also financially intertwined. The Lab Schools’ senior administration works directly with the University provost and budget office, as well as an advisory board to create the budget for each fiscal year, according to Jueds.
While Jueds explained that 96 percent of the Lab Schools’ budget is separate
from the University, a portion of its revenue comes indirectly from the University due to the makeup of the student body. University-affiliated staff receive tuition remission benefits, which accounted for 32.5 percent of Lab’s funding in FY 2022 according to that year’s philanthropy report. Tuition at the Lab Schools has steadily increased in the past years from roughly $40,486 in 2023 to $44,592 in 2025.
In the May 6 email the Lab Schools’ community received about the budget cuts, Jueds wrote: “University leaders have devised a four-year recovery plan. Lab is participating in that plan.” She added that Lab’s budget guidelines for FY25 therefore reflected the University’s financial goals to “grow revenue and cut expenses.”
It has been an open secret for years among the University community that the University’s financial issues had begun to affect the Lab School’s instruction. The University now operates, as most recently reported, at a $221 million budget deficit. As the Lab Schools function as a unit of the University, it is unsurprising that they would also be expected to bear part of the burden.
As the cut programs are being phased out, the changes that come with them will be spread across the next few years. This has led some to view the cuts as superfluous, as there will be no visible immediate change to Lab’s operational costs.
“Whatever savings there are, they’re CONTINUED ON PG. 12
“What was communicated to us is that, as of 2024, we would not be guaranteed another year of teaching.”
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way down the road,” said David Meltzer, a Lab parent and Fanny L. Pritzker Professor of Medicine at UChicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine. “So it’s not really responsive to the budget crisis anyway.”
Many other departments within the University have faced similar budgetary challenges. In November 2023, professor Clifford Ando released a report detailing some of the issues he saw in the University’s attempts to decrease spending and increase revenue. Ando reported these attempts have led to hiring freezes, limits on research spending, as well as fewer Core requirements being taught by tenure-track faculty.
“German is this tiny cohort that is their home”
German has been embedded in the Lab Schools’ curriculum and history since their early days. As mentioned in the exhibition catalog, it first appeared as an extracurricular around 1907 through the German club. As early as 1917, German was taught at the Lab Schools. After the World War II, Gregor Hagen brought new life to German teaching at Lab by starting the current program.
The recent cut of the German program is not the first of its kind in Lab history. Over the course of its time at Lab, according to Jueds, the program had been cut and revived on two other occasions.
“School programs need to evolve,” Jueds wrote in an email to the Maroon “Lab no longer teaches a variety of subjects which were once in our program of studies; conversely, we have taken on new subjects and units of study as they have become relevant and necessary for our students.”
The German program has always been one of the smaller language programs at Lab, with currently only about 60 students enrolled across all grade levels. Because this ends up equating to one class per grade level, the students become very close with each other over the course of 10 years together in the same classroom, according to Susanne Pralle, who has been teaching German at the Lab Schools for 16 years.
“German is this tiny cohort that is their home,” said Pralle. “They know each other really well, and furthermore, they’re incredibly supportive of one another.”
The Lab Schools also hosts a popular exchange program, said by German students to be a significant part of the German program’s appeal. The exchange program allows students to spend a few weeks in Germany the summer before they begin high school. As the ability to communicate is integral to the pedagogical philosophy of the German instructors, the opportunity for students to immerse themselves fully in German language and culture is a loss they are all mourning.
“I think just the opportunity to be completely immersed in that culture with such a small and tight-knit group was, at least for me, a life-changing experience,” said Adam Tapper, an 11th grader who participated in the exchange program in 2023.
Some of the German teachers had foreseen how low enrollment could potentially affect the German program. Pralle previously suggested alternatives to how the Lab Schools handle language program selection for students. Instead of always granting a student’s first choice, she proposed asking for a ranking of their choices and organizing the sections accordingly to balance enrollment. She argued that it would also help students in large language classes, such as Spanish with its 28 student sections, to receive more personalized guidance.
However, the administration did not support this approach. “We think that first choice should mean first choice,” Jueds said.
“It saddens me because I recognize how good our program is, and I would have wished for more support from our administration as our numbers did dwindle,” Pralle said.
One aspect of the budget cuts that frustrated students and parents was their suddenness. They describe not knowing that any academic programs were under consideration for elimination until they were already gone. Administrators describe extensive internal discussions
intended to limit the potential repercussions.
“During all of those deliberations, my colleagues and I were very careful to put ourselves in the shoes of every affected constituency. How would this be experienced? What are the factors to consider?” Jueds said. “How might we mitigate the downside of the effects on members of our community?”
Minutes before the announcement of the cuts: an internal communication breakdown
On May 6, 2024, the first day of Teacher Appreciation Week, the Lab Schools’ three German teachers received an email from the director’s assistant summoning them to individual meetings after class.
Marianne Zemil, who has been teaching German at the Lab Schools for 27 years, said she sensed what was coming: “Having been in business before this [being a teacher], I know that when you are told that someone wants to meet with you and you are not asked if that works for your schedule, that does not mean that there is good news coming.”
The meetings were scheduled 15 minutes apart according to seniority, so Zemil’s was the last one. She was shocked when the director told her about the administration’s decision to cut the German program. The teachers had neither been approached beforehand about the financial issues nor asked to find solutions, according to Zemil. As a problem-solver, “the decision just didn’t sit right with me,” she said.
Minutes after leaving the meeting, as Zemil was in the elevator returning to her office, she received the school-wide email that officially announced the cuts to the Lab Schools’ community.
“I can understand that there’s a certain timing to the way things have to go. It’s just, when it happens to you that way, it does not feel good,” Zemil said regarding this chain of events.
Jueds explained that this decision was made with “regret, especially because we value and care deeply about the affected students and teachers.” She added that “the timing of communications was also
carefully considered.”
Pralle highlighted that the administration’s communication about the cuts could have been “more thoughtfully done.” She pointed out the information disparity between the teachers and the families in the days following the announcement: “We three German teachers were never included in any of that information, and so we only found out from behind. What was communicated to us is that, as of 2024, we would not be guaranteed another year of teaching.”
After the May 6 email, Pralle reached out to the administration about the implications of the system they had designed to phase out the German program. The initial email reported that with this organization, “all current German students will be able to complete all of the German courses offered in the division they will be in next year.” Elementary school and middle school students would have to start a new language in middle school and high school respectively and high school students would continue studying German until their graduation.
However, Pralle remarked that middle school students would not achieve an AP level if they had to start learning a new language in high school. In another email on May 11, the administration shared changes to its initial policy to also allow seventh and eighth graders to continue studying German until their graduation. Meanwhile, sixth graders would have to start learning a new language again. Pralle wished that the administration would let all current German students, regardless of grade, finish the program: “Kneecapping students while they’re in the middle of the program is, I think, wrong.”
Both Pralle and Zemil have reported that since the cuts, communication between the German teachers and the administration has remained challenging. “It has not been the easiest. The administration at the school has not been particularly forthcoming with us,” Pralle said. As she will no longer be employed by the Lab Schools as of July 2025, she cited difficulties to even obtain clear information about benefits, severance, and other hu-
For other students, the cut of the German program has created lasting concerns.
Among them is the fear that it will create a precedent.
man relations topics.
Zemil shared that teachers had not been systematically included on recent emails with updated information about the German program, which led to questions from parents that they could not answer. “I think people send out emails with maybe one purpose and then they don’t realize that it also impacts other people,” she said. After meeting with the administration to resolve this issue, she said that their position on the cuts remained unchanged: “It was made clear in that meeting—not that it wasn’t clear to me before—that the administration feels that this is a final decision.”
Protests and acceptance:
German students react to the cut of the program
On May 6, when they learned about the cuts after school, many German students recall feeling shock and sadness.
“When my mom told me, I burst into tears, and this one student said their dinner was covered in tears when they heard,” Zoe Oakes, a fifth grader, said.
While high school students learned they would be able to finish the program,
they still felt disappointed on behalf of younger students. “We felt that it was a little unfair to rob younger students of this [the German program] and have them switch into classes where they would be behind other students in terms of language,” Tapper said.
Despite their initial sadness, most students refused to give up on the German program. On May 9, along with parents and alumni, middle school students organized a protest against the cuts. The following day, approximately 20 high school and middle school students marched around the U-High building. Tapper, who was one of the march’s organizers, said that its aim was “to show that people were upset about that decision [eliminating the German program].” They chanted slogans including “German is our choice, hear our voice.” Other student advocacy efforts included walkouts and protest rallies before school started.
Oakes participated in the latter in the spring with her parents, holding signs on school grounds half an hour before the start of lower school classes at 8:15 a.m. It was a combined protest rally that drew about 50 people who were against the cuts affecting the sports program and the Ger-
man program.
“I feel like it was important because it’s a free country, and I feel like we might have a chance to get German back if they saw us,” Oakes said.
Sonia Meltzer, Meltzer’s daughter, who is another fifth grader studying German, was also there with her parents. She emphasized that the protest was not “disruptive” as class had not started. “It was just kind of fun to be there and show our opinions,” she said, regarding her motivation to protest.
However, teachers and students reported that the administration remained unresponsive about its decision to cut the German program.
“The response from the administration has been to say, ‘you’re kind of wasting your time because this is a done deal’ which, I think, flies in the face of our mission to educate and empower young people to speak up and demand what should be rightfully theirs,” said Pralle, whose seventh graders organized a walkout.
Tapper also doubted the march could have changed the decision but noted the necessary conversations it sparked within the community: “I’m not sure how much impact that [the march] had. But I do
think that it made people start questioning why the specific programs that were cut were cut.”
Pralle stated that students still pursue their advocacy efforts, for example, by writing letters asking the administration to rethink its decision and find solutions to continue the program. However, almost one year after the announcement of the cuts, many students must grapple with the current reality that the program will end.
“We try to forget that it’s going to get cut because it’s not going to do us any good. But there is one thing that will do us any good, to keep learning German. We don’t want to waste our time lingering over the fact that it probably won’t be able to go on,” Sonia Meltzer said. She explained that she understands the necessity of the cuts even if it saddens her to have to stop studying German. She is looking forward to switching to Chinese next year.
For other students, the cut of the German program has created lasting concerns. Among them is the fear that it will create a precedent.
“I’m worried that if I take French, it will be cut next,” said Oakes, who intends to switch to the French program in sixth grade. After German is cut, French is the next smallest language program at the Lab Schools.
Although high school students can finish the program, the new minimum enrollment requirement for German to be offered in a grade has been a source of anxiety. “There is the worry that if one person drops, then they won’t run German for my class next year,” said Tapper, who has seen the number of 11th graders studying German drop from eight to five.
All students have shared that they still appreciate their Lab education but that the cuts will definitely leave their mark. “It’s a really fun experience, but I would say to look out for this stuff [budget cuts affecting programs], because I didn’t,” said Oakes.
Sonia Meltzer advised future students in a similar situation to think positively. “If you are in a program that does get cut, don’t overreact about it, because you still have other classes that you will like. […] It
The library at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. frank yan
“As one of my colleagues put it, does it seem right that a third grader should suffer because adults can’t balance their budget?”
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may be very sad, it will sting for a little bit, but that doesn’t mean the people who are cutting it are trying to hurt you.”
“Picking up the pieces”: trying to save the German program
Within days of the announcements of cuts to the German program, more than 200 members of the Lab community banded together to advocate for the preservation of the program. Current Lab parents, alumni from the German program, former Lab parents, and parents with prospective German students started looking for solutions.
“Our community is so committed to this program that we would do our best to try to find a way for it to continue with or without the school, but we want it to be with the school,” Kate Oakes, Zoe Oakes’s mother, said.
Beyond the protests they attended and helped organize, parents, especially Oakes and Meltzer, started compiling signatures and testimonials on the importance of the German program. The final product is 121 pages long and has been endorsed by many members of UChicago’s faculty. In June, Oakes and Meltzer shared the petition with the administration. They said they never received a response. However, Jueds wrote in an email to the Maroon that she “responded personally to every piece of correspondence I received from University community members on this subject [the budget cuts].”
Oakes and Meltzer also led a fundraising effort by asking families and individuals what they would pledge to give to cover the costs of preserving the program for all current students. The amount pledged exceeded their hopes, reaching about $800,000, enough to even fund future cohorts. However, Oakes and Meltzer said that the administration stated that they appreciated their dedication but politely declined the offer. “In general, Lab does not accept donations to run programs or classes which we would not otherwise be inclined to pursue,” Jueds stated.
Both Oakes and Meltzer were surprised and saddened by the administration’s unwillingness to engage, or even
meet with them, regarding the German program. “The school’s motto is ‘you belong here,’ and they’re all about inclusivity, but we’re not being included,” said Oakes. For Meltzer, this situation clashes with the University’s emphasis on dialogue: “It just surprised me, being in a university where we talk about problems, try to understand them, and find solutions.”
“I understand that some members of our community do not feel heard, but that is not the case,” Jueds said, highlighting that she “met with a few individuals and held an open discussion and Q&A at the beginning of the school year.”
Despite these setbacks, they continue to pursue their initiatives and plan to send another letter to the administration advocating to keep the German program running. Meltzer’s commitment is deep-rooted in his experience with the German program, both as a former alum and parent of a current German student. “I want to help the place stay special and serve our kids, and this program is a meaningful part of that,” he said.
Failure to defend the German program raises long term concerns about her daughter’s future at the Lab Schools for Oakes. “I still have hope that we can find a way to save it. But there is a little spot in there that is: Is this school going to be the right one long term? And I want it to be, and I have believed it would be,” she said. “I don’t really want to even have to ask myself that.”
Regardless of future developments about the condition of the German program, Meltzer stated that it should not be the parents’ and alumni’s responsibility to ensure that students’ wants and needs are respected. “That’s no way to run a school, when parents are picking up the pieces for things the school could have done and should have,” he said.
Following up: nearly one year later
Almost one year later, Lab students and staff are still adjusting to the new limitations that the budget cuts have imposed on their daily activities.
The Athletics Department, in particular, has gotten creative with the methods they are employing to keep participation
at the same levels, while still in keeping with budgetary constraints. In one email sent to parents last year, the department stated that there would be a cap on the number of students allowed to play on particular team sports.
Interim Athletic Director David Ribbens, who returned to Lab the month after the cuts were announced, chose to look for a different solution. One issue that arose was the department’s intention to place a participation cap on middle school volleyball, as was decided before Ribbens was hired. “That was my first question, when I asked my director to say, is that number 12 for volleyball? Is it 18? Is it 20? And they didn’t have a goal, so I dealt with it as an open-ended question,” Ribbens said. “We ended up not capping or cutting kids from our program.”
Instead of limiting the number of students on the volleyball roster, the department decided to allow all interested students to practice with the team and only take half to away games. This ensured that the team would still be competitive but also that all interested players were able to participate, as had been Lab policy previously.
As for the German program teachers, the fact that the end is in sight has not changed their commitment to providing the best education possible for students. “We three German colleagues are determined to continue to provide the best teaching that we can,” said Pralle, who is facing her final year teaching at Lab. After the high school students graduate, Zemil will commit to teaching only French at Lab. Students in the middle school cohort will still be permitted to participate in the German exchange program in summer of 2025.
Many parents and alumni consider cutting an academic program for budgetary reasons antithetical to the Lab Schools’ intellectual tradition of progressive education and student-centered learning. In an open letter to the advisory board as part of the 121-page-long testimonial to the value of the German program, parents state that “this decision grossly violates John Dewey’s core values and fails to exemplify the tenets
of progressive education, the foundations on which Lab is built and the ideals which Lab continually claims to live by.”
At the center of this debate between encouraging intellectual pursuits and the realities of funding lies the ethical implications of asking the Lab Schools to contribute to the University’s financial recovery. “I understand budget cuts, but I feel although we are ‘a unit of the University,’ we are not the same as every other unit of the University. We’re a school,” Zemil said.
Zemil warns that academic cuts disproportionately affect students while they are not responsible for this larger financial crisis: “I don’t think that they [the students] should have to bear the brunt of the financial difficulties of either the Lab Schools or the University. As one of my colleagues put it, does it seem right that a third grader should suffer because adults can’t balance their budget?”
For parents and alumni, cutting the German program also contradicts with the role of a university, which should support all types of learning. “This decision is a betrayal of the assurance by the President and the Provost that the University’s academic core mission will not be compromised by the measures taken to address the financial shortfall,” wrote signatories of the testimonial in an opening statement to UChicago’s and the Lab Schools’ administrations.
In these cuts, Jueds sees an opportunity for learning that aligns with the Lab Schools’ historical baggage. “This school year, we have sought to help the affected students process their feelings and look ahead to the exciting opportunities in store for them, mindful of the words of Lab’s founder John Dewey: ‘The most important thing in teaching is to establish in the learner an active disposition to continue to grow, even when disappointment comes.’”
For teachers who have dedicated years to sharing their expertise and interest in an academic field, the loss of the German program also has a deep personal resonance. “It is a sad thing for me to have built up a program for 27 years and then to see it disappear,” Zemil said.
Secret Places, Secret Faces
A brief history of UChicago’s campus that you never even knew existed.
By KACI SZIRAKI and CARTER LEE | Grey City Reporters
The first thing we noticed when we crept into the Ryerson basement was the scent of dry concrete and industrial musk.
The old metallic scents were fitting for the basement’s low ceiling crisscrossed with pipes, its dusty floors littered with long-forgotten debris, and the hum of machinery ever-present within its aged walls. Along the corridor, forgotten classrooms hide behind worn wooden doors, and as we peered into their darkened entryways, only empty interiors and repurposed utility rooms stared back. No lectures take place here anymore.
Like many buildings on campus, Ryerson’s history hides in plain sight. Thus began our journey down a rabbit hole of research and exploration, all in hopes of discovering what makes UChicago’s secret places so special today.
Ryerson Laboratory
Built in 1894, the Ryerson Physical Laboratory originally shared its classes with the astrophysics and mathematics departments. However, demand for lab space quickly outgrew the size of the facility.
In 1912, Ryerson grew with the construction of an annex, but it was not until Eckhart Hall was built in the 1920s that the problem of overcrowding was finally resolved. Until then, the basement of Ryerson simply served as extra space for laboratories.
An article published by the University of Chicago Magazine in December of 1912 reflects on the annex as well as renovations made to its foundation level, saying, “The basement floor has been lowered a foot and a half, and thus twelve new research rooms have been secured.”
These rooms, as a result of their stability and consistent temperature, offered an important regulated atmosphere for delicate research. This made the Ryerson basement a key location for physics research throughout its history.
Today, the classrooms on the ground floor are unused, and the basement has been repurposed for utilities and maintenance.
Walking through Ryerson today, many of the classrooms contain well-preserved pieces of their past: there are room numbers on the doors, chalkboards on the walls , and old desk chairs scattered throughout. While the Ryerson basement may be nothing more than the skeleton of a once thriving lab, these remnants keep its former existence intact.
Ida Noyes Hall
Although Ryerson may have been the first secret place we discovered, it certainly wasn’t the best-hidden one.
An abandoned pool with an unexpected history lies within Ida Noyes Hall. In the 1910s, facilities such as Bartlett hall and the Reynolds Club were exclusive to male students. As an alternative, the University constructed Ida Noyes Hall in 1916 to serve as both a clubhouse and a gym for female students. A prime feature of this new building was a 20-yard, four-lane indoor swimming pool adorned with oak wainscoting, iron rails, and a gessoed ceiling.
Over time, the pool’s purpose changed. Ida Noyes became a training spot for the water polo team as the other athletic facilities began to provide all-gender pools for the rest of the students. The Ida Noyes pool eventually went into retirement with the construction of the Gerald Ratner Athletic Center. It was drained and abandoned but never demolished. This now begs the question: Where is this pool?
While the University has stated that the hall’s gym now stands as the Max Palevsky Cinema, the fate of the pool remains more hidden. A Weese Langley Klein architecture firm article from 2008 explains plans for a “renovation convert[ing] a former swimming pool into a study hall for the neighboring University
CONTINUED ON PG. 16
Original floor plans of the basement of Ryerson Physical Laboratory showcase plans for multiple classrooms. courtesy of the university of chicago photographic archive.
The state of one of the classrooms in the Ryerson basement today. carter lee.
This now begs the question: Where is this pool?
CONTINUED FROM PG. 15
of Chicago Graduate School of Business.”
Some students have found that the pool referenced is indeed the same pool from all those years ago, now sitting underneath the Booth study space.
Steam Tunnels
Some secret places seem entirely impossible to reach. Just beneath our feet, a large network of tunnels distributes steam and gas from the University’s resident generator to heaters and showers. The original steam tunnels date back to 1929, though in 2009 and 2010 the South Campus Chiller Plant (SCCP) and West Campus Combined Utility Plant completed construction and took over the main role of steam distribution.
The SCCP remains a notable addition because it stands right next to the original 1929 steam tunnel building. Located on Blackstone Avenue and 61st Street, its minimalist glass design stands in contrast to the industrial brick and steel of its older counterpart. However, the buildings themselves are just the beginning of the steam tunnels’ extensive history.
Through the years, UChicago’s steam tunnels have hosted their fair share of eager explorers. Although an article released from UChicago’s Office of Sustainability claims that any entrances to the tunnels were sealed with locks, stories of students breaking in are scattered across the internet.
A Maroon article released in 2010
describes two students finding ways into the tunnel system, stating that “the most obvious entrances, however, are grates fitted with Lev-L-Locks, which they opened from above with a crowbar”; on a blog, an alum quotes a 1999 Chicago Magazine article in which a steam plant manager “reported finding beer bottles and graffiti in the tunnels”; and in a 1985 issue of the Daily Maroon, one student even describes the lessons he learned about heating technology through his own experience sneaking into the tunnels in an article titled “Urban Spelunking: the underground guide to higher education.”
Despite the passageways reaching up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature hot enough to cause third-degree burns, the steam tunnels’ secretive allure has enticed generations of UChicago students. Today, the steam tunnels do more than just heat our buildings: they bring a piece of adventure to every corner of the campus.
Harper Library
Our hunt for the hidden finally led us to the Harper Library: a University landmark home to not one, but two secret locations.
A library beneath a library, the first secret place of Harper is its basement. The building was constructed in 1910 as a memorial to the late William Rainey Harper, who believed that the school needed to provide its students with a ded-
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Women go for a swim in the Ida Noyes swimming pool, 1952. courtesy of the university of chicago photographic archive.
Swimming pool in the University of Chicago’s Ida Noyes Hall. the chicago m aroon
The South Campus Chiller Plant (left) next to the original 1929 steam building (right). kaci sziraki .
Although Harper Library still stands to this day, the basement was closed to the public in 1971.
Historical photo of the steam plant published in the Daily Maroon’s February 26, 1985 article. The caption states: “And you thought this was just the University steam plant over on Stony Island? This shrine is the ultimate goal of the Urban Spelunkers, U of C students who roam the steamy islands of the University’s underground heating system.” The chicago m aroon
CONTINUED FROM PG. 16
icated space for academics and learning. Although Harper Library still stands to this day, the basement was closed to the public in 1971. With the construction of the Regenstein Library that same year, a majority of Harper’s overwhelming collections were transferred to the new building, likely placing the basement into retirement. Direct accounts of the basement during its operation are scarce. However, recent explorers have discov-
ered that many old relics remain. In 2018, a student published an article on Medium describing their expedition beneath the floor of Harper. Amid dusty walls and flickering lights, they discovered books still resting on once overflowing shelves, and documents dating back to the 1940s littered across the floor.
The second secret place is located in Harper’s ceiling. What makes this ceiling particularly noteworthy is that between the curved ceiling of the reading room and the peak of the roof itself, there exists a hidden space. A previous explorer explains in a blog post that to reach the
ceiling, they had to venture up the West Tower (this tower originally collapsed in 1911 but was swiftly rebuilt).
For the people who continue to seek out their existence, these places spark curiosity and remind all that their legacy remains alive. Generations of students have left their mark, and generations more will continue to do so. In the end, their history remains an embodiment of the students that shape their stories.
As for what makes UChicago’s “secret places” so special today? That’s for our curiosity to decide.
The Harper Library after the collapse of the West Tower (March 1911). courtesy of the university of chicago photographic archive, university of chicago library, special collections research center
By ADAM ZAIDI
I have been sheltered my whole life. In saying this, I might evoke images of a pampered, suburban kid, which may be an accurate depiction to a certain degree, but I’m talking about being physically sheltered. Growing up in the Bay Area, I was treated to mild-mannered weather. The scorching peaks and glacial troughs of other cities were simply far-away rumors, too polite to grace our presence. Mark Twain is often quoted saying, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” While he never actually said this, the statement is proven true every year, as I am consistently treated to 50–60 degrees and overcast skies throughout the year. Temperatures stayed stable, usually never ducking below 40 degrees or above 75. Instead of snow days, I was treated to biannual fire smoke days, the sky turning orange instead of white. And anytime there was a hint of frost on the ground, it would hit the local news with the weight of a blizzard.
After surviving the college application process and finally being admitted to UChicago, I spent my summer in blissful ignorance of Chicago winters. Of course, I had heard about the cold winters, as everyone had. Whenever I talked to relatives or friends about going to Chicago, “I hope you are prepared for the cold” was uttered without fail. I would always reassure them that yes, I had bought my winter coat, and yes, I would be wearing a scarf and gloves. Part of this worry might have been because
VIEWPOINTS
West Meets Midwest
A West Coast student is introduced to Chicago’s winters.
I was polling an audience of Bay Area natives, used to wearing the same t-shirt and slacks year-round. This only further placated me: what do Bay Area residents know about Chicago? There’s a massive lake bordering the city, but is the lake effect even
real? It’s called the Windy City, but San Francisco has plenty of wind. Chicago winter seemed like a distant worry as thoughts of moving in and picking classes clouded my mind.
Cut to last November of my freshman year, and I was be -
ginning to learn that Chicago’s winter is as serious as they say. The wind would howl past my window at night and seemed to cut through layers of clothing to chill my bones the second I stepped outside. Treated to temperatures I didn’t know were
possible, my nose and hair, still damp from my morning shower, froze over after a few minutes outside. (I soon switched to evening showers.) I would find myself wearing three, or even four, layers just to walk the short
RHEA SADAGOPAN.
Frost covers every surface,
allowing for hearts and “you lost the game” to be written on windows and cars.
distance from my room to class. The perpetual plains of Illinois seemed to channel and amplify these terrors, causing mini flurries to appear in front of my eyes. I started to wear over-ear headphones to keep my ears warm, music an afterthought.
Now, in February, as I’ve experienced more and more of Chicago’s winter, I feel that I have come to understand the cold in a new way. I’ve finally refined my multilayer strategic dressing plan enough to keep me warm on the walk from my room to class. Over time, people have
strayed from the sidewalk to find the most efficient paths through the snow and frozen dirt, shaving off precious seconds spent in the cold. Orange trucks dot the sidewalks with blue kernels of salt and melt away the nasty ice. And as much as I’ve been hyping up the adversity of living through a Chicago winter, I’m never really outdoors for more than 10 minutes at a time—just enough to properly chill my extremities.
In fact, there really is an austere beauty to the Chicago winter. It demands respect from the people who live here and makes its presence known. Waking up
in a snowy, white wonderland feels truly magical. As I walk between classes, thick, fluffy snowflakes land in my hair and eyelashes, slowly assimilating me to the wintertime. And unlike some places (e.g. Texas in 2021, when met with a colder winter than usual), Chicago has figured out the winter infrastructure. Every time I walk into a building I am greeted with a blast of warm air, chasing away the frigid drafts behind me. It’s hard to beat that feeling, especially when hauling the long journey back from Trader Joe’s. My room in Woodlawn is so well-insulated that even
with the heat off, the room consistently stays above 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Frost covers every surface, allowing for hearts and “you lost the game” to be written on windows and cars. And you really can’t beat the aesthetic of snow covering the trees, grass, and gothic arches around campus.
Chicago’s winter has proven itself to be more than just a simple test of endurance—it’s an invitation to experience the stark beauty of a season that I’ve never truly known before. For all its bluster and challenge, it carries a certain magic that I
Against the Podcasters
By NICO POSNER
never expected. This has only been my first winter at UChicago, and it’s already halfway over. Yet, now that I know how to understand its rhythms and navigate its demands, I find I am already looking forward to next year’s winter. In our world of rising temperatures, each snowy day feels more precious, like an endangered species I’m lucky to see in the wild. For now, I’ll do my best to enjoy every flurry and frosted window and try not to freeze along the way.
Adam Zaidi is a first-year in the College.
Podcasting is an inherently flawed medium for science communication.
I have come to believe very strongly that podcasting is the devil’s work.
Over winter break, Freakonomics Radio host Stephen Dubner updated a story from last January titled, “Why Is There So Much Fraud in Academia?” It considers the spectacular rise and fall of Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino and investigates how researchers who produce camera-ready findings are rewarded materially and institutionally, even when their work is unsound or entirely fraudulent.
The coverage is acceptable but haunted by its own specter. Not so long ago, Freakonomics themselves breathlessly promoted Ariely and Gino, not to mention other recent fraudsters like Brian Wansink, and I would have liked to see more self-reflection on this account.
So I was intrigued to see a podcast from the other half of Freakonomics ’s dynamic duo, UChicago’s own Steven Levitt.
Last June, Levitt interviewed Harvard psychology professor Ellen Langer and asked his audience: “How do you know whether you should believe surprising results?”
The results are indeed surprising. Langer’s pet theory, mind-body unity, posits an unbelievably strong placebo effect. In this world, faster perception of time accelerates healing, environments mimicking the past improve hearing and vision in the elderly, and asking nursing home residents some memory questions cuts two-year mortality rates by over two-thirds.
Those aren’t cherry-picked examples: those are the studies that Levitt and Langer bring up as examples of Langer’s best, most surprising work, which
earned her tenure at Harvard and a permanent place in the pop science firmament as the “mother of mindfulness.” Even so, other researchers have been showing these findings are invalid for over a decade, though I will leave an in-depth treatment to Columbia’s Andrew Gelman, UPenn’s James Coyne, and DePaul’s David Ramsay.
Langer fits Dubner’s suspect profile to a T: a researcher who reliably produces picture-perfect results that garner press and popular attention. Armed with honesty and courage, Levitt has an opportunity to reckon with the sloppy science of the past.
He does not take this opportunity.
Despite gesturing towards skepticism, Levitt fails to model it. Encountering unbelievable findings, he takes Langer’s word at face value and moves on. He expresses doubts that such stud-
ies could have been successfully replicated and just as quickly insists that they have been replicated “a number of times.” That number is two: one failed to replicate, and the other has not been published at the time of writing. Further, Levitt either did not know or chose to ignore that the mortality results were based on a statistical error. How does he react to such unbelievable results?
LEVITT: You had, through this intervention, seemingly radically changed mortality rates to a degree that I think you would be hard pressed to find any pharmaceutical compound which has had that kind of effect in a controlled study. The listening experience is excruciating. Before Levitt is a jigsaw that forms a serious challenge to Langer’s signature claim, and for an hour he refuses to assemble it, instead waving
each piece in front of the audience like jangling keys, dropped after a moment to pick up the next.
“Why is there so much fraud in academia?” Dubner asks, while his longtime collaborator presents woo-woo to the public without pushback or confrontation. Because pop science media is a machine that launders bad science into public acclaim and cares not for the truth.
This is not unique to podcasting—print and web media is awash with dreck that misrepresents published research for clicks—but podcasts, in their structure and form of consumption, are considerably more damaging, starting from the difference between reading and listening.
A reader can scan a text for words and topics, focus on and reread individual sentences
Bad assumptions pass undetected, hidden in soothing cadences and the listener’s emotional investment in the host.
and phrases, and shift between sections to retrieve lost context. This is a mode that invites, though does not always receive, critical attention.
Listening does not support such engagement. Audio moves at its own pace, giving fluff and critical information the same airtime. Locating a section of audio is effortful and unsupported. Instead of sustained critical attention, it invites passivity,
letting the waves flow over you.
This doesn’t mean audio is strictly inferior—I love both audiobooks and the lost art of the audio drama—but I wouldn’t listen to a journal article. The information they’re designed to
communicate wouldn’t survive the transition.
Instead, the lengthy podcast lends itself to secondary listening while driving or folding laundry, and the top podcasts cultivate intimacy and parasociality,
making the listener feel like an active partner in a fascinating conversation. Bad assumptions pass undetected, hidden in soothing cadences and the listener’s emotional investment in the host.
With all these traits, the podcast is a terrible form for serious science communication… but great for giving the impression of depth and rigor with minimal effort.
LEVITT: So there’s no intervention other than teaching.
LANGER: Exactly.
LEVITT: Nothing can possibly happen.
LANGER: But something happened.
Freakonomics innovated this style, but it was perfected by others: Andrew Huberman, who sits in the top 10 podcasts globally by scaremongering about cell phones irradiating testicles in between hawking supplements, and the dark priest of anecdata himself, Malcolm Gladwell, whose writing anticipated this new medium.
You may protest that I’m painting with too broad a brush, that the examples above are in opposition; they are not. They target different market segments with the same method. They claim to give the audience tools to answer questions for themselves but provide only the means for complacency and self-deception. Levitt does not model skepticism, rigor, or intellectual responsibility. He only tells listeners to believe this particular set of extraordinary claims based on Langer’s credentials and his own credulity. We should expect better of our professors than to make these bargains.
Nicolas Posner is a 2024 alum of the College.
CARTER LEE.
ARTS
Aesthetics of a Sunburnt Sound
Associate Arts Editor Shawn Quek writes about how alt-pop band almost
monday brings Californian sunshine to the Chicago winter.
By SHAWN QUEK | Associate Arts Editor
The back room of a packed dive bar screams to life as the new stars of alt-pop arrive.
Tonight, Beat Kitchen is a portal: San Diego transplanted into Chicago’s soul. Almost monday—alt-pop, sun-drenched, adolescent in the way only California can be—commands the room with a studied nonchalance. Their sound is a composite: guitar rock that flirts with funk, pop melodies sanded smooth by salt air, a restlessness barely contained within its own rhythms.
The Californian band burst onto the scene in 2020 and has since garnered over 600 million streams and five charting alternative radio songs, with “can’t slow down” being crowned No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart.
Almost monday steps onto the stage and, suddenly, winter ceases to exist.
The set begins with “dive,” the eponymous opener of their debut album. The lyrics summon a dream of chromatic perfection—“to a dream that I want to see/ where all of the colors shine.” But this sound is not mere nostalgia. The lyrics are dreamy, longing for “the place that I want to be/ where the summers don’t stop,” the fantasy of eternal summer turned into a sound, a way of moving through the world.
“How are you doing, Chicago?” Dawson Daugherty—frontman, guitarist, vocalist, and conductor of this particular fever dream—asks the crowd. The response is a roar, a full-bodied exhale from the audience. Bassist Luke Fabry nods, flashing the knowing grin of someone who has seen this scene before. Guitarist Cole Clisby prepares himself to take the crowd on a sharp left turn, launching into the hook of their first infectious guitar-driven track.
The band’s history—San Diego high
schoolers turned surf shop performers turned festival fixtures—isn’t just a biography but a blueprint. This music is about ease, effortlessness, the choreography of youth performed so well they might have found the mythical fountain.
The riffs are bright, the bass lines elastic. Songs like “is it too late?” and “can’t slow down” act as wormholes, leading not to a particular place but to a mood, an imagined paradise: beach bonfires, car windows down, time slowed to the beat of a song on repeat. DIVE leaves one imagining vignettes of summertime love and longing, recalling memories of a misspent
youth.
Then, a rupture. Daugherty, mid-song, urges the audience to dance. Not just move, but dance. The request is both command and communion, promising that he “only wanna dance with you.” The crowd, already electrified, obeys.
It helps that Adrian Lyles has primed the room, opening the night with raw, emotional lyricism. His presence, like the band’s, is an argument for sincerity as spectacle, or perhaps spectacle as sincerity. Pairing personal authenticity with a fresh sound for pop, the young singer-songwriter is bound to generate excitement with his upcoming album, just as he brought the energy to the venue tonight.
Singing through their setlist, almost monday reminds us of the people who stick with us like “sunburn” and that we “look so good.” The crowd crammed into the beloved, no-frills music haunt unanimously welcomes the warming weather, now seemingly incited by the infectiously summery indie pop band’s arrival. By the time the band winds through the rest of DIVE, the night has fully surrendered to the fantasy, knowing “the sun keeps on shining.”
The audience sings the lyrics back, willing them into existence, if only for the duration of a chorus.
In Chicago, it is February. But for this moment, it is summer.
Dawson Daugherty, almost monday’s frontman, woos the crowd. shawn quek .
In Conversation with Blair Thomas, Puppeteer
Head Arts Editor Toby Chan sits down with Blair Thomas, founder and artistic director of the International Puppet Theater Festival.
By TOBY CHAN | Head Arts Editor
Blair Thomas is a lifelong puppeteer and founder and artistic director of the International Puppet Theater Festival. In 2009, Thomas was ordinated as a dharma teacher by the Maitreya Buddhist Seminary and currently serves as an adjunct professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Thomas was recently honored with the title of “Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French government for advancing the art of puppetry.
In this interview, the Maroon sat down with Thomas to talk about puppets, Bunraku, and the seventh Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, which ran from January 15 to January 26, 2025.
The following interview is lightly edited for clarity.
Chicago Maroon: Hi Blair, thanks for speaking with me. What is a puppet?
Blair Thomas: A puppet is any performing object. It could be an anthropomorphized human animal or a spirit. But it could also just be an everyday object as well.
CM: What do you think puppets teach us?
BT: Puppets are surrogates in the performance. They function as metaphors for ideas—maybe historical characters, maybe fictional characters. They’re surrogates for our experience, so a puppet functions as a mirror on the stage, where the puppet isn’t feeling anything. But the puppet is going through an experience. We see that scenario playing out when we look at [the puppet] and we think, “Oh, the puppet is sad.”
Well, the puppet is not sad at all. It’s just a material sculpture. But we are able to project our understanding of sadness on the puppet in the context of the play, and then we feel that emotion. So, in that way, they function as a mirror for our own perceptions.
CM: As a dharma teacher, how do you relate puppetry to your Buddhist prac-
tice?
BT: Buddhism, as an entry point, teaches mindfulness and awareness, and the notion of detaching—that you’re detaching from your experience but you’re mindful of the experience at the same time—is the beginning point of any practice.
I use that in terms of how I work with puppetry and how I work with theater-making or festival-making. I look to bring shows to the festival that can afford audiences to have that experience. A great example is the ice marionette show Anywhere, where there’s a lot of reflective time in the piece because there’s so little being spoken and so little happening, yet there’s so much present in the space.
The audience is put into a place of being present to the experience. That’s very much like what Buddhism is. There’s a great moment in the Life & Times of Michael K, where similarly there’s a crisis point where the character has to face something that he can’t actually hear, like he doesn’t understand what was just said to him. And we see the puppet be the surrogate for that experience. It absorbs the incomprehension of what was just said to him. And then it pauses, and then we see it go into the body of the puppet. And we start to understand, through what the puppet is experiencing nonverbally and with very little movement, the realization of what is being communicated to him.
That’s a very heightened moment, of course, but what ends up happening is the audience is getting to experience the character’s experiences. That creates and demands of us an awareness that’s very much connected to entry-level Buddhism.
CM: I saw Plexus Polaire’s Dracula two nights ago, where you introduced the show right before. The show played a lot with agency by switching between puppets and actors.
BT: For sure. The questions of agency
in that show are so skillfully presented because that company is interested in blurring the line between the puppet and the puppeteer. They do deceive theatrically, but you eventually start to see how the body of the puppet can absorb so much that the human body can’t absorb. They communicate things that an actor in a film can’t. In Dracula, the puppet of Lucy absorbs the power of Dracula, and she becomes powerful herself. Her body is contorted and throwing itself around, and they’re trying to keep her down on the bed. The same scene plays out in the new Nosferatu film, where the foe is trying to keep the Lucy character down on the bed.
There’s an actor who’s portraying that same thing, and that particular actor does an excellent job of it, for sure. But the puppet [performs that scene] on yet another level because the puppet’s body can distort right in front of you in a skillful way. I think that’s ecstatic. That’s where the materiality of the puppet extends beyond what humans are capable of.
CM: I noticed that Plexus and a couple of shows employ Bunraku. I know that you have some experience with the genre. Could you speak to it?
BT: Bunraku is the lingua franca of contemporary puppetry, if I would be so bold to say. There are other kinds of puppet theater, but the proliferation of that practice across cultures and countries is ubiquitous.
It’s an adaptation. We use the word “Bunraku” outside of Japan. In Japan, Ningyō Jōruri is the name of the form, but it’s practiced at the National Bunraku Theatre. It’s a very precise form that has these exact things that need to be done to qualify, and contemporary Bunraku does not do that. It takes the central notion of three-person direct hand manipulation, which is three people having their hands directly on the doll. And then in the case of Plexus, they’re doing human-size Bunraku. That’s a whole other level of it.
The Cabinet of Curiosity was doing a
smaller, doll-size Bunraku, and the Life & Times of Michael K was also Bunraku.
CM: Do you have a theory for how Bunraku came about as a lingua franca for contemporary puppet theater?
BT: There’s a desire for a kind of authenticity or veracity or a certain level of realism, without actually having full realism. Since the Bunraku doll is a complete human figure and there’s so many ways it can be moved that replicates human movement, it can deceive us. The marionette is a full-figure puppet that never deceives us because it’s so evident how it’s being operated. The disbelief is never fully there.
I think that, particularly at the end of the 20th century, there just became this need for veracity and showing something that has a realness to it. So it [Bunraku] came coupled with the emergence of the contemporary puppetry movement in the late ’70s.
That’s not just in the United States— it was a worldwide thing. You can trace it back a little bit earlier than that. The marionette had been prominent, but then it got superseded. Why is that the case? I think it also has to do with the three elements of Bunraku—the puppet being operated by the visible puppeteer, the narration being told by the narrator, and the live music.
The exposed artifice of the Bunraku has become something that all puppeteers are doing. Not all of them, of course—there’s still concealed puppeteer practice—but the times have embraced this notion that we see how it’s being done while we’re seeing the magic of it being done at the same time. There’s no hidden performance in that way.
So we see the musician over there [and] we see the speaker. The live performer and the puppet share the stage together. That is an unprecedented practice in puppetry in all forms, in all cultures—the notion of the actor and the puppet being together. Literally, the puppeteer can put their hand on the puppet
CONTINUED ON PG. 23
“My goal is just to make the festival and make it have credibility that raises the bar for what the form could be and what audiences should expect.”
CONTINUED FROM PG. 22
and move the puppet forward.
In Some Prefer Nettles, a Japanese novel from the 1920s, there’s a great description where it talks about the superiority of Bunraku because the puppeteer can move the puppet from its center. We call it the solar plexus. Whereas a rod or a string muffles the movement just a little bit [and] mediates it more, the Bunraku could be really direct and more assertive. The times have called for that, and it makes for a more dynamic performance.
CM: One of your roles is co-director of Chicago Puppet Studio. Could you walk me through what goes into physically designing and building puppets?
BT: The Chicago Puppet Studio is our design and fabrication wing. It’s really just us practically responding to people’s requests to have puppets in an opera, or a dance, or a musical, or a theater production, or a film. The most satisfying and fruitful elements are when we are approached by a project at the beginning, and we can talk about how the people who are making the work would like the puppet to function so that we can then provide the solution for that in puppetry. [It’s] often just lots of conversation about ideas.
Then my team—Tom Lee in particular, who’s my co-director—we come up with different ideas. What are the theatrical solutions using puppetry? The arsenal of tricks is always within the context: where is it, how many people are on stage, how many people are available, are they going to be skilled puppeteers or not, what is the set like, what is the narrative moment of the play, that kind of thing. It’s just a matter of a fair amount of discussion.
Then, we make a prototype of something to see how it works. We present, then there’s the green light, then there’s the fabrication, then there’s the rehearsal to make it come alive.
CM: How do you help bridge the gap in communication when it comes to theater productions that don’t know much about puppetry?
BT: We usually present a lot of examples in images because most people ha-
ven’t seen this stuff. Even people working professionally in the field and at all these major venues aren’t exposed to it. It’s also good for them to see sequences with movement so they understand how it moves. Usually, we have a little bit of an idea. It’s just a matter of “Is it going to be rigged in this sort of way?” and “If we make it out of that material, it’s going to be able to do this,” and “It’s got to come apart because it’s big and it needs to fit through the size of a door or we have to ship it and it’s going to go in this box.”
These are the kinds of limitations we have to follow to ensure the success of the idea.
CM: I want to return to the festival. How did the idea for the International Puppet Theater Festival first come about?
BT: 10 years ago, we had our first festival. It was just recognizing all the presenters that I knew in Chicago who had presented puppetry at their venues. We all got together and presented at the same time. I made a brochure, and we called it
a puppet festival. Doing so, I recognized that there was an audience in Chicago that would go and see the work. People responded. We were like, “That’s a great idea.”
CM: A decade in, how has the festival evolved in your mind?
BT: I have always found that puppetry is very reliable. People who haven’t experienced it, when they see it, are usually pretty engaged by it. It’s really a bigger question of structures in the cul-
CONTINUED ON PG. 24
Blair Thomas poses with a wooden puppet. courtesy of school of the art institute of chicago
“There’s also a lot of people who are working in culture who, all of a sudden, are seeing an art form they didn’t know anything about.”
CONTINUED FROM PG. 23
tural scene that support the development of the art form in a way that would put it on the level of sophistication with other arts that are well supported in town.
We don’t have a lot of tradition of [puppetry] in the United States. We’re the largest festival that happens in the U.S., which is really kind of crazy. We’re a country of 300 million people, but you can go to a country of 10 million like the Czech Republic and the amount of puppetry that’s going on is mind-blowing. That’s for a variety of different reasons, but we’re in a cultural wasteland in that
way. What do we need to do to start whetting the appetite of the audiences? It’s supply and demand. If they want good, excellent puppetry, then it’ll start to get produced more, right? There’s plenty of young puppeteers who want to make work, but there’s a gap between the desire to make the work and where you can show the work once you’ve made it.
My goal is just to make the festival and make it have credibility that raises the bar for what the form could be and what audiences should expect. Hopefully, that will start to influence different levels. In Chicago, there’s a lot of young-
er puppeteers. Much more than when I was younger, for sure. There’s also a lot of people who are working in culture who, all of a sudden, are seeing an art form they didn’t know anything about.
And that’s another way that’s going to advance [the medium], because the standard just gets raised, and [so do] expectations of what the form can do.
CM: How do you see the future of puppetry? Say, the year 2050—what do puppets look like?
BT: To me, it feels very hopeful and bright. There’s a lot of sustained interest in the form that it has the capacity to ab -
sorb so much more.
It can be light and playful, and it can hold very serious and powerful stories as well. It’s also a welcome counter to our otherwise heavily mediated culture through how advanced digital technology has become. It’s really analog-based, the form of puppetry, and the experience of being in the room and witnessing it has an authenticity to it that is unavoidable. So, it’s very powerful for people who show up and see it. That will help it find its home as we become even more mediated and advanced by our technological experiences otherwise.
Blood, Death, and Sex: Plexus Polaire’s Dracula:
Lucy’s Dream
Head Arts Editor Toby Chan attends Plexus Polaire’s Dracula at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival.
By TOBY CHAN | Head Arts Editor
“Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are?” opens Plexus Polaire’s Dracula: Lucy’s Dream. On January 15, the French-Norwegian puppeteering company returned to kick off the seventh Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival at the Studebaker Theater downtown, two years after they last opened the festival with their production of Moby Dick
As Robert Egger’s film Nosferatu makes waves, Plexus Polaire’s Dracula presents a particularly relevant story. Loosely adapting the character of Lucy Westenra from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Plexus tells a tale of a woman clutched in the throes of evil, trapped in a cycle of fear and attraction. Plexus’s production, however, kicks this concept up a notch: floating vampire sex, cannibalized babies, and sprouting limbs intersperse Lucy writhing on a hospital bed, culmi-
nating in a psychical Ragnarok. As you might guess, the show requires a strong appetite—which is great if you like the taste of blood.
Within the story, Lucy is both the seduced and the seductress. At times, she is the object of Dracula’s desire, at others, she is Dracula herself. At its core, the insidious evil in Plexus’s Dracula lies in the question of whether Dracula is a physical monster or an illness embedded deep within Lucy’s psyche. Plexus physicalizes this question by nimbly changing Lucy’s roles between doll and human form. The human Lucy entangles herself with Dracula, while the doll Lucy literalizes moments where she is a figurative object.
Nevertheless, frequent switches between actors and puppets are not without practical challenges. Plexus Polaire’s Dracula, in line with contemporary Bunraku—a form of Japanese theater that
emphasizes a puppeteer’s direct manipulation of anthropomorphic dolls— relies on meticulous puppeteering to create a suspension of disbelief for its
audience. This illusion, however, is easily shattered, especially when the puppet moves against the typical motions of the
Two heads sprout from Lucy’s body as a team of physicians hold her down. courtesy of christophe reynaud de lage
Perhaps it’s most apt to think about this production of Dracula as a contemporary, intentionally uncomfortable commentary on evil.
CONTINUED FROM PG. 24
human body. However, perhaps the very ability of the puppet to contort unnaturally is meaningful: a testament to the puppet’s ability to absorb much more than the human form can take.
Plexus Polaire is not afraid to experiment and push boundaries. Playing with
translucent veils and projections, Plexus crafts an ethereal if not horrifying reality—a kind of fever dream. From puppeteers in Guy Fawkes masks to Dracula morphing into a man-spider, Plexus’s Dracula is certainly one of the oddest things I’ve seen on stage.
Perhaps it’s most apt to think about
this production of Dracula as a contemporary, intentionally uncomfortable commentary on evil. Indeed, the story of w think of temptation, lust, and sickness; this production only does so in more absurd and aesthetic ways. We tend to avoid responsibility for our evil, so much so that we frequently cast it as an alter
Dirt Red: Dancing at DKE
DKE hosts Dirt Red Brass Band for a live performance.
By KENNEDY GREENFELDER | Arts Reporter
It’s not often that people go to frat parties to hear good music. Dancing to awkward house mixes and bumping into others are more the vibe. But on January 25, the Dirt Red Brass Band dispelled this notion, showing an energetic group of students in the Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) basement what a live band can do to a fraternity party.
When the self-proclaimed New Orleans–style brass band opened with an original piece, circles of friends opened up to take in the upbeat jazzy song together. A tuba pulled out in the basement of a frat was a sight to behold, and the crowd was immediately receptive. While their original songs go back to their roots as a brass band with cool jazz vibes, Dirt Red plays many different genres. “We like to shift what we play depending on where we are, to fit what the crowd wants,” said Joey Gorman, co-musical director of Dirt Red. The crowd certainly got what they wanted with a mix of R&B and disco classics that had the audience singing along. The band’s covers of classic songs, like “Lady Marmalade” and “I Will Survive” ignited the crowd. As the audience began to dance and sing along, it was clear the band could feel the energy ramp up as well. “When there’s an energetic crowd, we can see the members of the band shift their energy too,” co-Musical Director Leo Kupperman said. Indeed, the band members
responded with solos full of exuberance. As the guitar and horns riffed, shouts of encouragement could be heard from the crowd and the band alike.
This is Dirt Red’s 13th year as an RSO, and in years past they played gigs such as frat parties often. “The band was bigger; they used to play at a ton of frats and open for bands in Chicago too. But then when COVID hit it kind of cut [us] off,” said Adera Craig, executive director of Dirt Red. “We’ve had to build back up. But where the band is at this year is like at the level we were at pre-COVID.”
Historically, Dirt Red has done a mix of on-campus and off-campus gigs. Since their founding, the band has played University events, such as Class Day and Boos and Ribs, regularly. “We love collaborating with other students and the University,” Gorman said. But about half of Dirt Red’s shows are off campus. Some are very far off campus. “Every year we head down to New Orleans, and we gig for an entire week,” Gorman said. “We’re always trying to get our name out there. Get more fans, get more followers, and share our music.”
Dirt Red has built a strong network of alumni. “Usually, band members join as an underclassman and ride the Dirt Red train for four years then hop off and make room for new members,” Gorman said. “That’s honestly my favorite part [of the band]. A lot of [Dirt Red alumni]
ego—the Hyde to our Jekyll. However, to triumph over evil, we may have to come face to face with it, as Lucy does.
Plexus Polaire’s Dracula: Lucy’s Dream asks more questions about evil than it answers, but if there are things that we cannot understand—which there are—evil is certainly one of them.
have stayed in the Chicago area. Some of them have even started bands of their own, so we’ll go to their shows, and they’ll come sit in with us,” Craig said.
“Once a Dirt Red, always a Dirt Red.” Community is an important part of the band. “The identity of the band is very much of its members. It’s a collective vibe,” Kupperman said.
In the future, Dirt Red hopes to play more events like this, both on and off campus. “We love sharing our love
of this music with others, and we like to have fun doing it,” Gorman said. This passion resonated at the event at DKE. “We didn’t want this to feel like any frat party. We wanted it to have a fun vibe. The brothers loved it, and all my friends were having a great time. It just felt very open,” DKE brother Justin Gurkin said. It’s clear that the live performance brought the party to another level and made for an entertaining Saturday night.
Dirt Red Brass Band performs at DKE fraternity house. kennedy greenfelder
SPORTS
The Philosophy of Basketball
From determining the basketball GOAT to examining NBA players’ above-average heights, the Department of Philosophy brought together the UChicago academic and athletic community to discuss the philosophical questions posed by the game of basketball.
By ANUSHKA VASUDEV | Sports Reporter
The last thing you would expect to take place in the middle of a basketball court is a philosophy discussion. However, in true UChicago spirit, the Department of Philosophy, in partnership with UChicago Athletics, hosted a discussion on “The Philosophy of Basketball” on February 2, featuring philosophy professors Mikayla Kelley and Anubav Vasudevan. This event was part of the Department of Philosophy’s Night Owls series, featuring late-night faculty-led philosophical conversations that discuss everything from artificial intelligence to organized violence.
For Vasudevan and Kelley, the purpose of this event was to illustrate the value in taking time to reflect on and grapple with complicated questions to encourage thoughtful conversation. The discussion opened up space for serious intellectual debate (and passionate feuds) over basketball and sports in general, from the meaning of being a sports fanatic, the
importance of “athletic luck,” to whether Michael Jordan is truly the GOAT.
What does it mean to be a fan of a sport?
Vasudevan began the event by discussing the different criteria attributed to being a sports fan, such as enthusiasm over a team’s wins, sadness over losses, wearing team merch, and having posters and other memorabilia. He called these “subjective constraints,” mainly based on an individual’s level of interest and love for a team. Vasudevan also noted how “objective constraints,” namely geographic location, are often mixed into discussion of whether someone is “a true fan.” Supporters of the same team from different states or countries likely experience fanhood differently due to the presence, or lack thereof, of a dominant local sports community or because local fans feel the bandwagon effect stronger than others. Using these examples, Vasudevan
discussed how we create subjective and objective categories of thought, in sports and beyond. He encouraged individuals to consider why we insist on having objective constraints, like geographic location, affect our notions of fanhood.
Is there a discrepancy in how we praise and critique player performance?
Also focusing on fans’ role in sports, Kelley continued the conversation by describing the hypocrisy in how fans evaluate player performance. More often than not, the difference between a buzzer beater and an upsetting 2-point loss is a stroke of luck, rather than a shooter’s skill or talent. Yet, a player who makes the clutch shot receives endless praise and recognition while the one who barely misses will likely never hear the end of it. Still, there are some instances of luck that fans intentionally discount, like desperate last-minute half-court attempts taken without proper aim or form and bad refereeing. Fans often want an athlete’s
performance to manifest their agency and competence and recognize that they should praise athletes based on their skill and what they can control. However, Kelley noted that fans don’t always practice this. Kelley considered why we attribute some cases of athletic luck to skill and discount others as just being “pure luck,” leading to these inconsistencies in critiques of player performance.
Why don’t we disqualify physical abnormalities in sports?
Vasudevan then shifted the conversation to discuss NBA players’ many physical extremities. He presented a series of statistics regarding their above average height—around 43 out of the roughly 2,800 people in the world taller than seven feet are in the NBA—and extremely lengthy handspans—Boban Marjanović has the longest with 12 inches. Vasudevan noted how height and handspan, among other factors, are valuable competitive advantages for basketball players. We’ve accepted this as the standard in the basketball community and don’t see them as challenges to the fairness of the sport. However, in so many other instances of competitive advantage, we support changes to level the playing field, from eliminating goal tending to implementing a serving clock in tennis. Yet we don’t see abnormal physique as an unfair edge that warrants disqualification. Why do we take physical competitive advantages for granted in sports, while racing to eliminate other advantages?
Will we ever determine who the GOAT of basketball truly is?
Michael Jordan, Lebron James, Bill Russell, Stephen Curry. Both the list of GOAT candidates and the debate over who
Vasudevan and Kelley speak to the event attendees. anushka vasudev.
Kelley considered how
our obsession with determining the GOAT may stem from our inherent human nature to classify things.
CONTINUED FROM PG. 26
it is has gone on since the beginning of the sport. Kelley brought the conversation to a close by discussing whether this debate even has an answer. Is it possible to compare players across generations, especially when the sport has changed so much over time? Kelley considered how our obsession with determining the GOAT may
stem from our inherent human nature to classify things, from creating lists of our favorite restaurants to reading rankings of the best colleges. However, Kelley also found that determining “GOAT-hood” is something unique to sports, noting that we don’t ask ourselves who the GOAT of health or fashion is.
As Vasudevan and Kelley wrapped up
Recent Results
Baseball kicked off their season with a hot start, winning their first four games before competing at the Rhodes College (Tenn.) Round Robin this weekend.
Men’s Basketball won against Rochester (N.Y.) on Sunday after suffering back-to-back defeats to Case Western Reserve (Ohio) and No. 7 Emory (Ga.). They are now 17–7.
Women’s Basketball narrowly lost 54–53 against Rochester (N.Y.) on Sunday after falling to Emory (Ga.) on Friday and beating Case Western Reserve (Ohio) last weekend. They move to 14–10.
Lacrosse started their season on a high note, defeating Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (Calif.) 13–6 on Friday.
Swimming and Diving competed in the Midwest Invitational following a solid showing at the 2025 UAA Championship last week, with the men and women both finishing third out of eight teams.
Men’s Tennis stayed hot with a 5–2 win against No. 16 Gustavus Adolphus (Minn.) in the quarterfinals of the 2025 ITA Indoor Nationals. They followed that up with another 5–2 win against No. 5 Denison (Ohio) in the semifinals before narrowly falling 4–3 to No. 2 Claremont-Mudd Scripps (Calif.) on Sunday.
Women’s Tennis played Toledo (Ohio) and North Central (Ill.) on Saturday as they prepare for the 2025 ITA Indoor Nationals this weekend.
Track and Field competed in the Margret Bradley Invitational on Saturday.
Wrestling competed in the Region V Futures Tournament on Saturday, following a strong performance at the 2025 UAA Championship where they finished second out of three teams, with second-year Jackson Rustad winning the award for Most Outstanding Wrestler.
their discussion, they encouraged attendees to pose their own questions or offer potential answers. They explored other topics, such as our fascination with athletes’ loyalties to their “home” team and the relationship between fanhood and supporting terrible teams. Balancing friendly debate over sport rivalries and thought-provoking philosophical inqui-
ry, UChicago’s Night Owls event transformed a very un-philosophical topic into a truly captivating discussion, questioning the role of fans in sports, how our virtues and values are tested as viewers of sporting events, and so much more. Unfortunately, no one had an answer for why the Mavericks traded Luka Dončić to the Lakers.
Upcoming Games
Baseball:
UChicago vs. Franklin (Ind.) in Greenwood (Ind.), 11 a.m. CST Friday, Feb. 28. UChicago vs. Ripon (Wis.) in Greenwood (Ind.), 12 p.m. CST Saturday, Mar. 1.
UChicago vs. North Central (Ill.) in Greenwood (Ind.), 10 a.m. CST Sunday, Mar. 2.
Men’s Basketball: UChicago vs. WashU (Mo.), 1 p.m. Saturday, Mar. 1.
Women’s Basketball: UChicago vs. WashU (Mo.), 3 p.m. Saturday, Mar. 1.
Lacrosse:
UChicago vs. Kalamazoo (Mich.), 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 26.
UChicago at Kenyon (Ohio), 12 p.m. CST Saturday, Mar. 1. UChicago at Denison (Ohio), 9 a.m. CST Sunday, Mar. 2.
Softball:
NFCA Leadoff Classic hosted at South Commons Softball Complex (Ga.), Friday–Sunday, Feb. 28–Mar. 2.
Swimming and Diving:
2025 NCAA DIII Diving Regionals hosted by Denison University (Ohio), Friday–Saturday, Feb. 28–Mar. 1.
Men’s Tennis:
UChicago at Johns Hopkins (Md.), 12 p.m. CST Saturday, Mar. 1. UChicago at Washington and Lee (Va.), 8 a.m. CST Sunday, Mar. 2.
Women’s Tennis:
2025 ITA Indoor Nationals, UChicago vs. Sewanee (Tenn.), 1 p.m. Friday, Feb. 28.
2025 ITA Indoor Nationals, UChicago vs. Wesleyan (Conn.), 9 a.m. Saturday, Mar. 1.
2025 ITA Indoor Nationals, UChicago vs. Emory (Ga.), 1 p.m. Saturday, Mar. 1.
Track and Field:
2025 UAA Indoor Championship hosted by UChicago, Saturday–Sunday, Mar. 1–2.
Wrestling:
NCAA Region V Regionals hosted by Wabush College (Ind.), Friday–Saturday, Feb. 28–Mar. 1.
Had to have
Verb before “up” and “away”
Mists, e.g. 20 Can’t go without
2x Platinum Meek Mill song where he worries about getting charged for gang activity 22 It could be brown, blonde, or ginger
Paul Revere, e.g.
Things on some lists
Give to GiveWell, say
Sails 29 Help you might call in
Throws in
Claudel whose sculpture “The Waltz” is displayed at the Musée Rodin 32 Disease associated with social outcasts 33 Chili’s partner 34 Many undergrad degs.
Rock ___ (common Chicago street sight)
Chicks, for example
“Predictions are hard, especially about the future” quipper
4:1, say
Ethics or Intelligence?
Strike down
Item of clothing hidden in “takes a shot of tequila”
One traveling with a pack?
CROSSWORD
86. What This Means to Me
By HENRY JOSEPHSON | Head Crossword Editor
Saag paneer pairings
James who wrote “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” 4 Nickname composed only of Roman numerals
5 Oxymoron you might hear in a casino 6 Works out
Pairs
8 Three for John Adams’s 1987 opera, “Nixon in China” 9 Man’s name that anagrams to another man’s name 10 Kiss a booboo, perhaps 11 One making money moves 12 Joel Embiid, notably 13 Ministers’ drafts
14 East Coast convenience store with a repetitive name
15 One of 95, for the Shard 20 Summertime fabric
21 ___ failure
23 Ironically, a safety version of this has a larger blade
24 Watch it!
26 Take it from the top 27 Sentences
28 Model airplane materials
29 Spice that sounds like something a bouncer might do?
31 Incentives
33 2018 novel whose title character is visited by Jason, Odysseus, and Daedalus
35 It’ll make you trip if it isn’t laced?
37 Tree that sounds like it should grow next to palms
38 Scrub
40 Heat metrics, for short
41 “Settlers of Catan” inspiration
43 Hugo-nominated Palmer who wrote “Too Like the Lightning”
44 “Nixon in China” tenor