The Daily Northwestern Thursday, October 31, 2019
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City praises CARP’s success in outreach More and more groups have raised climate awareness By EMMA EDMUND
daily senior staffer @emmaeedmund
Emma Edmund/Daily Senior Staffer
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. Pritzker discussed a wide range of topics, including the legalization of recreational marijuana.
IL leaders push end to violence
Gov. Pritzker, Kim Foxx emphasized criminal justice system reform By EMMA EDMUND
daily senior staffer @emmaeedmund
CHICAGO — Governor J.B. Pritzker and Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx emphasized the need to end violence and reform the criminal justice system at Axios’ “State of the American City in Chicago” event Wednesday. Axios executive editor Mike Allen asked the leaders about topics ranging from violence in Chicago to the implications of legalized recreational cannabis.
When asked about recreational cannabis legalization, Pritzker said part of the state’s reasoning behind the new law is to potentially expunge the records of around 700,000 people who were convicted of low-level crimes such as possession or selling of small amounts of the drug. He added the state still needs to be very cautious when rolling out this new legislation. “What worries me about it is making sure that as we launch it, it’s done in a way that we’re protecting all of our families across the state, we’re protecting the young people in our state, making
sure that we’re doing everything we can to have this rolled out in a way that is equitable,” Pritzker said. When Foxx spoke with Allen, however, her focus surrounded the normalization of violence in Chicago, which she said she experienced while growing up in the city. After becoming the Cook County State’s Attorney, she said the number one prosecution referred to her office was retail theft. She added she has shifted her office’s priorities toward gun violence, which she said drives the violence seen in the county’s
communities. “Where do you believe your opportunity comes from if you believe that you can be struck down at any point?” Foxx asked. “(The office’s aim of reducing violence) is for the parents who won’t let their children go out to play. When we talk about inequity, you don’t even have the ability to get fresh air, to go play without fear.” She stressed the need to detach from the traditional “good-guy/ bad-guy” narrative used to distinguish people, and instead adopt a view that everyone has the » See REFORM, page 10
In December 2018, Evanston City Council passed the Climate Action and Resilience Plan, Evanston’s response to climate change as the Great Lakes region grows more sensitive to a changing environment. Almost a year later, Kumar Jensen, Evanston’s chief sustainability and resilience officer, said the plan’s greatest success in implementation has been getting more people and organizations to talk about and work on the objectives of the plan. “It’s somewhat hard to measure the impact, but the reach has been phenomenal,” Jensen said. “We would like to see young people more engaged in policy and programs within the city, and having them receive good information about what some of the challenges are. We hope to also spur some good feedback and suggestions of things that we could do.” The city used CARP to recognize some of the dangers climate change poses to residents, especially for low-income and people of color, who are more often exposed to climate hazards and have a reduced capacity to adapt to such hazards. Climate change has already started taking a toll on the Great Lakes region, with states in the area recording an overall 1.4 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature in the period of 1985 to 2016
compared to 1901-1960. Jensen said outreach has been successful in the sense that more people are interacting with and working on the plan than in previous months. For example, Jensen said EvanSTEM, an Evanston/ Skokie School District 65 project designed to increase underrepresented success in STEM programs, has students using local climate change-related content in their science fair projects. The Democratic Party of Evanston’s Climate Action Team also serves as one of the organizations using CARP to address climate change. Bob Heuer, the chair of the Climate Action Team, said the DPOE seeks to initiate a cultural change that gets residents more concerned about climate change threats. He and the task force plan to act as a liaison group for various Evanston organizations, especially District 65 and Evanston Township High School District 202. “There are a lot of people who want to do something and they don’t know what to do,” Heuer said. “If you’re just thinking about what you’re doing in the context of a broader set of groups, then let’s make this City-School Liaison Committee the venue where students can drive a lot of change.” Jensen also mentioned that coordination between individual Evanston groups can be one of the trickier aspects of climate change response. He said he wants to work on getting groups together to create a “conceptual map” of which CARP actions are being acted upon, so » See ENVIRONMENT, page 10
ASG debates The NU voter participation rose last year Rock’s painting University’s uptick in midterm elections outpaced many other colleges Senators passed resolution backing weekend protesters By YUNKYO KIM
the daily northwestern @yunkyomoonk
After a heated Wednesday debate about resolutions denouncing the University’s decision to paint over protest messages on The Rock, Associated Student Government passed one of two resolutions. As of now, the painters of The Rock remain anonymous. The first legislation was written by Matthew Wylie, the speaker of the Senate and Weinberg sophomore. Soteria Reid, executive officer of justice and inclusion in ASG, wrote the second piece of legislation after a disagreement while collaborating with Wylie. The SESP junior’s second resolution passed, and Reed said the
writer and sponsors of the first resolution should have attempted to further incorporate the voices of the protesters and the Native American community at NU. “There was a disagreement between me and the Speaker about the role that student narratives play in crafting legislation,” Reid said. “I very strongly believe there can be no legislation that comes before the Senate where ASG as the governmental body unilaterally makes the decision about what is the most important issue to students without first talking to them.” The message on The Rock was first discovered during Homecoming Weekend. It criticized the University’s inaction to remove John Evans, the superintendent of Indian affairs and territorial governor of Colorado during the Sand Creek Massacre, from Northwestern’s Evanston campus. Evans is also » See ASG, page 10
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
By AMY LI and JAMES POLLARD daily senior staffers @pamesjollard
Northwestern’s student voting participation rate more than doubled in the 2018 midterm elections, showing an increase from 2014’s 22.1 percent to 51.5 percent, according to a University release. Though the average voter participation rate at other institutions also increased significantly — from 19.7 percent to 39.1 percent — Northwestern’s dramatic uptick outpaced most of the 1,000-plus U.S. colleges and universities surveyed. The National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement was conducted by the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts University. Of the 14,896 eligible undergraduate, graduate and professional studies students enrolled at Northwestern in
2018, the study showed that 12,802 — or 86 percent — registered to vote. That also eclipsed the national average of 73 percent. Robert Donahue, acting director of Northwestern’s Center for Civic Engagement, said the center has been working towards creating a “new cultural norm” of voting upon entering college by integrating voter registration into orientation for all students. The center, in addition to encouraging undergraduate voter registration, launched several initiatives in 2018 that contributed to increased civic engagement on campus. One of those was the Student Ambassadors Program. In 2018, the center began training students to register people to vote. Student ambassadors also worked with residential halls and student groups to host events like “ballot parties,” where people could learn
Graphic by Emma Ruck
more about candidates and discuss how they would cast their ballot. This year, for the first time, the center also integrated voter registration into orientation for graduate students, which helped over 97 percent of graduate students who are eligible voters register, he said. Simply making the opportunity to vote more accessible for students has led to what Donahue called
promising rises in registration numbers. “It’s so important for our democracy,” Donahue said, “that young people get registered and get involved in learn(ing) how to educate themselves and learn how to vote responsibly.” Weinberg sophomore Abigail Roston said defining national events, such as Brett » See VOTE, page 10
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