Kilborn sued the school after UIC put him on administrative leave and conducted a full investigation into a question he posed to students on an exam. 

On his final exams, Kilborn used to include a fictional case involving workplace discrimination. To reflect the real-world experiences that soon-to-be lawyers may encounter, his exam asked students to evaluate a fictional scenario in which an employee was called various slurs by her managers. The exam censored the full slurs, and Kilborn had used the same question for years. That is until 2020, when some students got upset at the question and reported him to the dean.

Despite his attempts to resolve the situation, a university investigation ensued. Kilborn was placed on administrative leave, drug-tested, barred from campus, denied a raise and required to complete an eight-week diversity training program before he was allowed to return to the classroom. In response, Kilborn filed state and federal claims against the university for violating his constitutionally protected academic speech.

University officials filed a motion to dismiss Kilborn’s case, arguing he failed to state a claim for relief, and the district court agreed, dismissing the federal parts of the lawsuit. Once granted, the district court declined to exercise jurisdiction over Kilborn’s remaining state law claims and dismissed them without prejudice. The district court held that Kilborn’s speech was not constitutionally protected because it did not address a matter of public concern.  

In March, in Kilborn v. Amiridis, the 7th Circuit reversed the lower court’s decision with respect to Kilborn’s First Amendment claim. It held that Kilborn had adequately stated a claim and sent the case back to the district court, signaling that public university professors have remedies for legal relief when their First Amendment rights are violated in the classroom setting. 

The decision reaches far beyond one professor’s law school exam. The question remains: Can a university truly be a marketplace of ideas if a professor risks being sanctioned for using hypothetical scenarios that reflect the messy, uncomfortable realities their students may face? 

Notably, the U.S. Supreme Court in Garcetti v. Ceballos held that public employees have no First Amendment protection for speech made pursuant to their official duties — but it expressly declined to address whether that rule applies to a professor’s academic scholarship or teaching. The 7th Circuit declined to apply Garcetti in this case because “expression related to academic scholarship or classroom instruction implicates additional constitutional interests.” By issuing its decision, the 7th Circuit joins several other circuits in holding that Garcetti’s rule does not extend to a professor’s scholarship and teaching.

Although Kilborn’s claim may still fail on the merits, this decision is a win for academic freedom and free speech supporters alike, and may have implications for other pending cases involving university faculty.

At a time when professors walk a tightrope between fostering robust debate and fostering inclusion in their classrooms, the Kilborn decision sends the message that professors should not have to choose between their careers and their constitutional rights. 

Gerry Regep is a law student at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law.

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We agree with Roan. The major labels should contribute to musicians’ health care, whether musicians count as legal employees or not. But considering music streaming services account for 84% of music revenue, the tech giants who own those services should contribute just as much, if not more. The musicians on whose creative labor they built their business should have health insurance as part of the bargain.

Music industry’s ugly truth

Like a whistleblower offering eyewitness testimony, Roan spoke truth to power — and risked embarrassment — by admitting she lost her health insurance when she lost her original record deal. As she put it, “I got signed as a minor, and when I got dropped, I had zero job experience under my belt. And like most people, I had a difficult time finding a job in the pandemic and could not afford health insurance. It was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and so dehumanized to not have (health care).” Signing a record deal not only doesn’t guarantee you’ll ever release a record — it also doesn’t guarantee that you’ll have enough money to care for yourself.

The response to Roan’s speech was as predictable as a three-chord progression: Industry defenders rushed to explain legal precedents and why things couldn’t possibly be different, while others praised her courage but missed the bigger picture entirely.

Here’s the thing about the music industry in 2025. We’re still so busy pointing fingers at the traditional villains — the major labels — that we’ve normalized the new power players who’ve quietly taken control. Think of the major labels as aging crime bosses, still throwing their weight around in their old neighborhoods while a new generation of thugs — the tech giants — has already come to dominate the latest racket across the whole city. The old guard still demands their protection money, but the real power has shifted to those who control the digital streets.

Economy of digital music

Imagine walking into a Las Vegas casino. The drinks are free, the music is pumping and everything seems designed for your entertainment. But we all know the house always wins. That’s exactly how Big Tech treats music today — except in this casino, the artists aren’t just serving the drinks. They are the drinks. Their work, creativity and very essence are the loss leaders that keep users engaged, scrolling and generating valuable data for the house. The artists’ music is the free cocktail that keeps users at the slot machines of social media and streaming platforms.

The numbers tell the story: Spotify, Apple, Amazon and Google control over 97% of music streaming subscriptions. This isn’t just market dominance; it’s a chokehold on cultural distribution. Everything runs through them. These companies have masterfully positioned themselves as the benevolent gatekeepers of culture, all while treating artists’ work as what it really is to them: engagement bait for their real business models.

We love Roan’s idea of the major labels ponying up for musicians’ health care. We’d love it even better if Big Tech paid their share. About 6% of music streaming revenue, currently shared by the major labels and the streaming services, could cover the annual premiums for every professional musician in the U.S. 

How do we figure? Estimates of the number of professional musicians vary, but the average is about 100,000. To be conservative, we looked at health care costs in a big city. Health insurance premiums through the Chicago chapter of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) start at about $750 a month, or $9,000 a year. (Only some working musicians qualify to be in a musicians union, by the way — mostly those in classical, big band and theater orchestras.) That works out to $900 million in health care premiums. Meanwhile, music streaming revenue reached almost $15 billion last year. So just 6% of revenue would cover every professional musician. Let’s start there.

The platform paradox

When we talk about Big Tech’s responsibility to artists, the usual counterargument goes something like this: “But look at all the exposure they provide! Ten million artists can now reach audiences!” This is the digital equivalent of being paid in exposure — a currency that, last time we checked, isn’t accepted by landlords or health insurance companies.

The paradox of the internet platforms is that every artist’s work can be available, but only a few superstars get noticed. It might seem like a fair competition. But the reality of who’s getting what in online music is more complex and more insidious.

Take Spotify, as brilliantly documented in Liz Pelly’s book “The Mood Machine.” Many millennials have never known a different way of consuming music. But behind their sleek interfaces, the music streaming platforms are massive black boxes, with opaque algorithms and secretive payment systems. It’s not just that we can’t see how the sausage is made — we also can’t even be sure of what’s being counted as sausage. Self-dealing flourishes in darkness: Platforms can promote their playlists, favor certain artists over others and manipulate rankings, all without meaningful oversight or accountability.

What’s worse, Spotify isn’t satisfied with distributing music; it’s actively reshaping how music is created. The platform promotes low-royalty background music and switches out human curation for lame algorithms. It’s like replacing a supermarket with a vending machine and calling it progress.

Real cost of ‘free’ labor

When Google has $95 billion in cash on hand while musicians struggle to afford basic health care, we’re not witnessing market efficiency — we’re watching a massive transfer of wealth and value from creators to platforms. We’ve built a digital economy in which the construction workers who built the casino can’t afford to buy food at its restaurants. The standard defense is that musicians can make money from concerts and merchandise. But that ignores two crucial facts:

1. The live music industry is dominated by the Live Nation/Ticketmaster monopoly, another corporate python slowly squeezing the life out of artistic independence.
2. Merchandise accounts for only an estimated 2% of the average musician’s revenue — hardly enough to cover a single medical bill, let alone a sustainable living.

The most powerful companies in the world got that way in part by not paying for what they use. Talking about concerts and T-shirts is an abdication of their responsibility and a distraction from that simple truth.

A new path forward

What Roan’s Grammy speech really highlighted wasn’t just the failure of record labels — it was also the failure of our entire approach to creative labor in the digital age. The solution isn’t just to demand health insurance from labels (though the money Roan has raised through donations matching her own is a great start). We need to fundamentally rethink how we value and compensate creative work in an era in which tech giants are the de facto gatekeepers of the arts.

The fights that Prince, Tom Petty and Taylor Swift heroically launched against the music industry made a difference, sometimes even for other artists. But their efforts didn’t lead to structural change. The industry has closed up any openings these artists pried open. The reason is that only a few superstars have the wealth and power to stand up to the record labels or Big Tech. Spotify is happy to promote Swift’s rerecorded versions — that’s one negotiation with one superstar. It’s the exception that proves the rule.

When it comes to other musicians, however, Spotify has pulled the rug out from under them by refusing to pay artists even a penny when they get fewer than 1,000 streams.

Here’s a radical proposition: What if we treated Big Tech companies like every other business that has to pay for what it uses? What if platforms that profit from creative labor were required to contribute to the health and welfare of the creators who make their businesses possible?

It’s not just about deep pockets, though companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Spotify could certainly afford it. It’s about recognizing that in the digital economy, platforms have as much responsibility for artists’ livelihoods as traditional employers.

Breaking the spell

The tech industry has spent years casting a spell, convincing us that their dominance is as natural and inevitable as gravity. It took the bravery of Roan donning her wizard hat to break that spell at the Grammys. She’s freed us from the magical charms of the music industry’s — and Big Tech’s — carefully constructed narrative.

Regulation of Big Tech isn’t just possible — it’s essential. The artificial intelligence takeover is upon us. It’s mostly empty, flawed and cynical. And every day, it’s more clearly revealing itself to be the next vehicle for unfair exploitation of workers and consumers. Music isn’t the only sector being stripped for parts. Tech companies should be held to higher standards. That includes contributing to the health care and well-being of the creators who make their platforms valuable in the first place.

It might seem counterintuitive to look to music distributors to support creators. But in an age in which distribution has become more valuable than creation, it’s exactly where we need to look. The fight for the value of artists’ labor might not seem like a priority at a moment of so much uncertainty and injustice. We can’t help seeing musicians as coughing canaries in the coal mine that we’re all working in. Every sector of the post-AI economy could eventually require this kind of reform.

The free drinks at the casino aren’t free — someone always pays the price. It’s time we asked whether that price should be borne entirely by the artists who make the whole show possible in the first place.

Jenny Toomey is co-founder and former executive director of the Future of Music Coalition and co-founding member of the indie rock band Tsunami. She previously ran the independent record label Simple Machines Records. Peter DiCola is a professor of law at Northwestern University. He worked with the coalition from 2000 to 2014.

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That question, an update of Richard Nixon’s memorable farewell to news reporters as he dropped out of the California governor’s race in 1962, came to mind on the heels of some unusually welcome news about violent crime in Chicago.

The city finished April with 20 reported homicides, the lowest count of any April since 1962, according to a WBEZ analysis. 

Also, the public radio station found that the city’s “116 murders through this year’s first four months mark the lowest January-through-April tally since 2014.”

Even as the city braces for its usual summertime surge in violent crimes, Chicago still appears to be on pace to hit Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2025 goal of having fewer than 500 homicides for the first time in a decade.

Meanwhile, is Washington tuned in to the good news — and how we can have more of it?

Trump’s historic blizzard of executive orders in the first 100 days of his second term in office poked his presidential nose back into Chicago’s affairs at the very moment when good news is happening without him.

Three of his executive orders in particular seemed to be aimed at Chicago.

One seeks to end all federal consent decrees governing police reform efforts.

That would include Chicago’s agreement, which dates back to the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald, 17, by then-Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke in October 2014.

McDonald died after Van Dyke pumped 16 9 mm bullets into him. In 400 pages of reports, police had claimed that McDonald was acting “crazed” while walking down the street and had lunged at officers after refusing to drop a knife, leading department supervisors to rule the homicide justifiable.

Video of the incident released later showed that McDonald was walking away. Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder, and Chicago and the U.S. Department of Justice signed a consent decree to address the underlying civil rights issues of the case.

A second executive order by Trump calls on state and federal officials, as WBEZ reported, to “publish lists of jurisdictions often called sanctuary cities that limit cooperation with federal officials’ attempts to arrest immigrants who are in the country illegally.”

That sounds like Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance. First declared by Mayor Harold Washington in 1985 via executive order, it aims to ensure undocumented residents are not prosecuted “on the basis of immigration status.”

Yet another order signed by Trump would increase access to excess military equipment by state and local officials. It would also increase legal support for officers accused of wrongdoing while on official duty.

Although I believe in supporting law enforcement, the use of military equipment by local departments opens up another long-running debate about the wisdom and effectiveness of militarizing local police, as it could lead to unnecessary use of excessive force on, for example, political protesters.

Finally, Trump signed an order reinforcing an existing federal law that requires English-language proficiency for commercial motor drivers. That doesn’t sound too drastic, but I’m curious about how a Republican president whose party usually emphasizes local solutions for local problems is so eager to stick Washington’s nose into this one.

Amid these executive orders, will Trump and his MAGA movement notice the good news happening on Chicago streets and other big cities?

Is it possible that Trump and MAGA have drawn so much political mileage out of the crime-ridden-hellhole narrative about Chicago to be deterred by mere facts?

“Chicago is a shooting disaster,” Trump tweeted way back in August 2013. “They should immediately go to STOP AND FRISK. They have no choice, hundreds of lives would be saved!”

Stop-and-frisk policies also are very controversial, yet popular among those who first hear about it. Which reminds me of a wise saying of H.L. Mencken that Ronald Reagan loved to quote: “For every problem, there’s a solution that’s neat, plausible and wrong.”

Trump’s tireless tweeting often brings that to mind.

To find real solutions requires more careful examination than you are likely to hear from the next bar stool.

My years of covering crime and other problems in Chicago’s communities have shown me how a lot of street-savvy and dedicated professionals and volunteers at the grassroots neighborhood level have been the unsung heroes that lead to safe and peaceful communities, if we give them a chance.

We can learn a lot from such apparent successes as community violence intervention, or CVI, programs. They hire ex-offenders to mediate gang conflicts and steer high-risk individuals to social services and jobs.

Such programs won’t end all of our urban crime problems, but I’ve seen a promising number of examples that have produced positive results.

Can the answers to our urban crime problems be found on the same streets that produced them? It’s worth a try.

Either way, it’s better than turning our neighborhoods, whose residents want to live in peace and safety, into an escalating combat zone.

Email Clarence Page at cpage47@gmail.com.

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To me — and to many — public investment in these areas has always been a backbone of our nation’s health, prosperity and rich cultural life. These investments give muscle to the promise of “liberty and justice for all.” Yet clearly, there are those who see these same programs as bloated, ineffective or ideologically expendable.

Since the founding of our republic, nonprofit organizations have supplemented the work of government. This hybrid model of public and private investment is, in many ways, part of what makes America unique — and even admirable. Alexis de Tocqueville recognized this spirit in 1831 when he observed:

“Americans of all ages, conditions, and dispositions constantly unite together. … Americans group together to … build inns, construct churches, distribute books. I have frequently admired the endless skill with which the inhabitants of the United States manage to set a common aim to the efforts of a great number of men and to persuade them to pursue it voluntarily.”

Even in times of federal austerity, nonprofits have rallied. We sharpen our pencils. We fundraise harder. We merge, streamline, evolve. We try — desperately — to fill the gaps.

In theory, I support this hustle. There is no shortage of wealth in America, and nonprofits are capable of supporting the most vulnerable and creating immense positive social change.

But here is our sector’s catch-22: What if nonprofits actually were able to close the funding gaps caused by federal abandonment? What if private philanthropy — individuals, foundations, corporations, donor-advised funds — steps up enough to replace the billions once invested by the government? What if nonprofits were able to absorb the shuttered missions, personnel and responsibilities of gutted agencies?

Is that a win? It might look like one. But it would be a hollow victory. One that weakens — not strengthens — the American social contract.

In such a scenario, public goods are preserved but no longer publicly governed. Scientists, teachers, librarians, rangers, curators and nurses would serve at the pleasure of private funders. The people who benefit from their work would have lost their democratic stake. No longer accountable to voters or taxpayers, these public servants become beholden to the values and priorities of private wealth.

Yes, funding might still flow, at least for a time. But what gets funded — and who gets left out — shifts in troubling ways. Which causes align with a donor’s ideology? Which communities are deemed “marketable”? Who sets the terms of success? What if the tides turn again?

These are not just practical questions. They are philosophical ones. If we believe the services provided by public agencies — and the nonprofits that partner with them — are essential, then those services must remain accountable to the people. To all people.

Yes, nonprofits can — and certainly should — pursue efficiencies. Yes, more strategic mergers, stronger governance and better planning would help the sector thrive. That is not what’s in question. What is on the table is that we are witnessing the dismantling of public institutions without warning or reckoning. And then we’re told to fix it.

And who even knows. Maybe the nonprofit sector, and with it the Internal Revenue Service 501(c) code, could be gone before we know it. This isn’t American ingenuity or government efficiency. It’s a slow-moving abdication.

When the government fails to honor its commitments — and asks others to pick up the pieces — we risk not only inequality and inconsistency but also something deeper: the erosion of civic trust.

It’s time to ask ourselves: By cutting federal funding and turning to nonprofit philanthropy, are we preserving the safety net, or replacing it with a patchwork quilt sewn by donors? Either way, the threads are fraying, and we all have to stand up to the evisceration of our federal agencies and federal granting systems. Their existence is part of what makes America great — now and throughout its history.

What can we do?

Let’s come together across sectors and across parties and look out for one another. Corporations, individuals, nonprofits, Republicans, independents and Democrats, we are all Americans. Our North Star blazes in the words of our bold and beautiful Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Let’s get online, to the voting booth and to peaceful in-person uprisings — together — before it’s too late.

Sophia Shaw is the co-founder of PlanPerfect, which provides artificial intelligence-assisted strategic planning for nonprofits. Shaw is a former president and CEO of the Chicago Botanic Garden and an adjunct professor of social impact at the Kellogg School of Management. 

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The result of a lengthy and often ad hoc design process that involved innumerable top-notch players, the 24.5 acres at the northwest corner of Grant Park were designed to invite the public to its varied attractions. But the contagion of unsightly crowd control barriers, often coupled with cumbersome security checks, has thwarted public access and become the unfortunate norm in recent years.

Millennium Park was the first important public space in the United States in the 21st century. When it opened in 2004, Millennium Park was rightly hailed as a new kind of park, and it has proved to be a precursor to a generation of vibrant new urban spaces that include New York’s High Line (2009), The 606 (2015) and the Chicago Riverwalk (2016).

In the years prior to its opening, much of the press about Millennium Park, most especially in this newspaper, focused on the increasingly higher costs above the initial estimates. But the ballooning budget reflected an increasingly ambitious scope shepherded by design director and master planner Ed Uhlir, which changed from a modest bandshell and revamped parking garage to the stunning art- and design-driven series of spaces we now know. And those hundreds of millions of additional dollars were largely offset by epic philanthropic fundraising led by Sara Lee CEO John H. Bryan.

The public reaction on the park’s opening that July centered on the park’s considerable design features with Frank Gehry’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion; Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain; Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate (also known as The Bean); and Kathryn Gustafson, Piet Oudolf and Robert Israel’s Lurie Garden as the main attractions. These inventive venues are high art that doesn’t pander and were conceived to be fully accessible. But recent years have seen Millennium Park’s original promise diminished by bad public policy and safety concerns that need to be reconsidered.

And today, many parts of the park are showing their age. The Gehry-designed trellis above the Pritzker Pavilion’s lawn is currently undergoing extensive repairs. Much of the concrete on both sides of the bandshell is cracked and spalling; original signage is badly faded and dated; and the much-needed public restrooms need a good refresh. In contrast, Cloud Gate and the plaza it sits on look great — the result of renovations completed last year. But Crown Fountain could use a similar overhaul.

The very idea of the public park is America’s most important design contribution to the 19th century. Early examples like New York’s Central Park, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, Boston’s Fens and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park were almost always placed in a central location, open to all without a cost of admission. Parks throughout the country became central to cities’ identities and their public lives. Frederick Law Olmsted was not just our foremost landscape designer but also a proselytizer for the role of parks as civic institutions and promoters of public health.

Vintage Chicago Tribune: Millennium Park — ‘the best thing former Mayor Richard M. Daley ever did’ — 20 years later

And parks are a key part of Chicago’s design legacy. Our boulevard-linked system of large parks — Jackson and Washington parks on the South Side, Douglass and Humboldt parks on the West Side, and Lincoln Park on the North Side — combined the considerable talents of Olmsted, Calvert Vaux and William Le Baron Jenney, among others. The boulevard system’s 26-mile length touches on numerous neighborhoods throughout the city. These green open spaces often spurred the initial development of these neighborhoods and can provide an impetus for their ongoing renewal.

While still one of our newest parks, it’s important to recognize that Millennium Park’s efficacy as a public park has been hampered in recent years. Originally, ticketed events were rare: The occasional big artist necessitated temporary fencing around the pavilion and its lawn. But recent years have seen “temporary” fencing around the perimeter of the entire park, and many periods when entry is tightly controlled with invasive security searches and long lines to just visit the park. Much of this can be attributed to public safety concerns during the pandemic, but it’s long past time that these anti-democratic restrictions are removed. Ticketed events should be the rare exception. Gates and fences should be eliminated.

This corner of Grant Park might be the most accessible single spot in the entire city, with abundant public transportation. CTA buses and trains are available nearby, and Metra and South Shore Line trains stop at Millennium Station directly below the park. And car parking is not a problem with 3,976 spaces underneath in the Grant Park North and Millennium Park garages.

But this public access is no longer reflected at the perimeter of the park, where the fencing is seldom removed. Balancing maintenance and repair with public access isn’t easy. But adding militaristic public safety measures shouldn’t be a part of Millennium Park.

Millennium Park was Mayor Richard M. Daley’s remarkable response to a gaping hole that revealed railroad tracks and surface parking over the eastern half of the site — neither reflecting what an early cartographer labeled as “forever open, clear and free” nor Daniel Burnham’s vision of the grand formal lakefront park that is Grant Park.

Millennium Park’s original attractions still hold genuine power, allowing you to see yourself and the city reflected in The Bean’s fun house mirror; to walk on or be drenched in the water at Crown Fountain; and to hear live music from the exuberant stainless steel explosion of Gehry’s Pritzker Pavilion, a contemporary remaking of the traditional proscenium that’s reminiscent of Louis Sullivan’s rousing 19th century rendition at the Auditorium just a few blocks away.

Each of these experiences endures, as designed. But public access to these public assets is vital — and has been severely compromised through the last two mayoral administrations.

Millennium Park needs to, once again, become a living, breathing part of the city.

Mayor, tear down these walls.

Edward Keegan writes, broadcasts and teaches on architectural subjects. Keegan’s biweekly architecture column is supported by a grant from former Tribune critic Blair Kamin, as administered by the not-for-profit Journalism Funding Partners. The Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.

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I have thought a lot about what then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a March 4 news conference, in the aftermath of a notorious Oval Office meeting where President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance lambasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for not being thankful enough for American support. Trump then cut off U.S. military assistance to Ukraine to pressure Zelenskyy to agree to a bad deal but applied no pressure at all to Putin, even as he continued deadly attacks. “You should never have started it,” Trump said to Zelenskyy, blaming him for Russia’s invasion of his country. 

The Trump administration’s proposed deal to end the war in Ukraine was everything Putin was asking for: legal recognition of Russia’s control of Crimea, unofficial recognition of Russia’s control of nearly everything else it has seized since 2022, a commitment that Ukraine will never join NATO, lifting all sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014 and enhanced U.S.-Russia economic cooperation.

In return, Ukraine would receive only a vague “security guarantee” and commitment to help rebuild, with no assurance that the United States would help provide either or details of who might. Unsurprisingly, this plan emerged after Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin for several hours last week and had no apparent input from the Ukrainians. To get any kind of U.S. commitment for future assistance, Ukraine basically had to bribe the Trump administration separately with a favorable deal for minerals extraction.

If you’re Zelenskyy, or anyone in Ukraine right now, you have to be asking yourself too: How does any of this make sense? Why is the U.S. president blaming a democratic partner for getting invaded by an aggressive, authoritarian neighbor? Why is he pushing a “peace” plan that explicitly rewards Russia’s crimes? What could possibly explain an approach to the Russia-Ukraine conflict that so nakedly favors Russia? 

Bob Kustra: Donald Trump caved to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Will he repeat in the Russia-Ukraine talks?

But Russia isn’t just getting its way on Ukraine. The Trump administration has taken many other actions that have long been on Putin’s wish list. America has inexplicably damaged ties with its allies through a pointless trade war and eroded trust with our closest partners.

With his threats to take control of Panama, Greenland and Canada, Trump is normalizing the very idea of violating other states’ sovereignty, something Putin has been trying to do for years. 

The administration has also stopped or gutted programs designed to combat years of Russia’s gray zone warfare against the United States, including cutting funding for cybersecurity offices that fight foreign meddling in U.S. elections and disbanding the task force responsible for enforcing sanctions against Russia.

Meanwhile, Russia is the only major economy excluded from Trump’s punishing tariffs so far.

The Trump administration is defunding or dismantling a slew of other institutions that frustrate Putin because they combat Russian disinformation and help strengthen civil society and democracy around the world, such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the National Endowment for Democracy.

But that’s not all. Massive cuts to scientific research and attacks on America’s higher education institutions are undermining some of America’s greatest strengths and contributions to the world today. 

America’s strong and stable economy has been the envy of the world, but Trump’s inexplicable trade policy is even eroding that too.

If Russia wants a weaker America, this is exactly how you get there. This column isn’t long enough to list all the ways that Trump has done so yet, but you get the idea. 

The question then is: Why? Once you eliminate all the answers that make no sense, the answer that does may be the right one. 

The clues have been there all along. A Republican-led Senate panel that investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election found that at least 16 Trump campaign associates met with Russian officials or contacts, and special counsel Robert Mueller’s report details at least 140 contacts between Trump’s campaign and transition team and Russian nationals or intermediaries.

But even if you dismiss those reports as part of a “Russia hoax,” don’t you find it odd that the Kremlin spokesperson is openly cheering how America’s foreign policy now “largely coincides” with their own?

As the old Cold War saying goes, Americans believe in coincidences, while Russians believe in making coincidences happen.

Whether America is now aligning with Russia wittingly or unwittingly, only one of these two countries will reap the benefit, and it won’t be ours. The sooner we admit the problem, the sooner we can stop it. 

Elizabeth Shackelford is senior policy director at Dartmouth College’s Dickey Center for International Understanding and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune. She was previously a U.S. diplomat and is the author of “The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age.” 

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Where to begin? I have nothing against the historical figures represented in the president’s edict. Donald Trump’s list of heroes includes some truly wonderful people, as well as some head-scratchers. Most of them do belong in a full accounting of American history. But so do many others not represented in this handpicked list. The logic of the monument is to lift up and validate only certain individual actors in history — and to forget others, as I have argued before. The strength of this country has always been in its diverse grassroots multitudes, however much certain ideologies might channel us toward individualism. Also, these monuments, like Mussolini’s, are tasked with celebrating a particular artistic tradition — classical and European — at the expense of all others.

One person who should be on the list but isn’t is Chicago poet Gwendolyn Brooks, who gave us some important words on monuments that still ring true today. In reference to the Chicago Picasso — a work of art designed by an avowed communist — Brooks wrote that “art hurts. Art urges voyages.” Brooks’ dedicatory poem for the 1967 unveiling of the now-beloved statue displayed a certain ambivalence toward it. She much preferred the fire and feeling of Bronzeville’s Wall of Respect, created by Black painters and photographers that same summer with an abundance of community support.

But Brooks’ point about art holds true. It should challenge established values, not fawn on authority.

Not all official art is bad art, but the best art — which doesn’t necessarily mean the highest price tag — shakes us out of preconceived notions about how the world has to be. The best art comes from a wellspring of feeling and practices of cooperation, critique and care — not from edicts.

On April 17, at Northwestern University, where I teach, students and faculty held a day of action in conjunction with the National Day of Action for Higher Education organized by the Coalition for Action in Higher Education. Among other things, students, faculty, staff and families came together to create a dream line, a series of multicolored flags that expressed their hopes and dreams for a better future. They spoke of a future for trans kids to flourish, a future where immigrants’ contributions to our country are valued in their fullness, where we take care of one another, where we recognize the importance of art and science and history and education. A future in which we care for the Earth, in which we all are free.

The result was both beautiful and powerful. Bringing together the dreams of a multitude of participants, resisting the crabbed, hateful vision of the regime currently in power, it emerged from and bolstered our refusal to let the hurt and fear we feel dominate us.

Such moments of restorative reflection and radical imagination might not count as art to be collected in a museum, but they can and should take their place within an art of creative resistance and protest.

Finally, from another perspective, Trump’s “Garden” isn’t a good use of funds. Diverting NEH funding toward the commissioning of top-down, politically prescribed “art” is an affront to the vital work the NEH has historically done. Slashing the NEH budget has also drastically cut the budgets of state humanities councils, which support cultural work all over each state. (Full disclosure: Illinois Humanities has supported my work teaching humanities to South Side young people and organizing cultural programs at the South Side Community Art Center; the NEH supported an institute on Chicago cultural history that I co-led at the Newberry Library.) For 60 years, the endowment has enhanced education at all levels — K-12, higher ed and community-based — by supporting a thoughtful and critical engagement with history, art and culture. It has enriched and diversified the lives of rural and urban communities and everyone in between, helping us make sense of our experiences and our cultural memory.

Draining resources in tandem with the destruction of all this, the Garden of Heroes promises, instead, to be a paragon of forgettability, a boondoggle for sycophancy. Past Republican administrations, though I might have disagreed with their priorities, had officials who cared about supporting arts and humanities programming. The current administration offers only aggressive incompetence and an arrogant, insatiable appetite for the destruction of all humane values. It doesn’t want independent thinkers and creative visions.

But artists and humanities scholars know how much is on the line. We can and will find ever more creative ways to resist.

Rebecca Zorach is a professor of art history at Northwestern University and the author of the book “Temporary Monuments.”

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But let’s imagine, for a moment, that I wanted Trump and his MAGA acolytes to prosper and thrive in the 2026 midterm elections and forever thereafter.

I’d cancel Bill Maher and Saquon Barkley.

That’s what many of my fellow Democrats did, after Maher dined with Trump at the White House and Barkley played golf with him. The blogosphere lit up with left-wing vitriol against Maher, a comedian who has been highly critical of Trump for many years. No matter, the haters said: Maher got “played” by the president, who will seem less sinister in light of their meeting.

Ditto for Barkley, who went to the White House with other members of the Philadelphia Eagles while several players — including Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts — passed on the invitation. But Barkely also hit the links with the president, then hitched a ride with him on Air Force One to the Eagles reception.

That earned him a torrent of abuse on social media, where people called Barkley — who is Black — an “Uncle Tom” and a “token.” Barkley replied that he had also golfed with Trump’s first predecessor, Barack Obama, and that Barkley had “respect” for the office of the presidency.

But that just made the critics bray more loudly, of course. Trump deserves no respect, they said, and anyone suggesting otherwise was complicit in his evil actions.

Again, I heartily agree with their views of Trump. But I’m already voting Democrat in 2026, just like they are. The people we need to convince are independents and Republicans.

And these voters will be aggravated — not persuaded — by the attacks on Maher and Barkley. Even Larry David’s funny (OK, very funny) takedown of his fellow comedian Maher — in which David imagines enjoying a pleasant dinner with Hitler — will estrange the people we need to enlist.

The theory seems to be that if we shame them enough, they’ll come over to our side: “Hey, someone is likening me to Hitler! I’d better change how I vote!” But the truth is precisely the opposite, of course. When people are shamed, they don’t roll over and concede; instead, they put up their dukes and fight.

And nobody — literally, nobody — likes a scold. That’s the big theme of a recent essay in the New Yorker by Andrew Marantz, which should be required reading for any Democrat who wants to reclaim Congress and the White House.

As Marantz points out, Trump lost young men by 15 percentage points in 2020 and won them by 14 points four years later — a nearly 30-point swing. And that’s not simply because he was running against a man, Joe Biden, in 2020 and a woman, Kamala Harris, in 2024.

It’s because these voters perceive Democrats as “hall monitors” who “tone-police” the public sphere, Marantz explains. Most of this demographic agrees with Democratic policies around taxes, the environment and more. But they reject the smug and censorious vibe of the party, which makes people feel they must pass a set of purity tests to enter the holy sanctum.

Never mind that Trump has become the Censor-in-Chief, arresting international students for protesting the war in Gaza and forcing academics to scrub their grants of words such as “diversity” and “women.” If the voters think Democrats are judging them, we’re going to lose.

And that’s why the canceling of Maher and Barkley is such a loser for us. Indeed, as Maher told his studio audience after his dinner with Trump, it’s “emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days.”

We have to change that, right now. Of course, we should keep hammering on Trump’s policies, which have wrought so much hell since he returned to office. But we also need to drop our goody-good pretenses, which are a guaranteed turnoff to big swaths of Americans.

In a 2021 survey by The Hill and HarrisX, 79% of Republicans and 64% of independents said cancel culture “unfairly punishes people for their past actions.” If you want to bring those people into our column, lay off Maher and Barkley. Every time you condemn them, you create another vote for you know who.

Is that what you want?

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania and serves on the advisory board of the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest.

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A pair of Canada geese have returned to the pond, building a nest of reeds and down near the weeping willow tree. I used a pallet to build an island home for them this year, hoping to keep their eggs safe from the usual predators. But they were determined to occupy the same real estate as last year, and I’m crossing my fingers they’ll have a successful hatch.

Animals aren’t the only organisms coming to life in spring. I can almost hear shoots pushing upward everywhere beneath my feet. Now is the time for wildflowers — ephemerals that bloom when sunlight warms the forest floor before the leaves of trees completely emerge.

A recent walk in the woods revealed patches of fragrant bloodroot, tiny purple violets, shooting stars with their pink petals dangling downward and my favorite bluebells with their nodding clusters a lure for butterflies and bees. I’m still watching for the sweet Dutchman’s breeches — each bloom resembling an upside-down pair of trousers.

But one of the most magical spring events on our farm is still a few weeks away, and I don’t need a Farmer’s Almanac to predict it. Around the end of May and in early June, it’s going to snow! Yes, snow.

And for that I can thank the majestic Eastern cottonwood tree that has been growing on the farm on the edge of a creek since, well, before the farm was cultivated. It was growing there before Iowa became a state in 1846. It may have been knee-high when the land was Sauk and Fox tribal hunting ground.

The cottonwood, widespread and native to North America, is dioecious — meaning each tree is either male or female. This particular cottonwood is female and, thus, the anticipated snow.

The first sign in April is long strands of yellowish-green catkins dangling from every twig — thousands of them. These catkins develop into fruiting capsules that will, when ripened, burst open and launch millions of seeds like miniature parachutes, fluffy down carrying them across the landscape in a blizzard of white. With just the right breeze and a little luck, a few of those tiny seeds will land in wet soil on the edge of a ravine and become the next generation.

According to Kathleen Cain, author of “The Cottonwood Tree: An American Champion,” a single Eastern cottonwood can produce as many as 30 million seeds in one season. The older a tree grows, the more seeds it makes. It’s no wonder this magnificent tree snows for several days — clouds of white floating over fields newly planted with corn or soybeans.

It’s dramatic! It’s fantastic! It’s magical!

For residents of Chicagoland, that same snowy magic is not so far away. Illinois’ state champion Eastern cottonwood, the largest in the state, is in the Byron Forest Preserve near Mount Morris, about 100 miles west of downtown Chicago. According to the Illinois Big Tree Register, she stands over 120 feet tall and is the largest tree of any species in Illinois.  Her trunk measures more than 28 feet around with a crown spread of 116 feet.

She is a dramatic, fantastic, magical sight at any time — but especially in the spring — when it snows.

Susan Koch is a former chancellor of the University of Illinois Springfield. She and her husband farm and raise purebred Angus cattle in Muscatine County, Iowa.

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Bears great Steve “Mongo” McMichael wasn’t just a teammate during our Super Bowl run. He was a once-in-a-generation personality — fearless, funny and fiercely loyal. Whether it was on the field, in the wrestling ring or in a quiet moment with his family, Mongo brought everything he had to the table.

When he was diagnosed with ALS — one of the cruelest, most unforgiving diseases out there — none of us were surprised to see him fight it with the same intensity he brought to every quarterback he ever chased down. But that didn’t make it any easier to watch.

ALS strips away everything slowly and relentlessly. It started with Steve’s grip, then moved to his ability to eat, speak and eventually breathe on his own. The pain, the discomfort, the exhaustion — it’s something no one should have to endure. And yet, Steve endured it all with grit, grace and heart.

And through it all, he found relief and even some peace. Not from pharmaceuticals, but from something the public still doesn’t fully understand: hemp.

Now, let me be clear — I’m not talking about the cheap stuff you see behind the counter at gas stations. I’m talking about carefully produced, high-quality hemp-derived products. Since Steve’s diagnosis, we began digging into the science and looking for help. Liquid delta-8 products became a game-changer in Steve’s care.

These products eased his pain. They improved his mood. They brought a level of comfort that opioids simply couldn’t — and without the haze, the dependency or the risk. The doctors told us Steve had maybe two to five years. But he kept fighting well beyond that. And I genuinely believe these hemp products played a major role in that extension — not just of time but of dignity.

This wasn’t about getting high. It was about staying human.

When Steve felt better, we all felt better. His family, his nurses, his fans — nobody wants to see a man suffer like that. These products gave him some relief, and they gave us all a little breathing room during the most brutal moments of his journey. What made the actual difference in Steve’s physical and emotional well-being were those hemp products.

And yet, right now, lawmakers across the country are working to ban or severely restrict access to the very products that helped Steve. They’re doing it under the false assumption that these compounds are dangerous or recreational-only. That’s just not true.

This outdated view does real harm. It ignores the science. It erases the stories of families like mine. And worst of all, it removes a vital option for people living through hell, just because the political conversation hasn’t caught up with the reality on the ground.

There’s a way forward. We can have a well-regulated cannabis market and a safe, responsible hemp market. Regulation doesn’t have to mean prohibition. It should mean quality control, proper labeling, transparency — the things any consumer deserves, especially when their health is on the line.

I co-founded Project Champion to advocate for that kind of future. Not just for former athletes like Steve and me, but for veterans, seniors, caregivers, and anyone looking for a natural, nonaddictive way to feel better.

Steve believed in this fight. He supported this mission. And now that he’s gone, I’m going to carry it forward.

Let’s be honest about what’s at stake. This isn’t about culture wars or politics. It’s about compassion, about options and about common sense. It’s about giving people tools that help — especially when everything else has failed.

Mongo never quit. Neither will I. And neither should we.

Rest easy, my brother. Your fight isn’t over. We’ve got it from here.

Jim McMahon, quarterback for the 1985 Super Bowl-winning Bears, played in the NFL for 15 seasons. McMahon considers medical cannabis a “godsend” for the football-related injuries that have plagued him. He is co-founder of advocacy group Project Champion, along with NFL greats Ricky Williams and Kyle Turley, and co-founder of Revenant, a line of cannabis products.

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