The University of Chicago The Law School

My first intersection with anything related to Laquan McDonald was reading a couple of paragraphs about the shooting in the local papers. This was a story you’d see on a weekly basis because, at that time, Chicago police were shooting, on average, [close to] one Black person a week. The story was like, “Police see a young Black man armed with a knife, he comes at them, an officer shoots him in self-defense. End of story.

On first appraisal, the nine universities that the Trump administration singled out appeared to have no real choice but to concede to the administration’s demands. As set forth in the so-called Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, these include an oath to abide by the White House’s biological theories of gender and to show respect for “conservative” (but not liberal or centrist) values.

Clinical Professor Craig B. Futterman, director of the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project, was cited prominently in a Salon commentary piece on deportation raids in Chicago.

“We are in a fight for America," says Futterman. "And make no mistake, there is no guarantee that we will win. Absent a rebellion or inability to execute the law with regular forces, the President may not deploy the military against American citizens. But that is exactly what President Trump has done in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago.”