“There are twice as many murdered Palestinians as there are seats in the United Center. And Northwestern refuses to cut ties with genocide,” said Jordan Muhammad, a graduating student organizer with Students for Justice in Palestine, in a written statement. “While we sit here, Israel is destroying the dream of education, much less graduating, for young people in Palestine and we refuse to allow our university’s complicity to go unchecked.”

Some protesters wore keffiyeh scarves, a symbol of solidarity for a Palestinian state, and others waved Palestinian flags. The words “What about Gaza’s class of 2024?” were affixed to Muhammad’s graduation gown.

The disruption was peaceful and, after walking out, the graduate-activists gathered outside the United Center at a designated “free speech” area to continue their protest. A crowd of more than 100 protesters — some in graduation caps and gowns — encircled a banner reading, “No graduation in Gaza,” which featured photographs and short bios of some of the people killed in Gaza.

“I’m just very proud of our graduating students who have taken this stance and did not choose to be complicit in genocide,” said Mounica Sreesai, a doctoral student at Northwestern.

The pro-Palestinian protesters have demanded the Northwestern divest from financial assets with ties to Israel.

“The commencement ceremony is intended to honor the hard work and achievements of our student body,” a university spokeswoman said in an email. “As other universities have experienced this commencement season, a small group of students walked out during our ceremony. We remain incredibly proud of the accomplishments of our Class of 2024.”

One man exiting the commencement ceremony booed the pro-Palestinian protesters outside but declined to comment to the Tribune.

Another man shouted “Bring them home,” an apparent reference to hostages kept by Hamas since the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, which killed roughly 1,200 and plunged the region into an ongoing war. Roughly 35,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war since its inception, according to the United Nations.

The walkout comes as Northwestern — and many universities and colleges across the country — grapple with balancing the free speech of students protesting the Israel-Hamas war with the need to guard against discrimination on campus.

Northwestern President Michael Schill was grilled last month by lawmakers at a congressional hearing in Washington D.C. on the rise of antisemitism on college campuses, where he admitted that the university’s rules and policies “are falling short” and will be updated over the summer.

Officials from the Anti-Defamation League have called for Schill’s resignation, citing allegations of antisemitism on campus, particularly amid a recent pro-Palestinian protest encampment erected at Northwestern University, which was peacefully dismantled following negotiations between administrators and student activists.

In Schill’s commencement speech Sunday, he acknowledged that “this has been a difficult year.”

“But I want to focus on this moment right here in the United Center,” he said. “Today is about achievement. Today is about determination. Today is about you.”

The audience cheered. But shortly after, pro-Palestinian protesters began streaming out of the United Center, where roughly 7,700 Northwestern students were graduating.

Before the ceremony, Northwestern officials had warned against any commencement disruptions, as other universities and colleges nationwide have faced graduation ceremony protests or canceled commencement events citing pro-Palestinian activism.

“While the university supports freedom of expression, graduation ceremonies are not the time nor place for disruptive demonstrations,” Northwestern said in a written statement. “The university has designated a free speech area outside each venue and encourages anyone who wishes to engage in expressive activity to do so there. Any such activity inside the venue may not disrupt the ceremony or prevent others from enjoying it.”

The statement added that anyone who didn’t adhere to these rules “will face discipline, and anyone who disrupts the ceremony could be asked to leave.”

“All students, including those graduating, remain subject to the Student Code of Conduct,” the statement said. “Violations of the Code of Conduct will result in disciplinary sanctions up to and including expulsion. Degrees will be held pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings.”

Graduate Ben Cummings, who walked out in support of the Palestinians, acknowledged that he and other students were taking a risk to protest during commencement.

“In organizing, there was that level of risk,” he said. “We decided we were willing to take that risk, as part of a larger student movement across the country.”

The University of Chicago withheld the degrees of four seniors who allegedly participated in a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus, which was cleared by university police in May. A U. of C. spokesman said the process is standard after a formal complaint is reviewed by the university’s disciplinary committee.

Earlier this month, students also walked out of the graduation ceremony at the University of Chicago, citing the war in Gaza.

Students have also recently walked out of graduation ceremonies at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others as protest encampments and other pro-Palestinian demonstrations have taken hold at campuses across the country.

Higher education institutions nationwide have faced mounting accusations of fostering a hostile climate for Jews on their campuses, particularly since the Oct. 7 attack.

The Anti-Defamation League Midwest recently called for Schill’s resignation or removal by the university board of trustees, arguing in a statement that Jewish students at Northwestern “have been harassed and intimated by blatant antisemitism on campus.”

Several Jewish Northwestern students recently filed a lawsuit alleging the school allowed pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the now-defunct encampment to become “increasingly hostile to Jews.”

Schill, who describes himself as a “proud Jew” raised with a love for Israel, has said he believes the university can protect students from antisemitism and other forms of hate while allowing protesters their right to freedom of expression.

“We are confident we can continue to promote two principles at the core of our mission ― free expression and academic freedom ― while disciplining harassment and intimidation,” Schill said during the congressional hearing last month.

Ninety-nine-year-old Richard “Dick” Rung of Carol Stream recalled the Germans waited from atop the cliffs that encased the fiercely protected crescent-shaped Omaha Beach, one of five landing sites of the Normandy Invasion.

Once Rung’s vessel let down its ramp into the choppy waters and could no longer easily retreat, the enemy opened artillery and machine gun fire — including an 88 mm shell that tore through the ship and into the skipper’s quarters, just a few feet from where then-19-year-old Rung was standing.

Nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy that day, marking the largest amphibious invasion in military history and a turning point in World War II, which paved the way for the liberation of Europe.

An order to troops from Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower underscored the importance of the mission, which was code-named Operation Overlord.

“The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you,” the message said, in part. “In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.”

Yet D-Day was bloody for the Allied forces, with an estimated 4,414 killed that day alone, including about 2,500 Americans, with thousands more wounded; more than 73,000 Allied troops were killed in the ensuing Battle of Normandy, according to The Associated Press.

“D-Day was terrible,” Rung recalled during a recent interview with the Tribune. “You can’t even describe it. Everywhere, there were guys floating in the water. There were guys trying to get on the beach before they were hit. It was a terrible experience.”

Rung plans to return to Normandy for an 80th anniversary commemoration of the D-Day landings, which President Joe Biden is scheduled to attend.

“Seventy-three thousand brave Americans landed at Utah and Omaha beaches in Normandy on June 6, 1944 and the President will greet American veterans and their family members while in France to honor their sacrifice,” the White House said in a recent statement.

French President Emmanuel Macron will be presiding over an international ceremony on Thursday at Omaha Beach, where Rung landed.

Although the invasion occurred many years ago, Rung said his memories of D-Day are so vivid it sometimes feels much more recent.

“For me, it’s not 80 years ago,” said the retired Wheaton College history and political science professor. “Periodically, it (feels like) yesterday.”

For decades, Rung has had to grapple with why he survived when so many other young men never got to come home.

Blood from the dead and wounded had covered the deck of his ship, Landing Craft Tank 539, which had to be hosed down, he recalled.

Many troops made it through enemy fire only to be maimed or killed by mines buried in the sand of the beach that were intended to destroy Allied tanks and vehicles. When on land after the invasion, Rung, a motor machinist’s mate, always walked with trepidation and was warned to never touch anything along the beach.

He recalled once passing by a pile of the arms and legs of troops, believed to be casualties of that intricate minefield.

“Why did I live through this and I saw all these other guys that didn’t get through?” Rung said. “I always asked the question, ‘Why did it happen to them and not me?’ I’ve never forgotten what happened there.”

Walk on the beach

This will be Rung’s fourth trip back to Normandy since World War II.

The first time was for the 50th anniversary of D-Day. He recalled looking on at the shores of Omaha Beach and watching folks swimming in the water and running at its edge.

But he refused to walk in the sand, plagued by memories of the minefield that killed and injured so many troops a half-century ago.

“I wasn’t going on the beach,” he recalled. “I said to myself, ‘I wonder if they missed one mine.’”

Rung went back for the anniversary in 2022 and finally tiptoed on the shore, still a little nervous. He returned to Normandy last year on June 6 as well.

This year’s trip and the two previous ones were coordinated by the Best Defense Foundation, a San Diego-based nonprofit that honors military veterans and their families.

Rung is among roughly 50 World War II veterans the Best Defense Foundation is taking to France to be honored at the 80th anniversary commemoration this year.

“The number one thing is that veterans get a sense of closure and camaraderie,” said Amanda Thompson, executive director of the nonprofit. “To know that their sacrifice will never be forgotten.”

On previous trips, Rung has visited the Normandy American Cemetery, the final resting place of more than 9,000 military dead, most of whom lost their lives on D-Day as well as follow-up operations.

On this trip, Rung plans to pay his respects at the cemetery once again.

“There’s white crosses everywhere,” he recalled, noting that each one marks the grave of a veteran. “Every one is a tragedy. Someone’s son. And I’m here.”

The number of World War II survivors who can share this kind of firsthand history is dwindling.

“Every day, memories of World War II are disappearing from living history,” laments the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, which estimates that just under 120,000 of the more than 16 million Americans who served in World War II were alive as of 2023.

But the D-Day recollections of some of these veterans are captured in stories in the Tribune archives.

The Rev. George Knapp of Westchester, an Army captain and chaplain, recalled the waves were horrendous the night before D-Day and many troops went into battle seasick.

“The night before, while we waited to go in, the fellows were eating their C-rations, gambling, telling jokes — if they felt well enough to,” Knapp told the Tribune before his death in 2009. “Everyone knew some of us would get killed the next day, but it’s human nature to believe you’re not going to be one of them. You take the gamble that you’re going to come out OK.”

For a while, it seemed as though the Germans had won, according to John Hudetz, a U.S. Coast Guard signalman from Warrenville.

“They were all over the hills in pillboxes shooting down at us. It was like target practice for them,” he said in a Tribune story. “All afternoon there were mines exploding up and down the beach. Looking out at the ocean, I could see all the dozens of vessels out there firing in over the land. It sounded like freight trains flying over your head.”

Smoke and dust filled the air as dead bodies floated around the surviving troops wading in the water, recalled Robert Hayden, an Army veteran from Homewood.

“Dead bodies as far as you could see,” he told the Tribune. “Later we pulled the bodies out of the water and stacked them up on shore like cordwood.”

While it was horrible work, “we were just glad to be picking them up instead of being one of them,” he said.

On Thursday, the First Division Museum at Cantigny in Wheaton is scheduled to debut an outdoor immersive D-Day exhibit titled “Nothing but Victory,” which is designed to give visitors a visceral experience that simulates the landing at Omaha Beach.

“The special outdoor exhibit, a fusion of art and history, begins with a captivating visual story measuring 300 yards, the approximate distance across Omaha, with enemy fire raining down,” the museum’s website states. “After ascending the bluffs, the exhibit takes visitors on a path through simulated hedgerows culminating in a sculptural tribute to the heroic sacrifices made 80 years ago.”

Museum curator Jessica Waszak said the display intends to honor the pivotal role the invasion played during World War II as well as the sacrifice of the troops.

“Whether it’s time or emotions or life, the individuals who went to war, they gave so much up,” she said. “And families did too. The sacrifice the soldiers made on D-Day it could have been their entire life.”

Bittersweet victory

Rung will be turning 100 in September.

His wife of 75 years, Dot Rung, believes he was spared on D-Day because God had other plans for him. The couple went on to have two children, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

“That he survived it, when there were so few of them that did, I’ve often just thought the Lord had something more for him to do,” she said.

Raised in Buffalo, New York, Rung trained to be an auto mechanic after high school. He was drafted at 18 in 1943; once the Navy learned of his background in auto mechanics, he was sent to the U.S. Naval Institute in Richmond, Virginia, where he trained to work on diesel engines.

At Omaha Beach, his landing craft carried supplies, ammunition and troops to the shore from larger ships out at sea, because the Allies didn’t have control of major ports.

While his roughly two months of serving in Normandy were terrifying, Rung recalled a few bright times, including the day they received a shipment of oranges to distribute to the troops.

“Men waded into the water and were on the shore. We were throwing the oranges everywhere,” he said, smiling. “It was a nice, fun moment.”

Later in the war he shipped out again for the Pacific, traveling aboard a ship that carried a dangerous cargo of phosphorus shells. During 1945, he served in the Philippines and Japan.

Laughing, he recalled the time another crewmember bought a monkey from an islander and brought it back on their ship.

While Rung was temporarily manning the ship’s gun, the monkey climbed up the ship’s mast, unbeknown to him. Another vessel closed in behind them and threatened to fire unless they identified themselves.

Rung noticed the radar began detecting movement atop the ship’s mast. The monkey suddenly dropped from the mast and landed on Rung’s shoulder.

“I’d been hit!” he thought immediately, until he realized it was actually the monkey, not enemy fire.

The other ship turned out to be American.

“Things were so tense back then,” he said as he laughed, adding that the crew had to immediately get rid of the monkey.

After the Japanese surrendered, the skipper attached a broom to the mast of the ship, symbolizing a “clean sweep” of victory over the Axis powers, Rung recounted.

But the triumph was, in some ways, bittersweet: Rung also recalled visiting Hiroshima, Japan, after it was devastated by the atomic bomb, the first time a nuclear weapon was used in warfare.

He’s still haunted by the image of those who survived but were covered in severe burns.

On Memorial Day, Rung spoke about D-Day and his World War II service during a ceremony at Creekside Park Veterans Memorial in west suburban Winfield.

Although Rung said he had been committed to doing his part during World War II — and remains grateful the Axis powers were defeated — he explained to the crowd that the horror of the experience changed his thinking about war.

“Death and destruction were all around me,” he said in his speech. “War is hell. It truly is. Take that from someone who was there.”

After World War II’s conclusion, he vowed to “commit my future to being a peacemaker.”

“So as we remember … the hundreds of thousands who have paid the ultimate price, yes to preserve our freedom, but also to give us the opportunity to live in peace,” he told the crowd. “Let us strive to be peacemakers and, to the degree possible, to live in peace with our fellow man.”

The Associated Press contributed.

eleventis@chicagotribune.com

Schill, who described himself as a Jewish descendent of Holocaust victims and survivors, acknowledged the recent “disturbing spike in antisemitism” at Northwestern and other schools nationwide as he testified before congressional leaders during a hearing in Washington titled “Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos.”

He said the Evanston-based university will work over the summer to update its conduct code before the next academic year begins.

“Where there is conduct that threatens the Northwestern community, we must impose discipline, and we have done so,” Schill said during opening remarks. “Yet, I will be the first to admit ― our existing rules and policies are falling short, and we must improve our processes to meet the current challenge.”

Schill added that the university will also increase security and enhance enforcement of the student code of conduct.

“We are confident we can continue to promote two principles at the core of our mission ― free expression and academic freedom ― while disciplining harassment and intimidation,” he said.

Colleges and universities across the country have faced mounting accusations of fostering environments that are hostile or discriminatory to Jews, particularly since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel, which killed roughly 1,200 and plunged the region into an ongoing war.

The hearing before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce came as tensions on colleges nationwide have hit a fever pitch due to a movement of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and protest encampments, including one that took hold at Northwestern last month.

Schill, who has served as president of Northwestern since fall 2022, testified alongside the leaders of Rutgers University and the University of California at Los Angeles.

Several prominent leaders of Ivy League schools resigned under fire following testimony at a similar congressional hearing on campus antisemitism late last year.

Avi Gordon, executive director of the group Alums for Campus Fairness, called for Schill’s removal after the hearing concluded.

The organization launched a “six-figure digital and TV ad campaign” targeting “Northwestern University’s refusal to protect Jewish students.”

“At this juncture, it shouldn’t take the Northwestern board of trustees much soul-searching to do the right thing and fire Schill,” Gordon said. “It’s obvious he’s lost all credibility and must go.”

Officials with the Anti-Defamation League Midwest last month had called for Schill’s resignation or removal by the Northwestern board of trustees, claiming that the university president’s “actions amount to giving in to hatred and bigotry, empowering and emboldening those who have used intimidation, harassment, and violence to achieve their goals.”

The group Students for Justice in Palestine at Northwestern referred to Thursday’s hearing as “yet another congressional mock-trial” and a “McCarthyist project,” alluding to the political repression and persecution of people accused of communist ties in the mid-20th century.

“The congressional committee’s defamation and repression of pro-Palestine student protesters will purposefully ignore the violent and discriminatory Zionist counter-protesters,” according to a statement by the group. “Our own student repression represents mere fractions of the violence faced by those in Palestine. … Our movement for Palestinian liberation only grows in the wake of repression.”

Assault, harassment allegations

Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York, noted that the Anti-Defamation League recently gave Northwestern an F on its campus antisemitism report card.

She asked Schill about allegations that a Jewish student was assaulted at the Northwestern pro-Palestinian encampment.

“There are allegations that a Jewish student was assaulted and we are investigating those allegations,” Schill responded.

Stefanik also asked about an incident where a Jewish student was allegedly harassed and stalked on the way to Hillel, a Jewish organization on campus, as well as accusations that a student wearing a yarmulke was spat on.

“This is why you earned an F,” Stefanik added.

“All of these are allegations that are being investigated,” Schill said, adding that the university believes in “due process.”

Stefanik then asked Schill if it was true that a Jewish student was told to “go back to Germany and get gassed?”

“I’ve heard that alleged,” he said. “Again, it is being investigated. We will investigate any claim of discrimination.”

When questioned about discipline and consequences linked to campus antisemitic incidents, Schill said no Northwestern students have been suspended or expelled, though there have been “lots of investigations” into allegations of misconduct.

Schill declined to discuss individual allegations, adding that investigations are ongoing.

‘Embarrassing to your school’

While questioning Schill, one Republican lawmaker from Indiana said Northwestern has become “a joke.”

“Your performance here has been very embarrassing to your school,” said Rep. Jim Banks.

Yet Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington and Northwestern alum, argued that the hearing was being used for “political bullying purposes” as opposed to finding meaningful ways to combat antisemitism and other forms of discrimination.

“I agree completely with (Schill’s) elegant comments on the need to fight the scourge of antisemitism on our campuses and everywhere and I appreciate your own lived experience and your work to do that,” she said.

She also asked about Schill’s work to address safety concerns for Muslim and Arab American students, particularly amid the rise of Islamophobia and other forms of hatred and discrimination nationwide.

Schill said that “any form of hate, any form of harassment,” will be investigated by the university.

“Hate is hate, and we must investigate all of it,” he added later in the hearing.

Encampment agreement

Schill also stood by Northwestern’s decision to reach an agreement with pro-Palestinian demonstrators that resulted in the peaceful dismantling of an encampment on Deering Meadow, a popular open space on campus.

Pro-Palestinian encampments at other universities have resulted in the arrest of student protesters, dismantling by police, cancellation of graduation and other major events — and even violence in a few instances.

But the tents came down peacefully at Northwestern, where officials were able to negotiate a rare agreement with protesters that allowed demonstrations to continue while barring temporary structures and tents, except for one with aid supplies. The deal also prevented outsiders from joining these demonstrations.

The university vowed to provide students more information about the school’s investments, as well as establish a house for Muslim and Middle Eastern students to eat, socialize and pray, among other concessions.

During testimony, Schill described the Northwestern encampment as a threat to Jewish students on campus.

“As I watched what was unfolding there, and at encampments across the country, I believed that the danger it posed grew every day it stayed up,” he said. “Every day brought new reports of intimidation and harassment.”

Several faculty members have applauded the agreement, calling it “historic.”

“Some university presidents who testified recently before the House committee were forced to step down,” said a letter signed by faculty members, which was published in The Daily Northwestern earlier this week. “We call on (Northwestern’s) trustees to resist outside pressures and condemn the House committee’s misrepresentations of our campus.”

But Wendy Khabie, co-chair of the organization Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern and mother of a Northwestern student, said it’s “astonishing that (Schill) does not see this as capitulation.”

“We continue to be horrified by Northwestern’s insistence that they are doing everything they can to stop antisemitism on campus and today’s hearing reinforces our fears,” she said shortly after the hearing concluded.

No divestment

The chairwoman of the committee, Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina, called the agreement “a disgraceful deal,” which spurred multiple members of a university antisemitism advisory committee to resign.

“These antisemitic protests have led to hijacking buildings, erecting unlawful encampments, disrupting classrooms, and canceling commencements,” Foxx said. “They have been the principal agents of anti-Jewish harassment and violence and have made an absolute mockery of so-called university leaders.”

She went on to rebuke the three university leaders for “your decisions that allowed antisemitic encampments to endanger Jewish students,” adding that Schill should “be doubly ashamed for capitulating to the antisemitic rule-breakers.”

Schill rejected the premise that the university caved to demonstrators.

“We did not give into any of the protestors’ demands, and the commitments we made are consistent with Northwestern’s values and will ultimately benefit the university,” he said.

Schill added that he refused the protesters’ demand that the university divest itself from financial ties to Israel.

“I will not recommend to our board that Northwestern uses the endowment for political purposes,” he said. “By engaging our students with dialogue instead of force, we modeled the behavior we want them to learn from and apply daily.”

Antisemitism task force debacle

A few weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, Schill established an advisory committee tasked with helping to prevent antisemitism and hate on campus.

But seven members of that committee recently resigned in protest of Northwestern’s agreement with pro-Palestinian demonstrators to take down the encampment; committee members said they were not consulted about the deal or offered a role in negotiations.

“While intended to create an infrastructure for future conversations about Jewish and Zionist students’ experiences, the committees are so limited in the actions they are actually able to take that they are rendered useless,” one Jewish student who stepped down from the committee said in a recent Tribune opinion piece. “I no longer see Northwestern’s committee as paving an effective path forward — and instead have come to understand how completely performative these task forces are.”

Several lawmakers questioned why the members of the advisory committee were not consulted about the decision to reach an agreement with protesters or the terms of the deal; Schill indicated that it wouldn’t have been feasible to do so in a timely manner, and he wanted to reach a resolution as quickly as possible so the encampment would come down.

During Schill’s testimony, he pledged that Northwestern will “reconstitute a task force to guide our actions” and will use models from tasks forces at other schools that have tackled antisemitism.

“And we will do what we do best ― teach our students about the dangers of antisemitism,” he said.

Future of higher education

Many colleges and universities have grappled with protecting free speech on their campuses while protecting students from harassment and discrimination amid the war in Gaza, which has killed an estimated 35,000 Palestinians, according to United Nations officials.

An ADL report late last year revealed that nearly three-quarters of Jewish college students had experienced or witnessed antisemitism since the start of the academic year.

Arab Americans and Muslims have also faced rising Islamophobia and anti-Arab rhetoric, harassment and violence since the war began. A report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations released last month tracked more than 8,000 complaints in 2023, which included alleged hate crimes as well as education discrimination; this was a 56% increase from the previous year and the highest number recorded in the organization’s 30-year history.

The House recently passed legislation that would broaden the definition of antisemitism used by the Department of Education to enforce anti-discrimination laws, spurred by the student protest movement in opposition to the Israel-Hamas war. Yet opponents have argued the proposed definition would chill free speech on college campuses.

After a similar hearing on campus antisemitism in December, the president of the University of Pennsylvania stepped down amid backlash over her testimony, and the chairman of the school’s board of trustees resigned too. The president of Harvard University, who testified as well, also stepped down, though she had faced plagiarism accusations simultaneously.

Just before Thursday’s hearing concluded, the chairwoman indicated that the congressional probe of antisemitism allegations at Northwestern and the other two schools wasn’t over.

“Today’s hearing is the beginning, not the end, of the committee’s investigation of your institutions,” Foxx said to all three university officials who testified. “You’ll be held accountable for your records.”

eleventis@chicagotribune.com

Schill — who describes himself as a “proud Jew” raised with an enduring love for Israel — is slated to appear before lawmakers alongside the leaders of Rutgers University and the University of California at Los Angeles.

A similar congressional hearing on antisemitism on college campuses in December spurred the resignations of several leaders of Ivy League schools, amid fierce backlash to their testimonies.

The Anti-Defamation League Midwest recently called for Schill’s resignation or removal by the university board of trustees, arguing in a statement that Jewish students at Northwestern “have been harassed and intimated by blatant antisemitism on campus,” which has worsened since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel killed roughly 1,200 and plunged the Middle East into an ongoing war.

Northwestern officials said in a statement Tuesday that the school’s “foremost responsibility is ensuring the safety of our students.”

“We are confident in the actions we have taken to address antisemitism on our campus,” the statement said, adding that “President Schill looks forward to discussing them with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.”

The Republican chairwoman of that committee, however, has already expressed a hard-line stance when it comes to university officials, campus protesters and allegations of antisemitism.

“The Committee has a clear message for mealy-mouthed, spineless college leaders: Congress will not tolerate your dereliction of your duty to your Jewish students,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina in a statement. “No stone must go unturned while buildings are being defaced, campus greens are being captured, or graduations are being ruined. College is not a park for playacting juveniles or a battleground for radical activists. Everyone affiliated with these universities will receive a healthy dose of reality: actions have consequences.”

The hearing comes as colleges around the nation are rocked by a movement of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and protest encampments, including one established at Northwestern last month.

Protesters erected tents on Deering Meadow, a popular green space on the Evanston campus, to protest the Israel-Hamas war and demand the university divest itself of financial assets linked to Israel.

Similar protests at other universities have devolved into the arrest of student demonstrators or the dismantling of encampments by police; some have erupted in violence. Other colleges and universities have also canceled graduation ceremonies or other large campus events citing the encampments, including an end-of-the-year festival that was scrapped at DePaul University last week.

Northwestern University officials, however, were able to negotiate an agreement with protesters — believed to be the first of its kind in the nation — that allowed demonstrations to continue while barring temporary structures and tents, except for one with aid supplies. The deal prevented protesters with no ties to the university from demonstrating; among other agreements, university officials in turn pledged to provide students more information about the school’s investments, as well as establish a house for Muslim and Middle Eastern students to eat, socialize and pray.

Schill said he hoped the resolution could be “an example for other universities.”

“The tents are down, removing a source of antisemitic intimidation to many of our Jewish students,” Schill said in a Tribune opinion piece. “We have largely removed outside, more radical influences from the peaceful demonstrations taking place on Deering Meadow. And we stand ready to commence disciplinary proceedings against anyone who breaks our rules or engages in antisemitic or anti-Muslim behavior.”

Several faculty members praised Schill and lauded the agreement with pro-Palestinian protesters as “historic.”

“Some university presidents who testified recently before the House committee were forced to step down. We call on (Northwestern’s) trustees to resist outside pressures and condemn the House committee’s misrepresentations of our campus,” the faculty members said in a letter published earlier this week in The Daily Northwestern, the university’s student newspaper. “We stand in support of the deliberative process that led to this historic agreement, and we hope the trustees will do the same.”

Yet others have decried Schill and accused the university of allowing a climate of antisemitism and discrimination to take hold. Several Jewish Northwestern students recently filed a lawsuit alleging the school permitted pro-Palestinian demonstrations there to become “increasingly hostile to Jews.”

A few weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, Schill established an advisory committee on preventing antisemitism and hate. But seven members of the committee recently resigned to protest the university’s agreement with pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

“Jewish students don’t need data, scholarship or research to know that antisemitism is a problem at every American university. Our experiences define that reality,” Lily Cohen, a Jewish Northwestern student who resigned from the committee, said in a Tribune opinion piece. “When ‘antisemitism committees’ refuse Jewish members the permission and platform to define their own identities and the hate they face, when committee members cannot even agree on what antisemitism is and when Jewish members are spoken over and shut down in discussions of their own experiences, what is the point of having the discussions at all?”

The U.S. Department of Education earlier this year launched an investigation into accusations of antisemitism at Northwestern, along with similar complaints made against many other colleges and universities nationwide.

A Northwestern alumni group in December launched a “six-figure digital and TV ad campaign” to expose what it called “Northwestern University’s refusal to protect Jewish students,” according to a statement by the group.

Roughly 1,200 Jewish undergraduates — about 14% of the student body — and 1,000 Jewish graduate students attend Northwestern, according to Hillel International, a Jewish campus organization.

The Middle East has become a recent flashpoint in higher education: Locally and across the country, many colleges and universities have grappled with accusations of antisemitism amid the war, which has killed more than 35,000 in Gaza, according to United Nations officials.

The Anti-Defamation League tracked about 300 antisemitic incidents nationwide in the roughly two-week period following the Hamas attack, a 388% rise over the same time frame in 2022. An ADL report in November showed that nearly three-quarters of Jewish college students said they had witnessed or experienced some form of antisemitism since the start of the academic year.

An Israeli American student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago filed a lawsuit early this year alleging that she experienced a pattern of antisemitic discrimination and harassment there, included a professor modifying an assignment “for the purpose of harassing” and deliberately targeting her, according to the complaint.

SAIC in a statement said the school “strongly condemns antisemitism and any discrimination based on religion, nationality, or any other aspect of a person’s identity.”

Arab Americans and Muslims have also endured a spike in Islamophobia and anti-Arab rhetoric, harassment and violence since the war began. A report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations released in April tracked more than 8,000 complaints in 2023 — including cases of alleged hate crimes, harassment and education discrimination — a 56% increase from the previous year and the highest number recorded in the organization’s 30-year history.

“The primary force behind this wave of heightened Islamophobia was the escalation of violence in Israel and Palestine in October 2023,” the report said. “Employers, universities, and schools were among the central actors suppressing free speech by those who sought to vocally oppose Israel’s genocidal onslaught on Gaza and call attention to Palestinian human rights.”

Many higher education institutions have struggled to balance protecting free speech on campus while preventing harassment and discrimination.

Police last week cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment from the DePaul University quad, the last one of its kind on a Chicago-area college campus. Demonstrator demands included that DePaul “divest from companies that advance Palestinian suffering and profit off of the occupation,” have “no Zionists determining where our tuition is going,” and remove “individuals with ties to Israel from (the) board of trustees,” according to a social media post.

DePaul officials said they received more than 1,000 complaints of discrimination and harassment over the course of the encampment, including a death threat, as well as an estimated $180,000 in vandalism of buildings and structures.

The Anti-Defamation League Midwest said the encampment created an “unsafe environment for Jewish students,” and supported its demise.

A pro-Palestinian encampment was taken down by police at the University of Chicago earlier this month. Students and alumni there also occupied the university’s Institute of Politics Friday to condemn the war and urge the university to divest itself of financial assets connected to Israel, but the protesters were quickly removed by university police.

The House recently passed legislation that would create a broader definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education to use in enforcing anti-discrimination laws, prompted by a student protest movement in opposition to the Israel-Hamas war. The measure would widen the legal definition of antisemitism include the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.”

Opponents fear this language would censor political speech on college campuses.

“Addressing rising antisemitism is critically important, but sacrificing American’s free speech rights is not the way to solve that problem,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement condemning the measure. “This bill would throw the full weight of the federal government behind an effort to stifle criticism of Israel and risks politicizing the enforcement of federal civil rights statutes precisely when their robust protections are most needed.”

Responses to the war and its fallout on college campuses have cost some university officials their jobs.

Under pressure from donors and alumni, the president of the University of Pennsylvania stepped down amid criticism over her testimony at a December congressional hearing on antisemitism, where she would not say that calls for the genocide of Jews would violate school conduct rules. The chairman of the school’s board of trustees also resigned.

The president of Harvard University stepped down as well following her testimony at the same hearing, though she had also faced plagiarism accusations.

“Free speech stands at the core of the liberal arts education, (an education) which almost every member of Congress benefited from when they were students,” said Pamela Nadell, an American University professor of Jewish history, during the December hearing. “But free speech does not permit harassment, discrimination, bias, threats or violence in any form. And when they occur, our institutions — and not just the campus but our nation — they have in place mechanisms to respond.”

eleventis@chicagotribune.com

To the 22-year-old peace and conflict studies major, the campus protests against the Israel-Hamas War in Gaza and its ensuing humanitarian crisis have been inherently connected to university protest movements of the past, with echoes of student uprisings against the Vietnam War and other conflicts throughout history.

“There are so many historical parallels to be drawn, from not only the strategies of organizers and the demands of organizers but also the responses of administrations,” said the DePaul student, who wanted to be identified only by his first name, Ethan, for fear of harassment or reprisal. “I don’t think we can separate ourselves from the struggles of the past.”

The hard-line reaction of many university officials has been particularly reminiscent of widespread college leadership opposition to anti-war demonstrations during the Vietnam era, said Ethan, who described himself as an anti-Zionist Jew and a member of the DePaul student group Jews 4 Justice.

A similar encampment was dismantled by police at the University of Chicago earlier this month. U. of C. students and alumni also briefly occupied the university’s Institute of Politics Friday to protest the war and demand the university divest itself of financial assets tied to Israel, but the demonstrators were removed by university police.

DePaul officials have cited more than a thousand complaints of discrimination and harassment over the course of encampment on their campus — including one death threat — as well as an estimated $180,000 in vandalism of buildings and structures allegedly caused by protesters.

“From the beginning of the encampment, I have said that we would protect free speech and the ability to dissent until it either prevented us from carrying out the operations of our university or threatened the safety of the members of our community,” said DePaul President Rob Manuel last week, adding that the encampment had “crossed that line.”

The school also released photos of several weapons found at the encampment, including knives and a pellet gun. The Anti-Defamation League Midwest supported DePaul’s decision, saying the encampment created an “unsafe environment for Jewish students.”

Several other schools nationwide, including Northwestern University, reached agreements with pro-Palestinian protesters, though student activists at Northwestern insisted they would “not stop fighting until we get a free Palestine,” according to one demonstrator.

Northwestern University President Michael Schill is scheduled to testify before Congress on Thursday, along with leaders of Rutgers University and the University of California, Los Angeles, in a hearing titled “Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos.”

“History has shown us to follow the lead of young people,” Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, a professor of political science and religious studies and member of Northwestern University Educators for Justice in Palestine, said in a recent statement. “It is young people who spoke out clearly against the brutal war on Vietnam. … Yet again we must follow the lead of the young people who are calling for an end to genocide.”

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, mirrored these sentiments earlier this month while championing pro-Palestinian encampments at colleges across the country.

On the Senate floor, the progressive leader and University of Chicago alum warned that the war in Gaza could become President Joe Biden’s Vietnam, adding that former President Lyndon Johnson had declined to run for reelection in 1968 amid anti-war opposition.

Sanders noted that “protesting injustice and expressing our opinions is part of our American tradition.”

“Across the country, students and others, including myself, joined peaceful demonstrations in opposition to the war in Vietnam. Those demonstrators were demanding an end to that War,” he said. “And maybe — just maybe — tens of thousands of American lives and countless Vietnamese lives might have been saved if the Government had listened to those demonstrators.”

Historians agree there are a number of similarities between the two college protest movements, including themes of international injustice as well as a backdrop of broader criticism of American higher education systems.

However, the pro-Palestinian encampments have been much smaller “both in terms of the number of campuses and percentages of students involved,” compared with the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations of the 1960s and early 1970s, said Robert Cohen, professor of history at New York University and the author of several books about free speech on college campuses.

While anti-Gaza-war demonstrations have grown into the largest college-initiated protest movement of the 21st century, only a fraction of student bodies are participating at around 50 to 100 schools across the country, Cohen estimated.

In comparison, roughly 4 million students, “almost half of the student population at over a thousand campuses,” demanded an end to the Vietnam War decades ago, he said.

That overseas war in some ways felt closer to home, Cohen noted, because many students feared getting drafted.

“Also the tactics which have been involved are moderate today,” he said, adding that some anti-Vietnam War protests turned violent and included the torching of ROTC facilities. “People are acting like this is the 1960s again. But they don’t remember, really, what the 1960s were like then.”

Although the scope and magnitude aren’t equal, the negative reaction of many college officials to the encampments has echoed university administrator backlash against Vietnam demonstrations, said Ralph Young, history professor at Temple University in Philadelphia and author of the book “Dissent: The History of an American Idea.”

Young said that, generally, university efforts to quell protest tend to backfire, emboldening the student activists and inflaming the demonstrations.

“Whenever a university employs heavy-handed tactics to remove protesters, it only increases the protest,” added Young, who said he had demonstrated in favor of civil rights and against the Vietnam War during his youth.

‘Battle for hearts and minds’

Former University of Illinois Chicago professor and Vietnam War-era radical Bill Ayers recently spoke at the pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Chicago, which he described as a peaceful and loving “utopian community.”

These protests have “massively changed the conversation in this country” about the war in Gaza as well as the university’s role in society, said Ayers, who was a controversial figure during former President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

“Winning is changing the narrative, often,” added Ayers, co-founder of the anti-Vietnam war group Weather Underground, who had written in his memoir about helping with the nonfatal bombings of governmental buildings. “And that’s critically important. It’s important to the future of the United States. It’s important to the future of the Middle East.”

Experts have been debating the long-term impact the college encampments might have on U.S. foreign policy as well as public opinion on the war in Gaza.

Steven Mintz, a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin,  said he believes the “breadth of support” on campuses was far greater during anti-Vietnam War protests.

“Today’s campuses are far more diverse than they were half a century ago, and, as best I can tell, the overwhelming majority of students are not focused on the protests,” he said. “Another difference is that today’s movement has few clearly identifiable (and therefore accountable) leaders. One result is little message discipline, which has created an environment in which the most extreme voices are widely reported as if they speak for all protesters. … My sense is that the (pro-Palestinian) protests are not winning the battle for hearts and minds.”

Nearly half of American adults oppose these recent pro-Palestinian college protests and only 28% expressed support, according to a YouGov poll released earlier this month. About a third of survey respondents said college administrators have been “not harsh enough” in their response to the demonstrations, and 16% felt school leaders have been “too harsh.”

Many campus protesters, including those at DePaul, have called on their universities to divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel; yet almost a third of Americans surveyed in the recent poll believe this divestment demand is “unjust and infeasible,” whereas only 12% said it was “just and feasible,” according to the poll.

But Cohen said this is pretty typical: Most college protests throughout history were unpopular at the time among the general public.

“One other thing you should know about student movements is they’re never popular off campus,” he said. “No matter how nonviolent, respectable and beautiful their goals are.”

Echoes of anti-apartheid protests

To Cohen, the size of the pro-Palestinian protests and some of the tactics have much in common with the movement against South African oppression in the 1980s, when college students across the country — including the Chicago area — demanded universities end investments in corporations linked to the apartheid system.

“They were similar in terms of scope as what’s happening today,” he said.

Northwestern University alum Barbara Kancelbaum, who was a steering committee member of the Anti-Apartheid Alliance at the school in the 1980s, recalled anti-apartheid demonstrations on campus “started small but quickly grew to many hundreds of students and faculty, which was incredibly inspiring.”

At one point, several dozen students camped out for a few weeks in a makeshift shantytown in the school’s administration center, she recounted.

“Like today’s protests, the movement sprung from students rapidly becoming aware of conditions for people across the globe, which they may not have previously understood,” she said. “To me, the largest similarity between today’s protests and the ’80s is students becoming rapidly politicized and willing to give up their own comfort, time, and at times their family’s approval — sleeping in tents, missing class and so on, in order to stand up for people they’ve never met and for what they believe in.”

Yet she acknowledged that the current protests revolve around a much more complex issue, adding that both sides of the ongoing war have committed atrocities.

Israel declared war after an Oct. 7 surprise Hamas attack killed roughly 1,200 Israelis, who were mostly civilians. Gaza health officials say more than 35,000 Palestinians, also mainly civilians, have been killed since the war began.

Kancelbaum added that the pro-Palestinian protesters “are focusing on an issue that has a much more complicated resolution.”

Antisemitism accusations

At many universities, donors and lawmakers have also advocated the suppression of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, in part by tying them to antisemitism and harassment, Cohen said.

“It’s been seen as antisemitism and — I think in an exaggerated way — associated with hatred,” he said, adding that while he might not agree with everything the protesters say, their right to demonstrate is central to the mission of higher education and learning.

“So there’s a lot of pressure on these college administrations to suppress these encampments,” Cohen said. “My concern about that is what happens to free speech when you suppress unpopular movements?”

Many higher education institutions across the country were already grappling with accusations of antisemitism before the encampments took hold, a climate that prompted several prominent college leaders to quit under fire.

The presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania resigned amid backlash from their testimony during a heated congressional hearing on antisemitism at college campuses in December; Harvard’s president had also faced plagiarism accusations around the same time.

The U.S. Department of Education in January launched a probe into antisemitism accusations at Northwestern University, one of many similar ongoing investigations at colleges and universities around the country. Northwestern officials said in a statement that the school “does not tolerate antisemitism or discriminatory acts.”

Several Jewish Northwestern students recently filed a lawsuit against the school for allowing pro-Palestinian demonstration there to become “increasingly hostile to Jews”; seven members of Northwestern’s President’s Advisory Committee on Preventing Antisemitism and Hate also recently stepped down to protest the university’s agreement with pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

“These encampments are not intended to support peace or even peaceful dialogue,” Rebecca Weininger, assistant regional director of advocacy for the ADL Midwest, said at a news conference earlier this month. “They are platforms for antisemitism and their participants threaten and harass Jewish students.”

‘Teaching moment’

While the ongoing campus protests are focused on the war in Gaza, “they’re also a manifestation of the lack of democratic governance at universities,” Cohen said.

The pro-Palestinian demonstrations are as much a critique of American university systems as international affairs, another similarity to anti-Vietnam War protests and other student-led uprisings, where young people questioned university authority and championed their right to free speech, he said.

Students are demanding more transparency in terms of school budgets, policies and governance; many universities have large boards with little or no student representation, leaving students to feel they have no voice, Cohen added.

Nationwide, college students and faculty members have also become more concerned with “the corporatization of higher education,” and that sentiment is also fueling these protests, Young said.

“Administrators and universities seem to be run more like a corporation, with a CEO and chief financial officer,” he said. “So much of the money and the budget of a university is about administration, and not enough for faculty and students and other things.”

Many detractors also criticize higher education institutions as being too consumed with finances and donations, while “losing some of its mission of educating students about free speech and critical thinking and learning about things that make you uncomfortable,” Young said.

Rather than suppress or rebuke these pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Young argues that colleges should embrace them as a chance to explore concepts like international affairs, history, free speech and higher education systems.

“The purpose of an education is to shake you out of your complacency and your basic assumptions and stereotypes … to make you think more broadly about things that are happening in the world,” he said. “A protest itself can be an educational thing. A teaching moment.”

eleventis@chicagotribune.com

Shannon, 23, appeared before Judge Sally Pokorny in Douglas County District Court in Kansas on Friday for a preliminary hearing. The Chicago native is charged with one count of rape or an alternative count of aggravated sexual battery, which is a felony, according to a criminal complaint.

A jury trial is scheduled to begin June 10 in Kansas, according to court officials.

An attorney representing Shannon said he pleaded not guilty to the charges.

“Our legal team is neither shocked nor disappointed by the outcome of this event,” Shannon’s attorney Mark Sutter, of Sutter Law Group in Oakbrook Terrace, said in a statement. “A preliminary hearing is a procedural process that merely speaks to the threshold of evidence and whether a question of fact may exist for a jury.  It has nothing to do with guilt or innocence. Those issues will be decided at trial, and we continue to look forward to our day in court.”

The charges stem from a September trip that Shannon took to Lawrence, Kansas, to watch an Illinois football game against the University of Kansas.

Lawrence police said in an affidavit that a woman, who was born in 2005, told a detective that Shannon put his hand under her skirt, grabbed her buttocks and penetrated her with his finger at a crowded bar close to campus.

At Friday’s hearing, a woman testified that she was “terrified” as she was allegedly assaulted by Shannon; Shannon also testified, denying that he had ever touched the woman during the incident, according to a story in the Lawrence Journal-World.

In December, Shannon was charged with one count of rape or an alternative count of misdemeanor sexual battery. He turned himself in to authorities in Lawrence and was released on a $50,000 bond.

One of the charges against Shannon was recently elevated, according to an amended complaint filed earlier this week; while the rape charge remains, the alternative charge was changed to aggravated sexual battery, which is a felony.

“As set out during the preliminary hearing, the State believes there is sufficient evidence to support this alternative charge,” said a public information officer for the Douglas County district attorney’s office.

The Illini guard was initially suspended from “all team activities” by the U. of I. and missed six games, but the decision was reversed by a federal judge, who issued a temporary restraining order.

University officials in April closed a student misconduct investigation of Shannon, citing insufficient evidence to determine whether he violated the school’s student code.

Shannon went on to finish the 2023-24 season. He led the Illini to the Big Ten Tournament championship and was voted Most Outstanding Player. The fifth-year student helped the Illini reach the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament before losing to Connecticut, the eventual champion.

The Associated Press contributed.

eleventis@chicagotribune.com

While symptoms and severity seem to be about the same as previous COVID strains, the new FLiRT variants appear to be more transmissible, said infectious disease expert Dr. Robert Murphy.

“A new, more contagious variant is out there,” said Murphy, executive director of Northwestern University’s Institute for Global Health and a professor of infectious diseases at the Feinberg School of Medicine. “COVID-19 is still with us, and compared to flu and RSV, COVID-19 can cause significant problems off-season.”

Murphy urged the public to get up to date on COVID shots, particularly individuals who are at higher risk for severe complications from the virus. While much of the population has some immunity from vaccination or previous COVID infections, Murphy noted that “with COVID-19, immunity wanes over time.”

One FLiRT variant, KP.2, is estimated to account for roughly a quarter of recent COVID cases, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from late April.

That means it has outpaced the previously most common strain, JN.1, which spurred much of the winter respiratory season’s spike in COVID cases and hospitalizations nationwide, coinciding with a spate of flu and RSV infections around the same time.

The JN.1 variant is estimated to account for about 22% of recent COVID cases across the country, according to CDC data from late April.

Another FLiRT variant, KP.1.1, comprises over 7% of COVID cases nationwide, the CDC data shows. The name “FLiRT” is an acronym using the technical names for the mutations that caused the family of variants.

Hannah Barbian, a virologist at the Regional Innovative Public Health Laboratory at Rush University Medical Center, has been tracking various COVID variants in Chicago. She said her laboratory has detected the KP.2 variant in Chicago but not KP.1.1, though she believes that variant will likely be detected soon as well.

“In general, lineages that emerge in the U.S., we detect them in Chicago,” she said.

Barbian added that new COVID variants “aren’t unexpected.”

“In this case, they’re only slightly different from variants that were most prevalent before,” she said.

But some public health experts expressed concern that the new variants have emerged amid low uptake of the updated COVID vaccine locally as well as across the country.

“It is concerning that vaccination rates are so low. Because the best way to be protected is vaccination,” said Dr. Stephanie Black, interim deputy commissioner of the disease control bureau for the Chicago Department of Public Health. “It’s helpful to have the most updated vaccine.”

She added that a new updated COVID vaccine will likely to be available in the fall.

Sixteen percent of Chicago residents are up to date on COVID vaccination, according to the Department of Public Health statistics, which are based on Illinois Comprehensive Automated Immunization Registry Exchange data.

The numbers are higher for older residents, with 34% of those aged 65 to 74 and almost 39% of those 75 and up having received an up-to-date booster shot.

City officials, though, say the number of residents vaccinated might be higher based on National Immunization Survey data.

Nationwide, about 23% of adults and 14% of children were reported to be up to date on COVID vaccines as of late April, according to the CDC, based on data from the National Immunization Survey.

“For people who have fragile immune systems, they should take precautions around large crowds and places where they can be exposed,” said Dr. Elizabeth McNally, director of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Center for Genetic Medicine. “For older people, it’s generally a good idea to stay up to date on vaccinations since immunity does wane with age.”

In February, the CDC recommended that Americans 65 and up get another dose of the updated vaccine that became available in September, if at least four months had passed since their most recent shot.

McNally said it’s hard to know the impact of new variants since “there is not a great deal of testing going on these days.”

But she noted that there doesn’t appear to be an increase in COVID hospitalizations, nor has she seen uptick in infections in her patients, who “tend to be quite sick at baseline and contact me when they are exposed or sick.”

COVID hospitalizations and deaths are on the decline in Chicago and nationwide, according to the city health department and CDC. The Chicago region’s current COVID-19 hospital admission level is low, as is most of the United States, according to the CDC.

While vaccination rates have tapered off, McNally noted that this “is on the backdrop of a great deal more immunity from repeated exposures from natural infection and vaccination,” compared with the early stages of the COVID pandemic.

“This translates to quicker recoveries and less prolonged illness when people do get COVID,” she said. “In 2020, we were dealing a virus for which humanity had little immunity. That is, thankfully, very different now.”

eleventis@chicagotribune.com

Direct responses were often remarkably prompt from the creator and admin of these groups, a Facebook user named “Cathy Marie Chan,” whose profile featured a smiling picture of a woman purporting to be a board-certified lactation consultant and founder of Chan Lactation LLC.

Via Facebook Messenger, “Cathy Marie Chan” would request photos and video recordings of the mothers’ naked breasts — and in some cases vaginal areas — for supposed health care purposes, according to multiple members of the groups and screenshots of private messages.

Some of the images of breasts that women sent were bare, others were taken while expressing milk or feeding infants; some women received specific instructions to include their face in the shot, according to group members’ recollections and screenshots of messages.

In one Facebook Messenger exchange captured in a screenshot, “Cathy Marie Chan” offered to perform “a quick assessment of your vagina with you” for a postpartum mother who was worried about a possible prolapse, a medical condition in which one or more of the pelvic organs slip down from their typical position. Multiple lactation experts said a lactation consultant would not be qualified to provide this type of assessment.

Soon members of the Facebook groups — including at least two board-certified lactation consultants — began asking for more details about “Cathy Marie Chan’s” credentials. They also questioned the nature of some of her requests for videos and photos, which seemed unnecessarily sexual and had dubious clinical or therapeutic value, according to several lactation experts.

Shortly after these questions surfaced, the “Cathy Marie Chan” Facebook profile suddenly vanished. The Facebook account was deactivated in early March and many of the various lactation and motherhood groups it created and ran — at least 17, by one group member’s count — were “archived” by Facebook because they lacked an admin, according to messages posted on some of the group sites.

“You can only review posts but not react, create new posts or add members,” the archive messages stated.

Now many of these new moms fear they were victims of what appears to be an elaborate and well-researched scam: They’re left wondering who was actually behind the now-defunct “Cathy Marie Chan” Facebook profile — and how all of the nude images and recordings they sent are being used.

A few days after her Facebook profile disappeared, “Cathy Marie Chan” admitted she wasn’t actually a board-certified lactation consultant to one Facebook group member in an email, using an email address that has since been deactivated.

“Cathy Marie Chan” is similar to the name of a real lactation consultant who is listed on the public International Board Certified Lactation Consultant Commission certification registry, though they have different middle names. Several Facebook group members told the Tribune they had assumed that the real credentialed lactation consultant was the same person they were communicating with on the social media platform.

The Tribune reached the real lactation consultant, who said she was “aware of this situation,” adding that she was not affiliated with “Cathy Marie Chan.”

“I was never a part of these Facebook groups, and I have no leads to who this person is, therefore I have no further information about what occurred,” she said.

The Tribune searched all 50 states and could find no business named Chan Lactation LLC. The website once used by “Cathy Marie Chan” to accept payment for services shows an “error” message.

“I felt hurt. Betrayed,” said Christina Gonzalez, 35, of northwest suburban Des Plaines, who was a member of several of these Facebook groups, including one for mothers of multiples.

Gonzalez said she sent the “Cathy Marie Chan” Facebook account video of her breastfeeding her twins via Facebook Messenger; she said “Cathy Marie Chan” had insinuated doing so would help promote education and better lactation support for other moms.

Many mothers describe feeling tremendous pressure to breastfeed their babies. The Chicago-based American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusive breastfeeding for approximately the first six months of an infant’s life, citing numerous health benefits for the mother and baby.

Yet following those recommendations can often be difficult for a plethora of reasons. Some moms have a low milk supply. Babies can have trouble latching onto the breast. Breastfeeding moms can develop mastitis, an inflammation of breast tissue that often causes pain and swelling.

“All of these women are coming together because they have similar problems and they want help,” Gonzalez said. “And you form like a connection with them because you’re all going through the same thing. Motherhood is tough. You want to know that you’re not alone.”

Looking back, Gonzalez was just grateful the videos she sent were low-quality with poor lighting and didn’t show her face. Gonzalez still has no idea who was behind the Facebook profile. She never spoke with “Cathy Marie Chan” on the phone nor had she ever seen her in a video.

“I think that’s the scariest part,” Gonzalez said. “She — and I say she, because that’s how I perceived her, everyone perceived her. That’s how she presented herself. Who knows? It could be — I would say they/them, because it might even be like a group of people. It might be a guy. It might be a girl. We don’t even know.”

Gonzalez also fears for the fate of all of the sensitive videos and photos the “Cathy Marie Chan” Facebook account might have collected; one of the Facebook groups lists its creation as December 2022, though others appear to have been started more recently.

“That’s the part that makes people question everything,” Gonzalez said. “Because she could have sold them. She could have put them on the dark web. … She could have done anything.”

Magnitude of scale

It’s unclear how many women were impacted by these Facebook groups.

One that focused on breastfeeding and pumping support had more than 43,000 members, according to screenshots. There were groups designed for different populations: Young moms. Older moms. Asian moms. Another focused on postpartum sexual health and self-care, with discussions about healing after childbirth.

Since the “Cathy Marie Chan” profile was deactivated, some members started a new Facebook discussion group for those who feel they were victims, which has grown to more than a thousand members.

The Tribune has interviewed eight women — three from Illinois and the rest from other parts of the United States — who said they sent naked photographs or videos of their breasts to the “Cathy Marie Chan” profile through Facebook Messenger.

One lactation consultant said some of her clients had sent pictures of their breasts and vaginal areas to “Cathy Marie Chan” on Facebook. Another woman said she never sent images but recalled some of “Cathy Marie Chan’s” comments to her in private messages seemed oddly sexual and inappropriate for a supposed health care professional.

Several of the women the Tribune interviewed said they filed complaints about the Facebook groups with the FBI. An FBI spokeswoman said in a written statement that the agency’s policies prevent “confirming the existence or nonexistence of any specific investigation that may be occurring.”

“Scammers regularly target society’s most vulnerable citizens during times of increased stress, and lactation scams certainly follow this established pattern,” the statement said. “As with any business transaction, anyone seeking lactation assistance should be wary of services offered online by unknown individuals. Many hospitals and non-profit organizations maintain lists of locally based, vetted providers who can provide feeding assistance to new parents.”

The statement also encouraged “anyone who believes they have been a victim of an online lactation service scam” to file a complaint through the FBI’s Internet Complaint Crime Center.

A spokesperson for Facebook parent company Meta said in a statement, “We have strict rules against soliciting, sharing or threatening to share someone’s intimate images.” The statement also said the company has worked with experts to develop online tools such as  StopNCII.org, which was designed to help people take back control of their intimate images and try to prevent them from being shared online.

The spokesperson added that “we work with law enforcement to investigate criminal activity.”

The Illinois attorney general’s office has not received any complaints about the Facebook groups or a user named “Cathy Marie Chan,” but recommends anyone impacted contact local law enforcement, a spokesperson said.

Some lactation experts say part of the problem is a lack of state licensing of lactation consultants across much of the nation, including in Illinois. While most health care professionals are licensed by state agencies, only three states — New Mexico, Oregon and Rhode Island — license lactation consultants.

Proponents of licensure believe that having this layer of government oversight in more states could help prevent problems, as well as offer another avenue to report lactation support practices that seem inappropriate or suspected fraudulent behavior.

“If a (state) board gets information that someone is impersonating and it’s in their auspices of authority … they have the authority to investigate and to send cease and desist letters, and perhaps even initiate court proceedings,” said Merrilee Gober, board member of the National Lactation Consultant Alliance. “Clinical patient care needs to be delivered by licensed practitioners.”

As for Gonzalez, the new mother of twins, she said “Cathy Marie Chan” contacted her on Facebook Messenger in November asking about how she breastfeeds her son and daughter at the same time, ostensibly to learn more about tandem feeding.

“If you could just record that first like minute or so as you get them onto the breasts and then the minute or so of you getting them off,” one message said. “I think I’d love to learn from you on how to easily get them on and off.”

“I really wanna (sic) help mommas with twins and tandem feeders but I can’t have tons of exposure to them,” reads another message.

At one point, “Cathy Marie Chan” asked about the size of her breasts, Gonzalez recalled. She said she gave that information because she believed she was communicating with a health care professional.

‘Just trying to feed my child’

After giving birth in October, 24-year-old Sophie Harpster of central Illinois found breastfeeding to be a struggle.

Her baby wanted to feed frequently and for long stretches, so the first-time mom decided to supplement with pumped breast milk in bottles. To get advice, Harpster said, she joined three Facebook groups with 30,000 to 40,000 members each that focused on breastfeeding and pumping.

She recalled the admin of the groups, “Cathy Marie Chan,” was offering help with sizing for breast pump flanges, the plastic or silicone shield that goes on the breast when pumping milk. So Harpster sent the admin a message on Facebook Messenger requesting that service, which cost $25 for priority sizing — paid through “Cathy Marie Chan’s” website — or free for those willing to wait a few days.

Harpster opted for free sizing but was surprised that “she actually got back to me super-fast anyway.”

Via Facebook Messenger, “Cathy Marie Chan” sent a list of instructions: Harpster recalled she was told to send photos of her bare breasts to compare nipple symmetry, images of the breasts alongside a coin for sizing comparison and recordings of each nipple while pumping. She said she didn’t send any recordings or photos with her face included. Several other group members described receiving similar instructions for flange sizing from “Cathy Marie Chan,” and some sent the Tribune screenshots of the list.

“Based on her credentials and how many women were in the group, I trusted what she said and sent the photos and videos,” Harpster said.

“Cathy Marie Chan” responded with a recommendation for a specific flange size and that was their last message exchange, Harpster recalled. She said she was never asked to sign any patient consent forms or other paperwork.

Harpster said she didn’t think about the photos and recordings again until a few months later when the “Cathy Marie Chan” Facebook account was suddenly deactivated and the Facebook groups were archived.

Then Harpster saw posts on Facebook from other moms warning that “Cathy Marie Chan’s” credentials couldn’t be verified.

“My heart just sank and my stomach turned. I felt … extremely violated,” recalled Harpster, who added that she had previously survived sexual assault. “So having something like this happen where I was vulnerable and trusted someone with something … it just felt awful.”

She describes herself as typically very careful with whom she trusts and what she puts on the internet.

“As a new mom who just wants to feed her baby, also being in a postpartum fog, it’s really hard to have the best sense of judgment,” she said. “You’re so tired. You don’t think clearly. You’re emotional. You have lots of hormones going on.”

New moms are an “extremely vulnerable population,” Harpster added.

“In retrospect, I’m just trying to give myself grace,” she said. “Because I was really just trying to feed my child.”

These kind of requests for nude images and recordings via private message on a public social media site were red flags, which would constitute inappropriate behavior for a real board-certified lactation consultant or any type of health care professional, according to several lactation experts.

The “Cathy Marie Chan” Facebook profile used the credential IBCLC, or International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, which requires 95 hours of lactation-specific education, 300 to 1,000 hours of lactation-specific clinical practice, health sciences education courses and passage of an exam.

An IBCLC should require patients to sign consent forms before providing any kind of care, said Katie Cohen, professional development coordinator for the United States Lactation Consultant Association.

Cohen said IBCLCs in the United States must also comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, national standards that protect sensitive patient health information. They should only be providing care online using secure, encrypted platforms, she added.

An IBCLC failing to provide care in this manner would risk being stripped of their credential, Cohen said.

“We have a pretty strict code of ethics. …. We’re allied health professionals,” said Cohen, an IBCLC and registered nurse. “So an IBCLC would never — and really no legitimate health care provider — would ask somebody to send, not even photos or videos, but even just discussing in any way protected health information on Facebook. Or anything like that that’s not secure.”

‘Still conflicting’

Each IBCLC has a credential number that’s available on the public certification registry, where names and credentials can be verified. But there was the IBCLC listed on the registry with a name that’s similar to “Cathy Marie Chan,” and several Facebook group members said they had just assumed that this was the same person as the Facebook admin they were interacting with.

Nicole Santana, a registered nurse and IBCLC in Rockford, was a member of some of these Facebook groups. She said she emailed “Cathy Marie Chan” asking her to verify her credentials after her Facebook profile disappeared in March.

In response, “Cathy Marie Chan” said she was not a credentialed IBCLC but had started training to become one and never finished, adding that she had “inflated in some places,” according to the email.

The Gmail account “Cathy Marie Chan” used included the acronym “IBCLC” in its username.

“Cathy Marie Chan” went on to claim in the email that she “had become an RN” but stopped practicing after having her son, though no documentation of her having been a registered nurse was provided in the email.

She also said in the email that she had “a certificate in lactation” from an online program but added that she “would rather not say which” program and offered no proof; someone with this kind of certificate would not qualify to use the credential IBCLC, which requires much more education and training.

“Cathy Marie Chan” also claimed she had deleted all the photos and videos and “made sure to wipe down my computer,” according to the email to Santana.

“First of all, I apologize. What I did was wrong,” the email said. “In an attempt to feel better about myself and feel helpful, I created this so I could stop being a stay at home and feel like I was actually working and helping others. My husband won’t let me work so I needed some outlet.”

Another Facebook group member said she had used the same email address to contact “Cathy Marie Chan” and sent the Tribune screenshots of her own email exchanges with the same account from March.

When the Tribune sent an email in April to the address to try and seek comment from “Cathy Marie Chan,” the email bounced back with the message “the address couldn’t be found, or is unable to receive mail.”

Santana said she didn’t find any of “Cathy Marie Chan’s” explanations or promises in the email exchange reassuring, since nothing could be proven.

“Her story was still conflicting,” said Santana, owner of Soak Lactation. “I just want moms to find qualified, appropriate care.”

About 83% of infants born in 2020 were breastfed at some point and roughly 45% were breastfed exclusively through three months; by six months, only about a quarter of babies exclusively received breast milk, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Roughly 21% of breastfed infants received formula supplementation within the first two days of life, CDC data showed.

International Board Certified Lactation Consultants can be a critical source of support for breastfeeding moms, according to the 2011 U.S. Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding.

“Research shows that rates of exclusive breastfeeding and of any breastfeeding are higher among women who have had babies in hospitals with IBCLCs on staff than in those without these professionals,” the report stated.

Yet data indicates there aren’t enough IBCLCs to keep up with potential demand.

The report cited the need for 8.6 IBCLCs for every 1,000 live births nationwide. As of February, there were 19,930 IBCLCs in the United States, according to the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners; that’s about 5 IBCLCs for every 1,000 live births, based on the roughly 3.6 million births in 2023, according to the CDC.

Several women the Tribune interviewed cited various barriers to accessing a lactation consultant including poor internet service, cost in cases where their insurance wouldn’t cover lactation care, a lack of nearby providers in more rural areas and the challenge of leaving the house to seek in-person care while parenting.

One Facebook group member, a 28-year-old mother from New Jersey who wanted to remain anonymous, commented that “Cathy Marie Chan’s” services had been easy and accessible.

“She seemed like a good person that was there to help,” the mom recalled. “I thought, ‘She’s so busy, how nice of her to follow up with me. She’s nice.’”

Unknown identity, dubious tests

After a traumatic cesarean section in September, 23-year-old Rose Baxter of Kalamazoo County, Michigan, had lost so much blood she didn’t have the strength to hold her newborn daughter right away, let alone breastfeed.

Following a blood transfusion and a little time to get her energy back, Baxter tried to nurse but her daughter wouldn’t latch, she said. So the new mom began exclusively pumping but developed milk blisters, mastitis and clogged milk ducts, which she attributed to poor flange size fitting in the hospital.

She had joined several Facebook groups created by “Cathy Marie Chan” to get “help and support through this new, beautiful, exhausting journey of motherhood.”

“Everyone had recommended ‘Cathy’ for flange sizing. I was very, very on the fence and was very hesitant to go to her,” Baxter said. “I went back and forth on it for about a month but decided I needed to do this so I can feed my precious baby girl.”

Baxter said she checked online and found a LinkedIn profile for a lactation consultant with a similar name to “Cathy Marie Chan.”

“I again hesitated, but I knew my baby needed me to get sized so she can have my breast milk,” Baxter said. “I went ahead and sent ‘Cathy’ pictures and videos of my breasts and while pumping.”

Baxter said she believes “Cathy Marie Chan” did size her correctly. Afterward, her problems with pumping went away. But ever since the Facebook profile was deactivated, Baxter has been wondering who gave her this advice and what would happen to her photos and videos.

“She seemed genuine, but I still had this weird (gut) feeling that I pushed aside in order to get help,” Baxter said, adding that she filed a complaint with the FBI. “Unfortunately, in the situation I’m in, it’s hard for me to be able to get out and go to a lactation consultant in person, and I don’t have the greatest internet connection for an online consultant.”

Baxter cautioned others to “be wary of who you trust, even if they come with hundreds of recommendations.”

“This ‘Cathy’ person now has pictures and videos of my breasts and I have no control over what they do with it,” she said. “I feel helpless, embarrassed, and full of shame. This isn’t something I would wish upon anyone.”

Jessica Anderson, an IBCLC in Hawaii and owner of Genuine Lactation, said she first encountered “Cathy Marie Chan’s” Facebook groups close to 18 months ago; Anderson said women had come to her in the past trying to figure out if the admin was a legitimate provider.

Then, after the profile was deactivated, more women began sharing strange or off-putting encounters with “Cathy Marie Chan,” Anderson recalled.

Screenshots of messages show “Cathy Marie Chan” giving a mom instructions for what she refers to as an “emptiness and pain test,” which specifically request the woman show her face in the video recording.

“Record yourself hand expressing on each side for 45 seconds. Prop the phone up in front of you so that you can use two hands,” the message said. “One to express and one to catch the milk. Also include your face in the frame so I can look for any pain cues as you are expressing. Talk aloud about how it feels and if there is any pain. This way I can understand how the milk is flowing as well as understand if you are giving any pain signs.”

Anderson and Santana said there would be no clinical reason to request this kind of recording.

In another message, “Cathy Marie Chan” asked someone to record herself topless with no bra on and to trace her fingers over her breasts.

“Keep your full face in frame so I can watch your reaction as you do it,” the message said, according to screenshots.

Anderson, who reviewed the screenshots, called these requests “sexual exploitation.”

“There was nothing clinical about some of these photos or videos that were obtained,” she said. “There would be no therapeutic value in it. It is strictly stuff that would be of a sexual nature.”

Lack of state licensing

Anderson said 40 to 50 clients have contacted her about their encounters with the “Cathy Marie Chan” Facebook profile. Roughly 10 of them told her they sent images of their breasts or vaginas to the Facebook account via Messenger; Anderson said those clients have also sent the images to her via a secure patient portal, because they wanted to know if this was appropriate care.

“That’s why I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, this is not lactation care,” she said.

One client who Anderson had recommended see a physician about a medical condition turned to “Cathy Marie Chan” for help, but “Cathy Marie Chan” was actually “exploiting her for weeks and weeks on end,” Anderson recalled.

“She’s like ‘I thought about telling you, but then thought that if there was something wrong you’d think that I was stupid. So I just kept my mouth shut.’ And I feel awful for her,” Anderson added. “This person was supposedly meeting with (the client) nightly via Facebook chat to get these videos, for weeks on end. Which is not the behavior of a professional.”

To Anderson, part of the problem is that very few states license lactation consultants, a landscape she believes makes it easier for someone to pose as a lactation professional.

Most health care professionals are licensed by state agencies, which means the public can typically search a government site for their name, address, when the license expires and whether they’ve been disciplined. The National Lactation Consultant Alliance says this kind of state regulation is needed to protect the public and profession.

“Licensure validates a minimum standard for education, training, and expertise, upholds the integrity of a profession, and helps assure the provision of competent care,” states the organization’s position paper on licensure.

Measures to license lactation consultants are pending in Connecticut and New Jersey. Illinois does not license lactation consultants, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

Yet licensing can be controversial. Georgia in 2016 passed a law requiring providers of lactation care and services be licensed by the state and that only International Board Certified Lactation Consultants were eligible to receive a license.

But in May 2023, the Georgia Supreme Court determined the law was unconstitutional because it violated the due process rights of other types of lactation care providers to practice their profession.

“Thus, it may well be true that regulations promoting quality care are desirable as a policy matter, but that is not a sufficient interest to justify an unreasonable burden on the ability to pursue a lawful occupation,” the ruling states.

‘Critical, emotional situation’

Thirty-three-year-old Hala Hardy of Virginia, another member of some of the Facebook groups, said she was never asked for images or recordings. But she recalled that “Cathy Marie Chan’s” conversations with her on Messenger became “really, really unprofessional … just very sexual.”

“Conversations started turning into a lot of talk about masturbation and sexual things,” Hardy said.

Hardy said “Cathy Marie Chan” began sending her direct messages in the middle of the night.

“She would talk about how she has a fetish for Black women. And I am Black,” Hardy said.

One 25-year-old first-time mom from Tennessee who asked that her name be withheld said she was embarrassed that she sent photos and video recordings of her naked breasts to “Cathy Marie Chan.”

“Now someone out there has photos and videos of me,” she said. “And who knows what they’re doing with them?”

Yet she’s still puzzled by how knowledgeable “Cathy Marie Chan” seemed, at times.

“What’s crazy is … a bunch of people say they got good advice. And I feel I got kind of good advice from this person,” she said. “It’s almost like they did their research to know, this is what I need to know in order to get these pictures and videos sent to me.”

Nick Nikiforakis, associate professor of computer science at Stony Brook University in New York and a cybersecurity expert, said these Facebook groups “have all of the earmarks” of a social engineering scam, where an online actor uses deception and manipulation to get another individual “to act in a way that’s not in their best interest.”

After the truth comes to light, the online profile is often deleted, he said.

“They can just delete it and create a new one with a new identity,” he said. “And then again, ultimately, the problem is they can claim to be whoever they want to be or whatever they want to be.”

This becomes “kind of a whack-a-mole game,” he added, because there are so many versions of the same scam.

“The onus unfortunately, for better or for worse, is on users, on members of the Facebook platform to kind of cautiously use the site in a way that makes sense,” he said. “I don’t foresee a world where it makes sense to send pictures of your naked breasts lactating to a stranger. … I think people fall for this because they are in this critical, emotional situation, where probably they feel they need urgently to give milk to their babies. And then they do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

eleventis@chicagotribune.com

The couple donned sunglasses and baseball caps before entering Hope Clinic for Women on a spring weekday in 2019, to shield their identities from a throng of protesters outside. Fearing for their safety, they also rented a car so their own license plate couldn’t be traced.

The young woman’s 21-week pregnancy was clearly visible to the small cluster of anti-abortion activists in front of the southern Illinois clinic. One of the strangers said the woman must be able to feel her baby moving and suggested adoption. Another mentioned to the woman’s partner that Father’s Day was approaching.

Inside the clinic, the man and woman described their initial elation at the prospect of parenthood, eagerly preparing for their firstborn, whom they affectionately called Little One. They announced the pregnancy on social media with a photo of baby shoes. Then a 20-week ultrasound revealed the inconceivable: Large portions of the brain and skull were missing, a rare birth defect called anencephaly.

Their obstetrician in Missouri said the fetus wouldn’t survive outside the womb.

“There was no top to the head, there was no top to the brain,” said the man in the baseball cap, his sunglasses now clipped to his shirt and no longer concealing his eyes, which welled with tears. “The options were to either carry this child who had a death sentence. Or to terminate the pregnancy.”

But they faced many barriers to the procedure in Missouri, including a three-day waiting period. The state of more than 6 million residents had only one abortion clinic — and the fate of that provider remained in limbo when the couple received the devastating diagnosis.

The pregnant patient’s physician referred her to Hope Clinic, which performs abortions at up to 24 weeks’ gestation. The couple were confused and dismayed: They couldn’t understand why they couldn’t terminate the pregnancy in the same state where they received prenatal care. Although they lived nearby in southern Illinois, the young woman was treated throughout her pregnancy by doctors and nurses in Missouri and planned to deliver at a hospital there. In her time of grief, she said, it was difficult to understand why she had to find a new medical provider to terminate the pregnancy as they faced the worst possible outcome.

“I was in shock,” said the young woman, who asked to remain anonymous to protect the couple’s privacy.

Missouri lawmakers had just approved multiple abortion restrictions, including an eight-week gestational limit, a measure that would be blocked temporarily by the courts.

“It’s time to make Missouri the most Pro-Life state in the country!” Gov. Mike Parson tweeted a month prior to the couple’s appointment.

At the time, Missouri was one of a half-dozen states with only one abortion clinic: Kentucky, Mississippi, West Virginia, North Dakota and South Dakota were also down to a lone clinic providing abortions statewide.

Then, in May 2019, Missouri health officials refused to renew the license of Missouri’s last remaining clinic, a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis, a move that threatened to leave the state without a single dedicated abortion provider. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services in a statement alleged there were “failed surgical abortions” in which patients remained pregnant, as well as other health and safety problems at the clinic.

The president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America accused Missouri officials of having “illegally weaponized the licensing process.” A judge issued a temporary restraining order allowing the abortion provider to stay open as the case moved through the legal process. But the clinic’s unresolved future still affected abortion access: Since the state had a three-day waiting period, many patients were afraid to book appointments there in case the clinic couldn’t survive until their procedure date.

By 2020, a state government administrator determined the state health department had been wrong to not renew the Planned Parenthood clinic’s license, and the facility was allowed to continue operating. But the clinic’s victory was short-lived: Roughly two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Missouri banned terminating a pregnancy in almost all circumstances, so the clinic had to cease providing abortions.

Missouri had 12 abortion facilities in 1992, but by 2014, the state was down to three providers, according to an American Civil Liberties Union report tracking clinic closures over several decades in six states. The decline was largely due to regulations in numerous states requiring that abortion providers have hospital admitting privileges and that clinics meet the same standards as surgical centers. These types of mandates are often referred to as “targeted restrictions on abortion providers,” or TRAP laws, by reproductive rights advocates, who argue the rules are medically unnecessary and designed to limit access to the procedure.

“The TRAP requirements are difficult — in some cases impossible — to meet,” the report said. “Many hospitals simply won’t provide admitting privileges to doctors who perform abortions due to anti-abortion bias and stigma. Others require doctors to admit a certain number of patients at the hospital each year, but because abortion is such a safe procedure, abortion providers can’t meet that threshold. Ambulatory surgical centers are far more complex and expensive than what is necessary to provide a safe abortion, and no other comparable medical procedure is subject to such requirements.”

The report found that more than two dozen states had these types of regulations on the books, though some measures were blocked by courts. In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down those regulations in Texas, and, shortly after, a federal district court enjoined the laws in Missouri as well. But Missouri legislators swiftly approved new regulations that were strikingly similar to the old ones, and they survived legal challenges. In 2018, the state was back down to one provider.

“And with so few clinics in Missouri, a trip to the clinic could be 300 miles away,” the ACLU report said. “That, in turn, requires additional time off of work and possibly extra childcare costs, given that the majority of women who have abortions are already mothers.”

The same day the couple came to Hope Clinic, about a half dozen protesters gathered in the public right of way outside the Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis, just past the property’s black fencing. Many were praying for the facility to shut down.

One man walked up and down the sidewalk, fingering the small wooden beads of a rosary. He spoke of how children are the world’s most precious gift and that gift must be preserved.

“I am praying for all those who need God’s mercy,” said Richard Tourville, who described himself as a devout Catholic. “I believe it’s a terrible tragedy. … I just hope this finally comes to an end.”

… Because the couple’s pregnancy was so far along, the abortion was a two-day procedure for the young woman at Hope Clinic. The first day her cervix was dilated. The following morning, she had a surgical abortion.

Afterward, she sobbed in a hospital bed, her limbs shaking beneath the blanket, a side effect of the medication. “It’s over,” she said. “The baby won’t ever have to suffer.”

In a private recovery room, the man in the baseball cap kissed her forehead and touched her left hand. The physician who performed the abortion held her right hand, telling her the procedure went well.

“We did the right thing,” her partner said, weeping and repeatedly thanking the doctor.

“I feel like I did the best thing for the baby,” the patient said, wiping her eyes. “And it won’t ever hurt. It won’t lay in a NICU or my arms and pass away.”

As drivers cross into Illinois from Missouri on Interstate 55, a billboard greets them with the message: “Welcome to Illinois, where you can have a safe, legal abortion.” It was erected a few months before the couple’s appointment by Hope Clinic.

The prospect of Missouri losing its last abortion clinic was daunting to the staff at Hope Clinic, which performed more than 3,700 abortions in 2018. Roughly 55% of patients that year came from Missouri, though the two-story brown brick medical facility also drew women from many other states in the Midwest and upper South, as well as other countries.

The clinic had already seen a 30% increase in patients since 2017 and had doubled the number of staff physicians in that time from two to four, said the clinic’s deputy director, Alison Dreith, who had previously served as the executive director of NARAL Pro Choice Missouri.

In the previous week or so, the abortion provider had hired several extra counselors and nurses as well as its first lawyer, Dreith said. More volunteers were also undergoing training, but it’s difficult to plan for a potential influx of patients given the shifting legal and political landscape locally as well as across the country. While the St. Louis clinic was still seeing patients amid the battle over its license, more women from Missouri had been seeking appointments at Hope Clinic because of the uncertainty.

“Patients also know that there’s a 72-hour waiting period, and the clinic’s licensing issue is in the court,” Dreith said. “So they’re worried that clinic could close by the time they have their procedure or go in for their 72-hour consent.”

… Faced with increasing hurdles in Missouri, Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri in late 2019 opened an 18,000-square-foot health center in Fairview Heights, Illinois, near St. Louis and Hope Clinic. The location on the east side of the Mississippi River meant no extra regulations for the abortion provider and no mandatory waiting period for patients.

As the couple at Hope Clinic prepared to terminate their pregnancy, the national abortion debate roiled in headlines and on television newscasts. Multiple states had just passed some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation, with the intention of challenging Roe v. Wade. In 2019, more than 50 abortion restrictions were enacted, and two dozen abortion bans were passed, primarily in Midwestern and Southern parts of the nation.

“It’s really unfortunate they’re lumping all abortions into one category,” said the young woman at Hope Clinic. “And that’s not to say that I should get special treatment or be exempt, because everyone has a choice to do what is best for their body and baby, and no one else can make those decisions.”

Four other women were resting on recliners in the Hope Clinic’s main recovery room that day, either waiting to have a surgical abortion or recuperating after the procedure. That morning, three patients were from Illinois, one came from Missouri and another traveled from Tennessee.

“Everyone is here for a reason,” she said, motioning to the other patients.

While abortion was still legal in every state at the time, clinic staff said looming abortion regulations in some parts of the country were stoking confusion and fear.

“The phones have definitely been ringing off the hook these days,” said Aryn Hanebrink, the clinic’s medical secretary. “A lot of people are scared, honestly. I’ve had girls call me and they’re crying, because they’re so thankful that we can still help them here.”

In the clinic’s changing room, three white binders labeled “Patient Journal” contain hundreds of handwritten notes chronicling the thoughts and emotions of women before or after their abortions.

“I am happy with my choice to make a better life for me and my family,” one patient wrote, encircling the sentence in a heart.

“You cannot be judged by anyone who has breath in their lungs,” another wrote. “They are not God, because he forgives. Dear Lord, I love you and have faith in you. I know you love me too and I know I will be forgiven.”

“It’s a choice — not a child,” a third patient wrote.

In careful cursive, the patient from southern Illinois penned her parting words before leaving the clinic.

“Loving someone doesn’t always mean you fight for them,” she wrote. “Sometimes loving someone just means letting them go.”

Submit a letter to the editor, of no more than 400 words, by emailing letters@chicagotribune.com. To review our criteria, click here.

The expectant parents recalled cradling the lifeless body of the daughter they had longed for, as they wept and told her they would always love her.

“She was our baby,” Chris Yingling said. “And we lost her.”

Despite their recent heartbreak, the couple from Palmyra, Missouri — just a few miles from the Illinois border — hope to try to have a child again later this year. Yet they face an added layer of worry and stress this time around, due to the looming fear that IVF could be at risk in their conservative state, which by law defines life as beginning at conception and has banned abortion in nearly all circumstances.

A recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are considered children and can be covered under a wrongful death statute temporarily halted IVF treatments in Alabama last month, sending shockwaves around the country, particularly in other Republican-led states like Missouri.

The Yinglings say if assisted reproductive technology is threatened in their home state, their backup plan is to head east for fertility care in Illinois, which has strong reproductive rights provisions, including protections for IVF.

“We’re kind of scared for what’s going to happen,” 29-year-old Chris Yingling said. “Normally it takes the first chip to fall before they all start falling. It definitely feels like the legislature in Missouri is conservative enough … so we’re scared about that.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been encouraging out-of-state patients to travel here for IVF treatments, calling Illinois “an island, a refuge for women across the Midwest who no longer have their rights.”

Illinois has already seen a surge in out-of-state abortion since the fall of Roe v. Wade. Nearly 17,000 patients crossed state lines to terminate a pregnancy here in 2022 — a 49% increase over the previous year.

“People who live in other states who want to have children using IVF, come to Illinois,” Pritzker said at a news conference last month. “We’re protecting your rights in so many ways, but specifically regarding IVF.”

In the wake of the Alabama ruling, lawmakers across the nation have been scrambling to shore up protections for IVF, a process where eggs are collected from the ovaries and fertilized in a lab, then transferred to the uterus in the hopes of implantation.

While IVF is often credited with enabling life where it was once deemed impossible, abortion foes have expressed concern over the treatment of embryos created during the process — particularly those that are leftover and might be discarded, donated for research or cryopreserved indefinitely.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, who had her two children with the assistance of IVF, introduced legislation in January to establish federal protections for IVF and other forms of assisted reproductive technology. The measure, however, was blocked by Senate Republicans.

Alabama lawmakers earlier this month passed legislation shielding IVF providers from legal liability, which was quickly signed into law; while this allowed some treatments to resume there, reproductive rights experts noted that the law doesn’t address the status of embryos or whether they’re legally considered people.

Although IVF remains legal and available in Missouri, lawmakers there recently filed legislation to preserve access to the procedure.

“Missouri law — just like Alabama law — could be used to put fertility treatments at risk, which is why we need to make explicit exceptions to Missouri’s ‘life at conception’ law for extra fertilized embryos created through IVF,” Missouri state Sen. Tracy McCreery said in a written statement.

Bre and Chris Yingling say they’ve feared for the fate of IVF in Missouri ever since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The historic end to nearly a half-century of federal abortion protections also raised questions about the legality of certain fertility treatments in states like Missouri, where terminating a pregnancy was almost entirely banned.

IVF has become the latest battlefront in a larger reproductive rights war that polarized the nation after the end of Roe, with some states strengthening reproductive rights and others pushing for laws to protect the unborn.

“There was always the concern in the back of our minds: Are they going to allow us to continue?” 28-year-old Bre Yingling said. “Are they going to let us keep doing frozen (embryo) transfers? What is the legality here?”

Even in in Illinois — where state law stipulates that a fertilized egg, embryo or fetus has no independent rights — fertility treatments have faced backlash.

Abortion opponents protested the 2012 opening of a fertility clinic in Naperville, spurring heated debate at Naperville City Council meetings. In response, supporters of the Naperville Fertility Center gave impassioned speeches before the council, some holding children they said were conceived with the help of IVF.

The fertility clinic continues to draw occasional anti-abortion demonstrations and prayer vigils.

“I don’t like that the embryos are destroyed, discarded or frozen. Because they are live humans,” said John Zabinski, founder of an annual Bike for Life fundraiser that culminates with prayers at the fertility clinic. “You can’t do something that’s right by causing a wrong.”

Dr. Randy Morris, the clinic’s medical director, said he’s confident Illinois policymakers will prioritize reproductive health care and access to fertility treatments. Yet he fears for the future of IVF nationwide.

The Life at Conception Act, reintroduced in the U.S. House last year, would define a “human being” as comprising “all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization.” Morris noted that the proposed law had carved out no exemptions for IVF and was heavily backed by Republicans in the House; a Senate version, however, did include an IVF exception.

If Republicans were to gain control of the presidency and Congress during the November election, Morris worries “this could be the last year of IVF as we know it.”

While presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has declared support for IVF on the campaign trail, Morris finds that position disingenuous, pointing out that the former president has repeatedly taken credit for the overturning of Roe.

“It’s going to follow the same pattern of states that passed abortion bans after the fall of Roe v. Wade,” Morris predicted. “I really think this could happen — and the speed in which this could happen is frightening.”

Critical treatment option

About two years into trying to conceive, Bre Yingling learned her fallopian tubes were blocked by scar tissue, likely from a traumatic appendectomy a few years prior. Her fallopian tubes had to be surgically removed, rendering traditional conception impossible.

IVF became their only hope, the wife and husband recalled. But egg retrieval and fertilization were successful, yielding 20 embryos, they said.

The first transferred embryo failed to implant. The second one resulted in a miscarriage in 2022. For the third round of IVF, two embryos were transferred to the womb and one of them implanted.

Bre and Chris Yingling saw a flicker of a heartbeat on an early ultrasound in January, at about six weeks of gestation. Two weeks later, a sonogram tracked a stronger beat of the heart, and the expectant mom and dad sobbed tears of joy but couldn’t completely relax.

“We’re still waiting for the ‘shoe to drop’ so to speak,” Bre Yingling wrote in a blog chronicling the couple’s fertility journey. “We’ve been conditioned at this point to expect failure; pray that we look into the future with positivity and not pessimism.”

Roughly 2% of all births in the United States and 3.6% in Illinois were conceived with the help of assisted reproductive technology, according to 2021 statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

IVF accounts for more than 99% of assisted reproductive technology procedures performed and “is an important fertility treatment option because it can help individuals to conceive who may not be able to using other fertility treatment methods,” according to a 2024 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report.

When Roe fell on June 24, 2022, Dr. Kara Goldman, medical director of fertility preservation at Northwestern Medicine, sounded the alarm about the future of IVF.

“In recent weeks I’ve fielded this question more times than I can count: ‘What would overturning Roe mean for my frozen embryos?’ Each time I’m asked this question I hold back tears, grieving for a freedom we all took for granted,” she posted on Twitter, the social media site now known as X.

Now she says the Alabama ruling is a “manifestation of that fear.”

Goldman noted that there are many reasons patients seek IVF, from fertility issues to cancer treatments to those who want to test their embryos for genetic diseases that might be devastating or fatal for a child.

“I find it completely ironic that those who in theory seek to preserve the idea of family are preventing the building of families,” she added.

Rita Gitchell, special counsel to the Chicago-based conservative law firm the Thomas More Society, has filed amicus briefs arguing that embryos should be treated as people — as opposed to property — in more than a half-dozen lawsuits involving fertility across the country.

Gitchell said she knows of children born with the help of IVF “who are loved and precious.” Yet she’s concerned with the process, which sometimes involves destroying embryos deemed genetically unhealthy or those that are leftover when family building is complete.

“I think the real problem is the matter in which it is done, that it creates an attitude from the beginning — without realizing it — do we only select the most fit to live?” she said. “Do we not have an embryo because the embryo has Down syndrome? Are we being selective? I think it’s more a problem that comes with how they are practicing IVF right now. That’s treating human beings more like property: selecting which ones live and which ones die. I think that’s something people don’t understand, necessarily, when they go into IVF.”

Earlier this month, Republicans in Iowa’s House of Representatives passed a bill that would criminalize the death of an “unborn person” defined as an “individual organism … from fertilization to live birth.” Critics feared the measure would threaten IVF; the state Senate, though, declined to consider the bill.

Kentucky’s abortion ban was challenged in October 2022 by three Jewish women who argued in a lawsuit that it violates their religious rights, which included the right to IVF treatments; the case is still pending.

“Plaintiff’s religious beliefs demand that they have more children through IVF, yet the law forces plaintiffs to spend exorbitant fees to keep their embryos frozen indefinitely or face potential felony charges,” the complaint states.

Sean Tipton, spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said battles against fertility treatments tend to be politically unpopular.

He added that “the unprecedented outpouring of outrage around the Alabama Supreme Court decision has significantly tempered the ardor of some anti-choice legislators to pursue this kind of thing.”

“Republican elected officials in the state legislatures and in Congress are loudly proclaiming how much they love IVF,” Tipton said. “I think the voters are going to want them to prove that love. And you don’t do that by restricting what people can do with their own reproductive tissues.”

‘Violence to human dignity’

The Yinglings were elated to learn about midway through the pregnancy that they were having a girl, which they called their “miracle baby.”

At 38 weeks of gestation, the fetus was healthy and moving in utero; Bre Yingling was scheduled to be induced the following week, she recalled.

But roughly 24 hours later, the expectant mother panicked because she no longer felt any movement in her womb. A knot had formed in the umbilical cord, a dangerous condition that occurs in about 1% of pregnancies, according to the nonprofit March of Dimes.

There was no longer a heartbeat.

Brooklyn Genevieve Yingling was stillborn on Aug. 25, weighing 7 pounds and 1 ounce, with a full head of dark hair. The contours of her face as well as her long fingers resembled those of her father, the Yinglings recalled.

“I had an emergency C-section and for several hours, Chris and I were able to hold and love our perfect baby girl and tried to fit our lifetime of love into mere moments before letting her go,” Bre Yingling said in her blog.

The thought of trying once more to have a baby is daunting for the couple.

“We’re both afraid to get hurt again,” Chris Yingling said.

But they’d like to attempt another round of IVF, most likely in the fall. The recent national controversy surrounding assisted reproductive technology, though, has compounded their apprehension.

Before their fertility struggles, Chris Yingling was “the sort of person who believed that babies are good and abortions are bad,” he said.

“It wasn’t until our fertility journey that I learned more about the unpredictability that comes with having children — complications in pregnancy and then, obviously, the trials of those that can’t have children,” he said. “And that’s when I started to get a true grasp on how big of a situation this is and how lawmakers that stand on pillars of black and white are unable to make educated decisions on things that are very, very solidly gray.”

The Yinglings know fertility care would be available across the Mississippi River in Illinois. Yet the prospect of traveling out of state is also disconcerting.

They love their fertility specialist in Columbia, Missouri, and say they wouldn’t want to switch providers. Driving to Springfield or the Chicago area for IVF treatments would also require more time, gas money and overnight lodging.

Bre and Chris Yingling estimate that they’ve spent more than $40,000 on fertility treatments so far. In Illinois, diagnoses and treatment of infertility are legally required to be covered by Illinois-based and group insurance plans. Missouri does not require insurance plans to cover infertility treatment.

Several measures to expand IVF and fertility treatment access in Illinois have been introduced in the state legislature, including a bill that would mandate insurers cover the costs of standard fertility preservation and follow-up services for any patient, not just those diagnosed with infertility. Another measure would have insurance companies follow a physician’s treatment recommendation for infertility rather than first requiring tests and procedures.

State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, has also proposed granting a tax credit to patients, families and physicians who relocate to Illinois to seek or provide medical care that’s restricted in their home state, including reproductive health care.

But Illinois has staunch IVF opponents as well.

When the Naperville Fertility Center was approved by the City Council more than a decade ago, a priest at a local Catholic church had urged parishioners to speak against the development.

“At first glance, this opposition may be confusing for people, because the clinic’s stated purpose is assisting well-meaning couples in having a child and the Church certainly supports a parent’s desire to have a family,” the priest said in a letter to the congregation, which went on to take issue with the treatment of embryos.

“Some will be implanted,” the letter said. “Some will be donated to science. Some will be discarded. Others will simply be kept frozen indefinitely … never being allowed to come to term.”

Morris, the fertility center medical director, said he objects to conservatives who try and “push their religious beliefs in this way.”

“Politically, it’s nice for them to say, ‘We’re going to mark this now at conception.’ It’s a religious thing. There’s no science behind it at all,” he added. “I don’t think anybody actually believes a one-cell embryo is the same as a child. I think that is very disingenuous.”

Rachel Trenkamp, 45, of Aurora, recalled encountering a protester when she and her husband first went to the Naperville Fertility Center for treatment about seven years ago.

“It was horrible,” she said. “It made me angry. It made my husband irate.”

The Naperville clinic and Morris were their last hope to start a family, she recalled.

“I was in such despair so many times,” she said.

On Good Friday in 2018, Trenkamp got a call from the clinic that changed her life: After more than eight years of infertility, she learned the latest embryo transfer was successful. She was finally pregnant, and broke down and sobbed.

Now she is the mom of two “miracle boys,” 5-year-old Benjamin and 2-year-old Zachary.

Trenkamp, who is Catholic, knows her religion rejects IVF.

While the “immorality of conceiving children through IVF can be difficult to understand and accept because the man and woman involved are usually married and trying to overcome a ‘medical’ problem (infertility) in their marriage,” the procedure “does violence to human dignity and to the marriage act and should be avoided,” according to a statement by John Haas, president emeritus of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, which is posted on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops website.

But Trenkamp says she knows God meant for her and her husband to become parents.

She also believes in “divine timing.”

“It’s not in the timing that we necessarily want or are hoping for…but what He has orchestrated for us. It didn’t matter how we came to have our kids,” she added. “We’re supposed to be having children, right? So, there you go: We just produced two more Catholics.”

The Associated Press contributed.

eleventis@chicagotribune.com