University officials said in a news release posted on X, the social medial platform formerly known as Twitter, that Lovell had been suffering from sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that develops in the bones and soft tissues. Lovell and his wife, Amy, were in Rome on a Jesuit formation pilgrimage when he fell ill and was taken to a hospital, according to the news release.

“When you don’t know how much time you have left, you want your days to be impactful and you want to do things that you love,” Lovell said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2022. “And so you ask me, why do I want to work? Well, you know, there are days that are hard, to be honest with you, and the last few years weren’t easy, but I love being on this campus. I love being in our community.”

Marquette officials are planning a prayer vigil for Lovell with details to be announced on the university’s website when they become available, campus officials said in the news release.

“The days ahead will be full of heartbreak,” they said. “In this time of grief and sadness, let us come together as a community linked by faith and love.”

Lovell took over as the university’s 24th president in 2014. Prior to become president he served as chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

He helped create the Near West Side Partners, a nonprofit focused on economic development, housing and safety in Marquette’s neighborhood in Milwaukee, according to a profile on the Marquette website. He also helped start a number of other initiatives in Milwaukee, including the Midwest Energy Research Consortium, which promotes growth in the energy sector, and the Water Council, which focuses on innovation in fresh water technology.

He served on multiple boards, including the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. He earned three mechanical engineering degrees, including a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh.

Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers, who played for Marquette in the early 1980s, issued a statement calling Lovell a “gentle giant.”

“Dr. Lovell loved Marquette, and we loved him right back,” Rivers said. “He cared deeply about our students educationally. More importantly, he cared about their growth as people and future leaders in our community. My deepest condolences to his family. Thank you for sharing him with us. We are Marquette.”

Anne d’Aquino told students in May that they could write about the impact of “genocide in Gaza on human health and biology.” The theme of the spring class at the Chicago school was how microorganisms cause disease.

DePaul said some students “expressed significant concern” about politics in a science class.

“We investigated the matter, spoke with the faculty member, and found it had negatively affected the learning environment by introducing extraneous political material that was outside the scope of the academic subject as outlined in the curriculum,” DePaul said Friday in a statement.

The school noted an email with the assignment expressed support for people “resisting the normalization of ethnic cleansing.”

“The class was provided a new instructor, and the faculty member has been released from their appointment as a part-time faculty member,” DePaul said.

D’Aquino is appealing her dismissal.

About 50 people protested last Thursday in support of her, waving Palestinian flags, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

“My termination was a breach of my academic freedom and another example of this administration’s efforts to twist any discussions of Palestine and Palestinian liberation language into false claims of antisemitism,” d’Aquino said at the demonstration.

She said the assignment was relevant, noting that scientists have warned about the spread of disease in Gaza due to malnutrition and a lack of water and adequate sanitation.

“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.

But it happened a few times while Sergio Nuno, not your ordinary custodian, talked about the students he sees every school day.

What means the most to him, he said “is the success of the kids,” his voice filled with emotion.

“Their success,” he said and paused, “is the future for everybody.”

Nuno, 66, of Chicago Heights, has worked 12 years as a custodian for Matteson School District 162 and Southland College Prep Charter High School in Richton Park.

The care he puts into his job has earned him national recognition. In May, he was named one of 17 recipients nationwide of the LifeChanger Award.

As one of the national winners, Nuno will receive $3,000 from the National Life Group Foundation.

Each school year, the LifeChanger of the Year program receives hundreds of nominations from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Administrators, teachers, staff, students and alumni posted comments about Nuno and his impact on their lives on his profile on the LifeChanger website.

A selection committee reviewed the comments as a part of their evaluation of nominees. Teachers, coaches, administrators and custodians were selected.

In the end, folks in District 162 and the high school were not surprised Nuno won because they know he cares deeply.

His work day starts at 6 a.m. but he arrives at 5:30, “to get a head start.” He often stays late. But it’s more than cleaning classroom floors or bathrooms.

“I give back to the kids. To motivate. To make things go forward. That’s my purpose. Everything the kids need, I am there for them,” Nuno said during a chat at the district office.

There have been countless times when Nuno has been approached by students seeking advice or when he sees one down in the dumps.

“The thing is, when the kids start to talk to me and share with me, I am there for them. I never walk away,” Nuno said. “When someone says something to me, I always listen. When you listen, you can always make a difference.”

He recalled the day he saw a boy crying.

“I asked are you okay? Then he opened up,” Nuno said.

It turned out the boy was upset about poor grades.

“I told him you can turn around and change and make a success. Don’t let it bother you. You’re still young. Right now, you feel this because you’re young,” Nuno said.

His caring attitude is why Blondean Davis, superintendent of Matteson School District 162 and Southland College Prep CEO, nominated Nuno for the award, calling him the “heart of the district.”

“From our youngest scholars at our preschool to the seniors at our high school and our alumni across the country, Sergio, as the students and staff affectionately call him, is loved,” Davis said in a prepared statement.

“Sergio sets the atmosphere of the school. He has impacted our students’ lives by encouraging them and letting them know that they are seen and loved.”

Nuno is now sidelined from work as he recovers from pacemaker surgery in May. His recovery is assisted by the award, which “feels great.”

He enjoys being a custodian “because I’m a people person. When you get along with everybody, (the job) won’t be stressful.”

Southland Prep music teacher Elizabeth Norman Sojourner said Nuno “makes everyone feel like a queen or king.”

Nuno, who moved to America when he was 18, worked for two steel companies before joining the school district. He works at Richton Square School in Richton Park, which has preschool students and he works at the high school on Saturdays.

Richton Square Principal Kim McGuire said Nuno “has a gentle kindness that spreads to all he encounters. His sensitivity reaches from our littlest of learners through to our seasoned professionals. … He is a joy to watch and work alongside.”

Olivia Brown, a 2019 graduate of Southland and a recent graduate of the University of Missouri, works as a crisis counselor. She said Nuno’s encouragement had a lasting impact.

“His warm personality always turned my bad days into good days. Anytime I would tell Sergio I was having a long day he would always say ‘You keep going girl, you got this’ and those words will forever stick with me,” Brown said.

Because of his pacemaker surgery, Nuno was unable to attend a celebration announcing the award on May 20.

Davis, who accepted the award on his behalf, said a large celebration with students, alumni, the band and cheerleaders will be held in the fall.

“He deserves all of the recognition and accolades,” Davis said. “He is a much-loved member of the Southland and District 162 family.”

Security officer Lloyd Graham added: “We love Sergio because he’s always there for you. Very reliable. Great guy.”

Until he’s able to return to work, baseball fan Nuno plans to keep watching the struggling White Sox, hoping Ozzie Guillen returns as manager.

Nuno, who is no longer married, has a 37-year-old son and a 17-year-old grandson. They live in Ohio.

And that $3,000 prize? “A vacation,” he said with a smile.

Steve Metsch is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown. 

Kennedy and Steinem would lecture together on college campuses in the 1970s, and the crowds would inevitably include a heckler.

“Just pause,” Kennedy advised, “let the audience absorb the hostility. Then say, ‘I didn’t pay him to say that.’”

Because ultimately, Steinem wrote, hostility educates an audience — about what stands in the way of progress and why it’s important to keep pushing.

So when Jessica Calarco’s phenomenal new book, “Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net,” came out less than a month after NFL kicker Harrison Butker used a college commencement address to tell “the ladies present today” that “homemaker” would be their most important title, I thought, “She didn’t pay him to say that. … But, man, it would have been money well-spent.”

Calarco is a sociologist and author whose latest work interrogates the ways in which unpaid or underpaid women keep society afloat by bearing the brunt of the labor of child rearing, early education, health care, elder care and more — and why this system is broken, unsustainable and beneficial to almost no one except the wealthiest of the wealthy.

“The U.S. avoids catastrophe and keeps our society and our economy from crumbling by relying on women as the invisible glue,” Calarco writes.

“Holding It Together” is based on research Calarco and her team conducted from 2018 to 2022, 400 hours of interviews and two national surveys. She weaves in contemporary history, long-held economic principles and hundreds of families’ personal experiences to show the toll on women — and society — when we spin this set-up as a value system rather than calling it what it really is: exploitation.

“In essence, the U.S. has decided that we can get by without a social safety net because women will protect us instead,” Calarco writes. “That choice is drowning women and leaving our society sicker, sadder and more stressed. Yet the engineers and profiteers of our DIY society refuse to see women struggling, because acknowledging those struggles would shatter the illusion. Ignoring women leaves us exactly where they want us — keeping society afloat without any buoy to hold us, and so out of breath that no one can hear us if we cry.”

She writes about the way our culture raises girls to be “mothers-in-waiting,” the way our schools limit access to evidence-based education about avoiding pregnancy, the way our policies curtail birth control access and abortion rights, and then the way we write off unplanned pregnancies (which make up roughly half of all U.S. pregnancies) as the result of poor choices.

She points out that 90% of workers hired to care for the resulting children are women, and they’re among the lowest-paid in the U.S. economy — often lacking access to health insurance or paid sick leave.

She writes about the American obsession with rags-to-riches stories, callousness toward poor people and widespread beliefs that prosperity and health are simply the result of good choices. All of which serve to “divide and delude us into accepting the DIY society and women’s role as a substitute safety net.”

She notes that simply telling men to take on more of the domestic burden isn’t a solution.

“Telling men ‘Do more!’ doesn’t change the incentives that men have to dump the risk they face onto the women in their families — the same set of incentives that leads privileged women to dump the risk they’ve been handed onto others more vulnerable than them,” Calarco writes. “Telling men ‘Do more!’ also doesn’t change the gendered structure of our economy, the gendered pressures that men face to prioritize paid work over caregiving or the gendered differences in socialization that leave men less prepared to do the work of care.”

It also, Calarco writes, hands women yet more thankless roles: gender police and cleanup crew.

The answer, Calarco makes painstakingly clear, is an actual social safety net, made up of well-funded public programs that protect people from exploitation, provide essential protections like health insurance, paid sick leave and paid family leave. Such a safety net would allow families real choices and grant people dignity throughout their life spans.

She makes the case for a union of care, similar to other labor unions, that bridges the gap between disparate care industries as well as the gap between paid and unpaid care workers and the gap between people who give and receive care. A unifier, where so much division exists.

Which brings us, believe it or not, back to Butker’s commencement address.

“I have seen it firsthand how much happier someone can be when they disregard the outside noise and move closer and closer to God’s will in their life,” he told the graduates, invoking his wife as an example. “Isabelle’s dream of having a career might not have come true, but if you asked her today if she has any regrets on her decision, she would laugh out loud, without hesitation, and say, ‘Heck, no.’”

I’m sure that’s true. If you asked me today if I regret any of the time or energy I’ve devoted to my children I would also say, “Heck, no.”

But that’s not for everyone. And it’s also not a system — certainly not an equitable or sustainable one. (A spouse with an NFL salary, for example, makes forgoing a career that provides a paycheck, insurance and retirement benefits possible in a way that few women will experience.)

And that, believe it or not, brings us back to Steinem’s memoir.

Kennedy, Steinem wrote, was used to skeptics — including women — who didn’t see the point of all her women’s lib talk. Women have it fine, they’d tell her. I have it fine, they’d tell her. And Kennedy would tell them this, Steinem wrote.

“Just because you’re not feeling sick doesn’t mean you should close the hospitals.”

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The complaint, filed in federal court, alleges that the Fenton Community High School District 100 Board of Education is responsible for “permitting, enabling and empowering” the misconduct of longtime teacher and track coach Michael Berago.

Berago, 40, was fired from Fenton High School in March after a school investigation into misconduct, according to the complaint. The lawsuit alleges the woman, named as “Survivor A” in court documents, was sexually harassed, assaulted and raped by Berago while she was a minor in 2015 and 2016.

“She’s coming forward to seek justice and to hold this institution accountable and to make sure this doesn’t happen to other children,” said lead attorney Patrick Thronson. “She felt that enough was enough. The fact that Berago could be retained in employment was immensely disturbing to her.”

The Fenton Board of Education did not immediately return a request for comment. Amid the investigation into Berago’s misconduct, Superintendent James Ongtengco was placed on administrative leave in March.

A criminal investigation into Berago is ongoing, Bensenville police said in an email.

Berago declined to comment on the lawsuit or allegations of sexual abuse.

The complaint describes a pervasive culture of silence and negligence at Fenton, where school staff were allegedly aware of Berago’s serial abuse but took no substantial action, according to the complaint. Administrators received multiple complaints about Berago’s conduct with several students in 2011, according to the lawsuit. The complaint says Berago was hired at Fenton in 2007 as a 23-year-old.

“The lawsuit details a very, extremely concerning and disturbing pattern of conduct by Fenton High School over the course of many years,” Thronson said. “Fenton High School, the lawsuit alleges, was grossly negligent in its failure to protect students from the predation of Michael Berago.”

The lawsuit states Berago began to groom “Survivor A “in the spring of 2015, when she joined the track team that he coached. He began texting her on a school-issued cellphone, and the messages soon became sexual in nature, the lawsuit says. Berago would “rape her” in his car before track practice and throughout the school day, according to the complaint.

The signs of their inappropriate relationship were “open and obvious” to other school staff, the lawsuit says.

In December 2016, the woman allegedly was summoned to a meeting with the superintendent and a school resource officer, who confronted her about Berago’s conduct, the complaint states. She was “fearful, intimidated and alone” and denied the relationship, according to the lawsuit.

The superintendent and the school resource officer never reported the meeting to the woman’s parents and did not comply with Illinois’ mandatory reporting law, the complaint says.

The lawsuit seeks an unspecified dollar amount and asks the court to order the Fenton Board of Education to implement policies and procedures to prevent future abuse from staff. “I think people who have not been through that can only imagine what that’s been like,” Thronson said.

Berger-Vandenberg and Diekman schools in Dolton and Caroline Sibley in Calumet City are to be renovated back-to-back from this summer through January 2026, Superintendent Maureen White told about 100 parents, children and others.

“We are going to have three new schools — imagine that,” White said. “Three new schools in two years. As a taxpayer, I think it’s important that you know where your tax dollars go. And what better place for your tax dollars to go than to new schools for our children.”

Before announcing the specific changes, White asked everyone in the audience to shout, “new.” All buildings will be have new windows, floors, ceilings, lighting, restrooms, doors and lockers as well as computer labs and media centers, she said. Depending on the district’s ability to fund them, some schools will have new main offices and gymnasiums.

“We have to prioritize because we’re not a rich school district,” White said.

When the district raises enough funds, it will put new gyms and media centers in the incomplete schools, she said.

Berger-Vandenberg students should be able to return to their school after the upcoming winter break, White said. Diekman construction will close the school from January through August 2025, with students able to return the following fall. Construction at Caroline Sibley will last from August 2025 through January 2026, with students coming back after that year’s winter break.

But White cautioned the schedule is subject to change if renovations stall for any reason.

“What I don’t want you all to do is hold us fast and tight on this timeline,” White said.

She mentioned supply chain issues following the COVID-19 pandemic as presenting potential holdups on certain building updates.

Students at the three affected schools will be placed in temporary classrooms in other elementary schools depending on the status of the renovations. For example, while Caroline Sibley undergoes renovations, those students will be brought into the already completed Diekman and Berger-Vandenberg buildings.

Latasha and Marcellus Ford said they were skeptical of some of the plans, raising concerns about knowing in advance about changes in bus routes that would affect their soon-to-be second grade daughter with school locations change.

“Everything is so not together right now,” Latasha Ford said.

Marcellus Ford said communications from the school district are inconsistent, with parents finding out important information, such as date and time of the town hall meeting, through robocall with little advanced notice.

Those worries were echoed by parents Mario and Mashantala Kidd, who expressed frustrations about what they said was a lack of clarity provided by White during the question-and-answer portion of the meeting. They said the school renovations could exacerbate issues that already exist within the district.

“I’d like to see what the space they’re moving them into is going to look like,” Mashantala Kidd said.

Mario Kidd asked if the other school would be overcrowded during the renovation.

“As far as physical bodies, it’s already … 30-some students in a class. Where are these other kids going to go?” he asked. “You’re talking about a whole school and putting them in that building that doesn’t have a lot of space as it is.”

White said the school board chose to prioritize keeping children within the district to help with busing logistics, and said students will have access to the same technologies they had in their own schools.

“I need for everyone to understand there will be no slight to any of our students because of the move,” White said. “They will have the same teaching and learning experiences that they currently have in their building.”

White also announced several changes to curriculum for middle school students this upcoming year. Students will change their studies to take part in the Creative Communications Academy in sixth grade, the School of Fine Arts in seventh grade and the STEM Academy in eighth grade, rather than choosing one of schools of focus for their seventh and eighth grade years.

She said over the past few years the curricula for the three separate paths have blended together and students will benefit from being able to learn more about each topic.

ostevens@chicagotribune.com

The students packed a hodgepodge of must-haves.

Kenny Huynh, 11, brought his Stephen Curry basketball jersey, Pokemon cards, medals he won at science fairs and a book he reads to his newborn brother. Greyson Maser, 10, has Legos, a favorite T-shirt, a picture of his family and a book about tanks. And 10-year-old Aria Scott’s 10 things of importance include seven plush dolls, a butterfly she made in fourth grade, her baby brother’s favorite toy tiger and a picture of her and her dad from a father-daughter dance.

This “bag lesson,” is an example of a project Mahmood routinely puts in her lesson plans to teach Asian American history required by law to be taught in Illinois public schools since 2022 under the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History Act, or TEAACH.

Mahmood, 2024 Illinois Teacher of the Year, was an advocate for the TEAACH Act even before it became a mandate. She has aided other groups with professional development for teachers and curriculum for students in other venues, such as history and contributions of all faith backgrounds.

On that springlike day, Mahmood was teaching the “bag lesson” alongside the award-winning book, “Inside Out & Back Again” by Vietnamese American author Thanhha Lai. The book, part of the TEAACH curriculum, follows Hà Kim and her family’s journey from Saigon to a refugee camp in Guam. The family would eventually come to the United States. The book chronicles the author’s first year in the U.S. in 1975 as a 10-year-old girl who didn’t speak English.

“It’s not only about teaching Asian American history, it’s also teaching about the universal experience that refugees have, with the refugee crisis that’s going on in Chicago and all over the country,” Mahmood said. “They don’t know it’s the curriculum; they just know it’s the way I teach.”

Mahmood’s classroom reflects how she teaches.

Visitors and passersby can see a big bulletin board with Indigenous people at the center and a social justice vocabulary wall in the back of the room, where kids learn terms such as cultural appropriation and ethnocentric immigrant refugee. Mahmood guides her students in writing historical fiction and facilitates frequent conversations about why people of color and marginalized communities have historically been relegated to the margins of textbooks or left out altogether.

Mahmood has informed students about Manilamen Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz — Filipino American labor organizers who were part of the 1965-1966 strike and boycott against California grape growers — and astronauts, including Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams.

As leader of the school’s social justice club, Mahmood also thinks up projects for students to engage their civic muscles monthly, such as conducting a drive for hygiene items for the refugee population in the Chicagoland area.

Mahmood stays ready with cultural resources, adamant that the next generation will see themselves and their identities in the school curriculum. That’s a big part of the reason she became a teacher.

With a mother who is a Russian Jew, a dad who is an Indian Hindu, stepparents who are German-Italian Catholics and a husband who is a Pakistani Muslim, Mahmood said she grew up absent from the curriculum. That’s why it was so important to be a part of the TEAACH Act legislation and its implementation.

“When you’re absent from the curriculum, you learn a lot of unintentional lessons from well-intentioned people,” Mahmood said. “I learned lessons about my identity that were unintentional that caused me a lot of trauma. Then I found multicultural education. I became a teacher, because I was still searching for that belonging in school.”

Mahmood has made it a point to be a teacher who normalizes cultures, languages, foods, stories and histories of all backgrounds. “Our culture is one of the greatest assets we bring to our community,” she said. “It’s not a hindrance; it defines who we are and makes our wonderful world complex and interesting. We all need to lift each other up in spaces so people can feel a sense of belonging.”

Grace Pai, executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Chicago, or AAAJ-Chicago, was instrumental in getting the TEAACH Act passed in 2021. Efforts were launched at the same time the nation was shutting down because of the pandemic. The goal is to combat discrimination and harmful stereotypes that lead to violence.

So far, AAAJ-Chicago has trained more than 2,200 educators across the state on how to approach and teach Asian American history, Pai said. It starts with an introductory two-hour professional development workshop and continues with resources that include a teaching database that offers book recommendations, videos, lesson plans and articles that tie topics in Asian American history to state learning standards.

Mahmood has helped with the professional development around TEAACH through her education consulting practice. Pai envisions more teacher training and engagement with Asian American curricula, as well as asking constituents to ask school administrations for proof the history is being taught. And if it’s not, to advocate for it.

According to Pai, AAAJ-Chicago is one of a handful of organizations seeking more funds from the Illinois legislature to expand an existing, yearlong professional development series on inclusive history for educators — one that supports all-inclusive history requirements.

Jeremy Bautista, a Filipino American IT professional at Westmont High School, connected with the Very Asian Foundation in September to help bring teaching resources and AAAJ-Chicago’s professional development workshop to his school. Bautista brought together teachers from Westmont’s English, social studies and science departments to incorporate Asian American curricula into their lesson plans. Bautista, who has a master’s degree in teaching, sees the TEAACH Act as one facet of a bigger picture that has been a long time coming.

“To be aware of a part of American history that might inform your conversations in class … to share a different perspective, this is what the TEAACH Act is for,” he said. “It’s good to talk about diverse backgrounds. It’s not this trivial thing.”

Bautista co-sponsors the student group CAPAOW!, the Club of Asian and Pacific Americans of Westmont at Westmont High School.

“Kids see the value of having teachers educated — students want their teachers to be more informed and understanding of their culture,” Bautista said. “You need people like Dr. Mahmood, and a place like Westmont that are embracing that so kids can grow up understanding that they’re part of this process, they’re part of this society and this world and it’s OK to be you.”

Bautista has worked in his hometown school district for over 25 years and said when he learned about the TEAACH Act, he was excited.

“The benefit of the resources is for everybody,” he said. “Asian American students, sure, but they get to share with their friends … and it’s inspired other groups to do the same thing.”

He said for European refugees, seeing CAPAOW! and the Asian American curriculum in the lessons shows them they also have a voice and a safe space to share their culture.

“It means a lot to the kids to normalize those aspects of their identity which are often marginalized or completely invisible,” Mahmood said.

Mahmood went to school in Downers Grove and remembers learning about the Holocaust and a little about Hinduism in sixth grade.

“If you don’t talk about Asian Americans, then you learn that they’re not part of history,” she said. “Mexicans are not part of history … you learn unintentional lessons through what you read; you open a textbook and they’re not there. That means that they’re not important. You don’t realize it when you’re little, but 20 years later, like me, I tell my students I learned all these negative things about my culture. I’m discovering all these things about my culture now, and I wish I would have learned them as a kid so I was less embarrassed and more proud. I don’t want you to take 20 years to learn it.”

Mahmood joined Indian Prairie School District 204 in 2005 and has spent the last nine years at Georgetown Elementary School. She has led diversity and equity teams across the district, worked to encourage interfaith discussions and written curriculum for her district and beyond.

With her teacher of the year state honor comes a yearlong paid sabbatical to bring her culturally responsive teaching practices to educators and schools around the state and to share her approach to teaching on the platform concept of “belonging.”

“We need to create spaces where not only students feel that they belong, but staff (too); and part of that is letting people show up as their authentic self,” Mahmood said. “Part of that is understanding people’s histories, contributions and culture and all of those pieces that make them uniquely themselves.”

Her culturally responsive teaching is constantly observing students to see what their needs and fears are. Mahmood is taking the next school year to travel around the state; she wants to connect with people, hear what they need and help with those needs.

Mahmood said by viewing students’ cultures as assets and tools that can be leveraged in the classroom, instead of obstacles to overcome, the educational system can change for the better.

“You’re seeing the knowledge they bring, the cultural assets they have. And you’re responding to it by changing the way you teach, what you teach, enhancing it in a way that everything they bring to school becomes useful to them,” she said. “We can do the same thing with teachers. There’s so much diversity in our community and every part of that diversity belongs in education.”

The 21-year-old wrapped up her last few days of classes, decorated her graduation cap in art class and went to her school’s prom — in the sparkly silver dress and matching shoes she picked out herself.

Then came the culmination of seven years of hard work.

After four years of high school and three years at Southside Occupational Academy, a public special education school in Chicago, she donned a royal blue gown and walked across the stage to receive her high school diploma. Her family, classmates and teachers cheered her on from the audience.

The tight-knit school community at Southside provided more than an education for Lockhart. It provided work training in housekeeping, a part-time paid job and plenty of chances to flex her basketball skills through Special Olympics competitions.

“I’m going to miss my friends, teachers, my principal, the security guards,” Lockhart said on a recent afternoon.

But she is also looking to the future and will enroll in a two-year program at Richard J. Daley College designed for students with disabilities while she continues to work three days a week in her paid custodial role with Hyatt. In the future, she hopes to continue volunteering with the Special Olympics organization and said she would love to work at the foundation.

For students with disabilities, graduation and life beyond school — including full-time employment and independent living — can seem out of reach, as traditional school models and curricula are not typically catered to students who need individual education plans.

In Chicago Public Schools, students in special education lag behind their peers in graduating from high school, with roughly 75% of students getting their diplomas in four years in 2023, compared with 85% of CPS students not in special education.

Under Illinois state law, students with significant cognitive disabilities are entitled to up to four years of continued education at what are known as “transitional schools” after their traditional four years in high school, up until they turn 22 years old.

But for special education graduates, transitional schools like Southside can provide a bridge from school to the workforce through specialized instruction, social-emotional learning and opportunities to complete paid work at Chicago companies throughout the school year.

Last month, around 80 students at Southside graduated with their high school diplomas and work experience.

“This is a space … to hone a student’s skills in whatever their time beyond us looks like,” said Jim McGuire, a special education teacher at Southside. “Whether it’s somebody who’s employed and will really be working towards full-time competitive employment, or some students where it’s most meaningful for them to continue to work on those skills to really contribute at home.”

Southside is one of four such specialized schools across the district, and between its two campuses in Englewood and Lower West Side, the school enrolls about 400 students. The district has another transitional school on the Near South Side, and two others are located on the North Side.

“We are sort of the South Side transition center for every neighborhood on the South Side,” McGuire said.

Southside students also take courses related to living independently. Topics range from learning how to use public transportation in the city to taking care of one’s own apartment.

Lockhart enrolled at Southside three years ago after attending South Shore High School, a large feeder school to Southside. She began at the Englewood campus for one year, before moving to the Lower West Side campus, called “the Hub” by the staff.

Students who move to the Hub are primarily focused on gaining real-life work experience at one of the school’s 12 work sites across the city, where students work in industries such as hospitality, parks and recreation and museums.

“We have all kinds of different opportunities and a lot of times our students really do show a strong skill set in those internships and oftentimes they’re offered opportunities to interview for permanent part time positions,” McGuire said.

In her second year, Lockhart began working part-time in housekeeping at a Hyatt Centric downtown once a week through Southside’s partnerships with the company. In addition, she worked in a paid custodial role for Hyatt, cleaning corporate office spaces twice a week outside of her school hours.

By her third year at Southside, she received a promotion at the company, she explained proudly, and performed her housekeeping duties independently without supervision.

“I really enjoy housekeeping. I clean the tables and do dishes,” Lockhart said of her job.

Southside also led her to pursue sports through the Special Olympics foundation in her extra time, and around the school, she is known for her layups in basketball games.

Her mother, Radisha Walker, said she was “overwhelmed with joy” at her daughter’s graduation ceremony.

“I’m just really proud of her,” Walker said. “She’s so goal driven and has the willpower that she’s not going to give up for anything. She’s going to keep trying.”

Southside students also take courses related to living independently. Topics range from learning how to use public transportation in the city to how to take care of your own apartment.

“We’re very focused on the individual and the path and what works best for them because the future is coming up quick,” said principal Jennifer Bollinger, who has led the school for 13 years. “Some students are here for four years, some are here for a year, so we try to adapt to whatever they need.”

Elijah Winston also found his way into the housekeeping program at Southside after graduating from Morgan Park High School, and has held a hospitality job the past two years.

Despite his success in the program, he has his heart set on breaking into another field: live entertainment.

Winston said he has been interested in musicals since he was a young boy and first saw “Hairspray.”

In the past year leading up to graduation, Winston, 21, auditioned twice for professional shows as an actor, including one at the Chicago Kids Company. He is also writing song lyrics and producing music he hopes to one day release.

“I’m trying to put my work out there,” he said.

When Winston received word of his first audition, two of his teachers at Southside helped him put together professional headshots prior to the audition.

“If you have a disability and you’re trying to find a job, it’s hard out there to find the right job,” Winston said.

At the school’s graduation ceremony, teachers leaned on the school’s two daily mantras as they sent the graduates off: Respect others and believe in yourself.

In McGuire’s class, 11 of his 13 students graduated this spring, including Lockhart and Winston.

After years of meetings with students and parents to craft the right education for each individual student, McGuire was emotional talking about his students’ future career aspirations, as each prepare to forge ahead on their own path.

“There’s just a lot of tears and just a collective feeling of ‘We did it,’” he said of seeing his students transition to their next stage of life. “This student is ready for the world in ways they couldn’t have anticipated.”

“The reality is we might not get jobs because of (our activism),” said Acha, an undergraduate anthropology major at the U. of C. and an organizer with Students for Justice in Palestine. 

Acha has more than one reason to worry. She is one of four U. of C. students whose degrees were withheld because of their involvement with the university’s pro-Palestinian encampment calling on the institution to sever its financial ties to Israel. 

A U. of C. spokesman has said the school cannot comment on individual student disciplinary matters, but said that the process is standard practice after a formal complaint is reviewed by the university’s Disciplinary Committee. Meanwhile, over the weekend, hundreds of students and faculty walked out of U. of C.’s convocation over the university’s actions. 

“All four of us aren’t employed yet,” Acha said. “I’m in this situation now where I have to find a job to support myself but I also need to continue to fight for the things I need to fight for.”

The fear of long-term professional consequences has been a source of concern for pro-Palestinian students out protesting, though several of them, including  Acha, plan to enter professions well served by activism such as community organizing, nonprofit work, politics or academia.

“We have some universities, like U. of C., that are pledging that they are going to protect student speech and the presidents (of these universities) recently have been saying that more than their policies actually do that, but at least they’re saying it,” said Kimberly Yuracko, a Judd and Mary Morris Leighton Professor of Law at Northwestern University who specializes in antidiscrimination and employment law. “But I’ve just not heard of a single private sector employer that has said they will contractually protect speech in accordance with the First Amendment. Maybe there’s one out there, but I’ve not seen it.” 

Jinan Chehade, the lawyer who filed a complaint Wednesday in U.S. District Court, said the law firm, Foley & Lardner, discriminated against her because of her Arab Muslim background and political statements she’d made on social media and at public meetings about Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and the ensuing crisis in Palestine.

“It was devastating when they turned against me and vilified me in this way when I really respected their supposed commitment to diversity,” Chehade told the Tribune on Thursday. 

Yuracko said because employers like Foley & Lardner can rescind employment offers for any reason, cases such as Chehade’s would not fall under a breach of contract.

According to the complaint, Chehade, a Georgetown Law School graduate, had been interning with Foley & Lardner in July 2022 when they offered her a full-time position to begin in fall 2023. Then, 13 hours before she was set to start work, she was fired, according to the complaint.

The Sunday before her first scheduled day of work, Foley & Lardner managers asked her to come to the office where she said they interrogated her for two hours “in a very hostile manner,” according to the lawsuit.

“As soon as we all sat down, they pulled out a packet of about 15 to 20 pages with screenshots of my social media posts, about speeches that I’ve made, about my background, my identity,” Chehade told the Tribune. “When I really started to feel the anxiety and panic was when they asked me about my dad, and where he worked — and obviously as a child of immigrants, a big law firm asking you about your father … alarm bells just started going off in my head.”

Chehade’s father serves as communications director of the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview.

The complaint also alleges that several Foley & Lardner partners openly and publicly supported the actions of Israel toward Palestinians in Gaza without facing consequences.  

In an emailed statement Friday, a Foley & Lardner representative said they believed Chehade’s complaint was “without merit.”

“We stand behind our decision to rescind Ms. Chehade’s employment offer as a result of the statements she made surrounding the horrendous attacks by Hamas on October 7,” a firm representative said.

Chehade’s claim is actionable, Yuracko said, because she is arguing that she’s being discriminated against based on race or national origin, not just based on her political view.

Yuracko said that if a company wants to not hire a person because of opposing viewpoints, “viewpoint discrimination by a private employer is fine.”

“But what’s legally problematic is if they’re treating people who, let’s say, engage in protests, who are race A, differently than people who engage in protests who are of race B,” she said.

Acha, who is Black and was a vocal organizer of the protest encampment for Gaza at U. of C., said she’s noticed a differential treatment of people who are pro-Palestine compared to those that are pro-Israel. 

“For example, there were certain students who were so actively harassing us during the encampment who have now received their degrees,” she said. 

Jeffrey Sun, a literature major at U. of C. who is graduating this summer, said he plans to find a job that aligns with his values and his social work, which includes continuing to raise awareness about Palestine. He said the current climate might put pressure on private sector employers who will likely be faced with job candidates and clients who are clear and confident about the issues they support. 

“So many of us are pro-Palestine — my friends and I once went on a university-sponsored trip to L.A. and there was a restaurant that had Israeli flags, and I remember we just all agreed to not eat there and got up and left,” Sun said. “I think we’re making it very uncomfortable for private businesses, and businesses are becoming more aware that we don’t consider our work separate from our lives.” 

But not everyone has the same type of privilege to pick and choose their job prospects, he said. 

Acha, who comes from a lower-income background, said she’s considering scrubbing her social media platforms while she looks for work, even though her accounts are private. 

Yuracko said more student activists should consider doing the same. She said employers generally want to hire people who can fit into their company culture, rather than be agents of change. 

Acha and the three other students whose degrees were held back still participated in graduation, and hope to get their degrees after a resolution in the disciplinary process. But if the Standing Disciplinary Committee on Disruptive Conduct finds that certain policies were violated, their degrees could be denied despite four years of coursework and a staggering tuition. 

“I want to be hopeful for what the next chapter looks like away from the university,” Acha said. “But it’s terrifying to not know what’s next and to not have my future lined up because I’m choosing to fight for what’s right and choosing to fight for humanity.”

Chicago Tribune’s Caroline Kubzansky contributed.