cover art by Molly Robinson merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disorient Why disorient? “Writing as writing. Writing as rioting. Writing as righting. On the best days, all three.” When you first arrive at UChicago, you’re bombarded with information about the place that is going to be your home, from many different sources. But the first image you get is actually highly curated and manicured. As you look more closely, you’ll discover just how intentional the University is about the image it projects to you, to your parents, to the public. And you’ll begin to find the differences between your experience and that image. That process can be upsetting, disappointing, demoralizing... But you have to embrace it. Getting disoriented is a crucial step in finding your true community on campus, and in learning what it really means to be a student here. DisOrientation isn’t in opposition to the University’s introduction to campus. We only intend to supplement what you see, broaden your perspective, and contextualize the university’s policies and actions. DisOrientation is hundreds of students coming together to actively welcome you. Instead of waiting for you to find us, we are reaching out to you with open arms, with this book, with these events, so you know that we’re here. We hope you’re perturbed by the big questions raised in this book, which demand big answers; we also hope you’re comforted by the knowledge that there are people here to support you. We hope to provide you with a sense of place and time, a continuity with the efforts and experiences of past students. This book is filled with instances of students seeing something that needed changing, and doing something about it. We hope you are inspired and equipped to take up the mantle on issues you believe are worth fighting for. Who owns these words? “There is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the practice of freedom – the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with the reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.” -Paulo Freire This book is not the O-Book. We are not a monolithic, anonymous, institutional voice. And staying neutral isn’t always as simple as it sounds. Editing a couple hundred pages by a few dozen writers doesn’t even sound simple, and it’s actually even harder than that. So there are a couple points of philosophy we feel are important to share. On each of these pages, we offer the perspective of a writer, speaking from a place of social justice, social awareness/engagement/critique, social action -- but most of all, speaking for themselves. No section in this book should be read as the final word or definitive position on a given subject. So many people contributed to this book, representing a multiplicity of voices and opinions. We respect the differences between these views, and have encouraged our writers to own the words they write - our role was mainly to collect and refine them. We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to edit this book. The expertise, time, passion, and creativity poured into it from so many contributors is truly awe-inspiring. We’re incredibly proud to present the results to you. We hope you benefit from it as much as we have. See you around campus, Kiran and Baci TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.WE ARE HERE [7] History of Hyde Park & Surrounding Neighborhoods [9] Hyde Park: A (Radical) History [16] Gentrification & Development [19] Deconstructing Danger: Fear, Safety, & the UCPD [24] Transportation Politics on the 2.institution [27] Power @ the UofC: Admin, Faculty, Students [32] UChicago Employees [34] Grad Student Unionization [36] Recent Campus Campaigns [40] Thoughts on the Trauma Center Campaign [42] Money & Finance [43] You Are What You Eat: Food Politics [47] Know Your Rights: University Policies [47] Clery Act, Title IX, Sexual Misconduct, Disciplinary Process [52] Resources for Survivors / Allies / People with Questions [55] Bias Response Team [56] Dig In: Sites & Sources for Further Research TABLE OF OF TABLE CONTENTS theories & 3.perspectives [59] Class & Classism [61] (a Marxist take on) Class & Classism [64] Power, Oppression, & Racism [68] Antisemitism [73] Islamophobia [74] Supporting a Two-State Solution, Opposing the Occupation [76] Zionism & Anti-Palestinian Climate [78] Culture & Appropriation [79] Intersectionality [80] Privilege [82] Sexism & Feminism [88] The Gender Binary [91] LGBTQ Rights [95] Theory of Drugs [101] Ableism & Disability [103] Freedom of Expression and the University of Chicago [108] On Being an Ally 4.community [113] Campus Climate Survey Highlights [116] Frustrating Incidents at UChicago [123] Learning While Trans [128] Attending UChicago as an International Student [132] Navigating Campus as a Low-Income Student [140] Feeling Good [140] Mind [143] Body [146] Sex [146] Critical & Inclusive Sex Positivity [149] Consent [151] Painful Sex [153] Sexual Assault [155] Drugs [160] Rock & Roll Partying at the University of Chicago [167] Spiritual & Religious Life [175] Dorms No More: Satellite Dorms & North Campus [178] On Campus Insititutes: UCSC, CI+I, IOP [181] Getting Around Chicago [184] Pass It On [190] Getting Involved [196] Glossary of Social Justice Terms 1. WEWE AREARE HEREHERE wait, where? here, like, campus, the quad, the dorms? no—here: Hyde Park. here: neighboring Kenwood, Washington Park, and Woodlawn. here: the South Side. 6 history of Hyde Park & Surrounding Neighborhoods Edited & Updated by Maira Khwaja The Township of Hyde Park was founded in 1835 by Paul Cornell, built as a calm retreat from the city, with a passenger train for commuting to work. The City of Chicago annexed Hyde Park in 1889. With the construction of UChicago in 1890 and the Columbian Exposition in 1893, Hyde Park boomed with hundreds of new residential and commercial buildings. As a popular vacation spot for white city-dwellers, Hyde Park had over 100 hotels by the 1930s. In the 1940’s, Hyde Park and its surrounding neighborhoods saw a demographic shift as the Great Migration brought Chicago’s African American population from 1.8% of the total in 1990 to 8.2% in 1940. Many of the hotels on the South Side became tenement housing, and many whites decided to pack up and “flee” (UChicago debated relocating to Arizona or New Mexico for a while). Hyde Park’s residents largely found this change frightening, and responded with violence and restrictive covenants, which were legally- enforceable agreements with landlords to not sell or rent to people who didn’t look like them. To the residents’ chagrin, in 1948 the Supreme Court declared covenants illegal, so Hyde Park had to find a new way to way to keep out the “blight”. In 1949, a group of white businessmen formed the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference (HPKCC). The HPKCC created block clubs with the goal of preventing false gossip, tracking zoning laws and building violations, and ran their flagship WhistleStop program which taught residents to recognize the sound of a whistle as a cry for help. UChicago watched for three years, then decided that it had a role to play too, after the wife of a professor was attacked and fears of losing prospective students rose. UChicago created the South East Chicago Commission in 1952 to “enforce codes and track crime”. Attorney Julian Levi was hired to design the Urban Renewal Program—as it was officially named by the university—with government funding, razing down entire strips of worker housing to build student dorms, townhouses, classrooms, and parking garages, without allocating public housing space for the displaced poor. The program wrenched out Hyde Park’s jazz scene, closing down every jazz site, and bulldozed through the main commercial center on 55th street, leaving three new business sites that excluded nearly all of the old owners. The Urban Renewal program (nicknamed “Urban Removal”) became infamous for Levi’s lack of regard for community participation, and for its anti-poor and arguably anti- black agenda. The program’s work has left its legacy well. Hyde Park has kept its diversity, with a demographic of 40.5% white people, 39.5% black people, 13.5% Asian/Pacific Islanders, 4.1% multi-racial people, 2.1% people designated “other” and .2% American Indians. It also has a large middle class population (the average family income is $90,578), reflecting well the line of the HPKCC: “Whites and blacks, hand in hand against the poor”. Since the University of Chicago was founded in 1892, the neighborhoods around it, Hyde Park and Woodlawn, have changed immensely. The year after the University opened, the Columbian World’s Fair in Jackson Park transformed the area, as millions of visitors 7 streamed into the area to see the exhibits, the ‘nation tents’ on the Midway Plaisance, and to visit the world’s first Ferris Wheel. The next century would yield existential transformations for the neighborhoods, much of which were instigated and guided by the University itself. As students, we inherit the complicated legacy of University influence over the Hyde Park / Kenwood / Woodlawn area. While the University’s presence has allowed Hyde Park to become a (relatively) thriving multiracial and (relatively) economically diverse neighborhood, it has also created friction with neighboring areas, and has occasionally hampered the ability of those communities to thrive. To take Woodlawn as an example: the neighborhood—which officially stretches from the Midway in the north to 67th St in the south and the lakefront west to King Drive—has transformed radically since the early 20th century.