Issuu

Serving the Northwestern and Evanston communities since 1881

The Daily Northwestern Find us online @thedailynu

Wednesday, January 28, 2026

DAILYNORTHWESTERN.COM 4 A&E / The Dolphin Show

6 OPINION / Gender and Sexuality Studies Program

PHOTO/ ICE protest

“Footloose” production premieres with heartfelt performance

GSS director condemns gender definition language in NU’s deal with government

Snowy vigil protests ICE violence in Minneapolis

High 14 Low 1

NU restores tuition benefit Staff celebrate return of tuition perk program By NINETH KANIESKI KOSO

daily senior staffer @ninethkk

Over seven months after Northwestern announced the end of the University’s Enhanced Employee Reduced Tuition benefit, the program will be reinstated for employees hired before Jan. 1, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Amanda Distel said at Wednesday’s Faculty Senate meeting. “We’re at a place as an institution where there’s a lot of policy change,” said Feinberg School of Medicine communications specialist Julie Bednark. “That’s not great, and so it was great to finally hear some good news like a step in the right direction. We are thankful.” The EER benefit allows NU employees with an annual salary of less than $100,000 to take unlimited classes with 90% reduced tuition after three years of continuous full-time benefitseligible service.

On June 12, the University announced its intentions to end the program on Jan. 1 of this year, leading many staff to petition for the change’s reversal under the NU Together for Tuition Coalition. “This development is the direct result of sustained employee advocacy and community courageously raising their voices,” Bednark said. “It demonstrates the power and necessity of collective action and institutional accountability.” Bednark noted that the change applies to all staff hired before Jan. 1, so there is still inequity with new staff. Two staff members with the same position should not have different access to education based on their hiring date, she said. She added that in the time it took the University to reverse the decision, some staff had already left NU to pursue opportunities elsewhere. “We have already lost strong staff to institutions that invest more fully in their workforce,” Bednark said. “Educational access is not a perk, it’s a recruitment, retention and equity issue.

» See TUITION BENEFIT, page 11

Sophie Baker/The Daily Northwestern

For many Envision Evanston critics, the housing dispute was inseparable from broader criticism of Biss’ leadership.

Envision Evanston advances City Council narrowly approves landmark comprehensive plan in a 5-4 vote By SOPHIE BAKER

daily senior staffer

When city officials first launched Envision Evanston 2045 in February 2024, residents gathered at the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center armed with Post-it

notes and stickers to assess their priorities for the city’s future. After a move across town and nearly two years of debate, City Council voted 5-4 to pass the comprehensive plan at its Monday meeting. Ald. Clare Kelly (1st), Ald. Tom Suffredin (6th), Ald. Parielle Davis (7th) and Ald.

Matt Rodgers (8th) voted against the plan. “I do want to echo all those who said this is a very important and very exciting milestone, and kind of the starting gun for the hard part,” said Mayor Daniel Biss. “So congratulations, thank you and good luck.”

When Envision Evanston was first introduced, city officials presented the initiative as a broad effort to update the city’s long-term planning framework and rewrite its zoning code. The proposal quickly drew criticism

» See COUNCIL, page 11

City rallies following ICE shooting Medill offers loan Vigil in Evanston uplifts Latino voices, condemns federal enforcement By ISABELLA JACOB and DESIREE LUO

daily senior staffers @isabellaj313 / @desiree_luo

More than 100 community members gathered Sunday afternoon at a snowy Fountain Square for a vigil one day after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot and killed a man in Minneapolis. The man was identified as Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse. Video footage from a witness and independently verified by The New York Times shows Pretti holding a phone during the shooting, contradicting a Department of Homeland Security X statement claiming ICE agents tried to disarm Pretti and shot him in self-defense. The Times has verified videos showing the agents removing a gun from Pretti’s person before the shooting. Videos verified by The Times also showed that Pretti did not draw the weapon. Minneapolis has witnessed increased federal immigration enforcement in recent weeks, and Pretti is the second person and U.S. citizen ICE agents have killed in the city this month. The first was 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, whom agents fatally shot three weeks ago. Good’s death prompted a similar emergency vigil Jan. 8, organized by Evanston-based activist group Pink

Recycle Me

Poster Club. The organization also arranged Sunday’s protest alongside Evanston Latinos, Indivisible Evanston and Sanctuary Evanston. Sunday’s vigil was “intentional in uplifting” Evanston’s Latino community, Evanston Latinos Executive Director Ricardo Villalobos said. Villalobos said Sunday’s programming of songs and speeches, done in both English and Spanish, aimed to showcase Latino culture. Toward the protest’s end, he took the stage with his guitar to perform a song in Spanish. “People being impacted are people who sometimes don’t have a voice,” Villalobos told The Daily. “We want to make sure that the voices reflect the community being impacted.” In addition to acknowledging Pretti and Good, Villalobos spoke about Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old boy from suburban Minneapolis who was detained alongside his father, as well as several victims who have died in ICE custody. State Sen. Mike Simmons (D-Chicago) and Mayor Daniel Biss, both running for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District seat, stood among attendees at Fountain Square. Both candidates have called for ICE to be abolished. Simmons told The Daily that President Donald Trump should be impeached and private prisons

help to graduates

Collins said the program Program helps reflects Medill’s values of supalumni working in porting local news journalism “that there is somebody local journalism and covering those stories.” By TAARIQ AHMED

the daily northwestern

Yong-Yu Huang/The Daily Northwestern

Mayor Daniel Biss called ICE’s actions a “campaign of terror” in an interview with The Daily during Sunday’s vigil.

holding abducted individuals should be abolished. “I’m out here because I’m outraged, and Evanstonians are outraged at the fascist takeover of our country, where we’re seeing coldblooded murders in the streets,” he said. Biss called ICE’s actions a “campaign of terror” and acknowledged that “everyone’s trying to figure out what they can do” in an interview with The Daily. “We need to match their escalating violence with escalating nonviolent resistance everywhere we possibly can,” Biss said. A pair of Northwestern students at the vigil, including Weinberg sophomore Sophie Beveridge, called on their classmates to engage more with community issues. As they took the stage alongside a fellow attendee to lead the crowd in song, they pointed out how few

NU students attended the event. “We’ve been talking about how our campus feels so quiet,” Beveridge told The Daily. “I feel like it’s very easy to feel removed from what’s going on in the world and in this country.” Beveridge said she and her classmates have begun brainstorming volunteer and fundraising activities to promote civic engagement among NU students, particularly those including art and music. Chicago resident Loretta Martin stood among the chorus of attendees that accompanied performers on Sunday. Despite not speaking Spanish, Martin said the songs struck a chord. “We didn’t know what it meant, but we knew what it felt like,” Martin said. i.jacob@dailynorthwestern.com desireeluo2028@u.northwestern.edu

The Medill School of Journalism will join the Columbia Journalism School’s loan assistance campaign starting in 2026. The campaign will be available for graduate alumni who are working for a U.S. local news organization. The Loan Repayment Assistance Program aims to support graduate alumni by repaying student loans they borrowed to fund their Medill education. Originating at Columbia, it is funded by the Knight Foundation. Expansion of the program comes as local news organizations face increasing fiscal challenges. The 2025 Medill State of Local News Report, run by Medill’s Local News Initiative, found that the number of local newspapers continues to decline. Julie Collins, Medill assistant dean of graduate admissions & financial aid, said LRAP allows local news organizations to recruit and retain journalists interested in working for them.

“It almost goes hand in hand,” Collins said. “We’re encouraging students to consider local news and public interest reporting as a career path, but we’re, in a way, supporting local news organizations that have top-tier journalists reporting for those news organizations. It’s a full circle.” When a student graduates, Collins said they receive a notification about whether they are working for or have accepted a role at a local news organization that qualifies for LRAP, along with information about applications. Graduate alumni are eligible to apply within five years of their graduation date. She also said the program aims to encourage graduate students to “broaden their lens” to local news organizations when it comes to job searches. Mackenzie Warren (Medill ’00), interim executive director of the Local News Initiative, said LRAP combats limitations of “who can afford to be a journalist.” “To get a classical journalism education at a place like Medill or Columbia, that’s an investment

» See LOANS, page 11