Other Views

Views from outside contributors on issues relevant to Sun-Times readers.

One in four Black girls will be sexually abused by age 18. Schools must give youth the knowledge and awareness not to fall prey to sex trafficking, a UIC professor writes.
ComEd and Ameren are asking us to pay more to get less. As the state transitions to clean energy, the Illinois Commerce Commission should right-size electric utilities’ spending and limit the financial impact on customers.
Mental health crises are rising among girls and young women. Working on Womanhood, developed in Chicago, helped reduce symptoms of PTSD.
Young Black men are disproportionately affected by housing instability, and youth in foster care or who have experienced the death of a parent or caregiver are also at high risk, a recent Chapin Hall study found.
History sometimes forgets that Pearl Harbor also triggered one of the most significant letters in presidential history: the Green Light Letter in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt encouraged baseball owners to keep playing.
Law enforcement routinely circumvents laws meant to protect privacy, by purchasing peoples’ personal information via data brokers. Sen. Dick Durbin should do more to stop it, the head of Lucy Parsons Lab writes.
There are zoning reforms that would help Chicago achieve its vision of abundant housing and better access to transit.
We rejected Donald Trump’s xenophobia in 2016 and 2020, and Chicago must reject it now as the presidential election and Democratic National Convention approach in 2024, state Sen. Robert Peters writes.
The team needs to be reunited for posterity. Legions of Siskel and Ebert fans would all give this idea a big thumbs up, writes a lifelong Chicagoan and movie fan.
Hindu nationalist organizations are working to import their bigoted ideology into this diverse city, and Chicagoans cannot remain in the dark, the head of the Indian American Muslim Council writes.
Artificial intelligence is the tech story of 2023, and ‘hallucinate,’ referring to incorrect information generated by AI, was also chosen as a word of the year for 2023.
A repeal would not stop migrants from arriving in Chicago, and the debate over the ordinance has worsened tensions between Black and Brown communities.
The court has the opportunity to reexamine the nature of content moderation and the constitutional limitations of the government regarding speech on platforms such as Facebook, X, TikTok, and Instagram.
She was soft-spoken but politically savvy and determined to increase awareness about mental illness at a time when many were embarrassed to discuss it, a Chicago-based member of her advance team writes.
Dads who work from home are more likely to say parenting is stressful “all or most of the time,” compared with dads who work on-site, according to new research.
Our changing climate disrupts the environmental cues animals rely on to solve problems like selecting a habitat, finding food and choosing mates, a neuroscientist writes.
Native Americans started it all, making Chicago a welcoming place to “DuSables” of all colors, creeds, orientations and socio-economic backgrounds, Buildings Commissioner Matthew W. Beaudet writes.
The public is worn down by relentless shenanigans — from the sports world to political gamesmanship, voter suppression, multiple alleged criminal conspiracies and even a mob attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Keianti Darling, Durrail Williams and Joseph Thomas are members of Chicago CRED, a group that works to reduce gun violence. Recently, they traveled to Senegal on a service trip to build a school.
For many, the blessing is simply being here. They had a long journey and faced untold hardships to request asylum in America, the executive director of New Life Centers writes.
Americans should not pretend the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor is not a problem. Economists and philosophers have pointed out the threat, stretching back to Plato, a DePaul University political science professor writes.
In Illinois, some right-wing groups want to ban in vitro fertilization. Because of these zealots, in January our governor and state lawmakers enacted a law protecting people’s decisions to use IVF to have children.
The state has essentially said “do more with less,” and we have, but there comes a point when stretching a dollar eventually tears it in two, a nursing home administrator writes.
People living in communities south of 95th Street will benefit from historic investment, including the Red Line Extension and Metra Electric improvements, that will transform these areas from being transportation deserts.