- Pritzker Fellows
- Current Fellows
- Lori Lightfoot
Lori Lightfoot
Former Mayor of Chicago
Winter-Spring 2024 Pritzker Fellow
Seminars Series: “Living To Tell the Stories: Governing Chicago in a Time of Epic Global & National Crises”
On May 20, 2019, Lori E. Lightfoot became the 56th Mayor of the City of Chicago. Mayor Lightfoot came to City Hall following a career as a manager, advocate, and reform expert, with extensive experience working at the city and federal level to make government more accountable and accessible. Before taking office, she served as a senior equity partner in the Litigation and Conflict Resolution Group at Mayer Brown LLP. While at Mayer Brown, Mayor Lightfoot took on two critical tasks for the City of Chicago, chairing the Police Accountability Task Force, and serving as president of the Chicago Police Board. Mayor Lightfoot held other key positions in City government, as the Interim First Deputy of the Chicago Department of Procurement Services and Chief of Staff and General Counsel of the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications. Prior to that, Mayor Lightfoot was Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois criminal division, managing large-scale investigations involving criminal drug conspiracies, political corruption and bankruptcy fraud. She received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Michigan and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Seminars
“Living To Tell the Stories: Governing Chicago in a Time of Epic Global & National Crises”
The years between 2019 and 2021 were the toughest and most consequential Chicago has faced in modern history. This period marked a mayoral change, the potential end to machine politics and the status quo, the biggest structural city budget deficits in history, and a divisive, weeks’ long teachers’ strike - all before COVID-19 hit, upending our lives, challenging our healthcare system and devastating huge parts of our economy. The murder of George Floyd unleashed massive public outcry and protests, which were routinely hijacked by violence and criminal looting. So how did we survive?
In a series of discussions, I will help answer that question, taking you behind the curtains in the rooms where it was happening to provide unique insights on how critical events in Chicago unfolded during this defining time. We’ll engage in weekly myth-busting exercises intended to take on some of the specious, closely held beliefs circulating on social media concerning a variety of topics. I will explain how my life’s journey shaped my vision for transforming Chicago by unapologetically operationalizing equity and taking advantage of the opportunities that the pandemic presented to right historical wrongs. I will cover the big issues facing Chicago and other cities across America and the many headwinds I and other leaders faced while highlighting the beauty, creativity and innovation that makes Chicago unique among America’s big cities.
Seminars are off-the-record & open to current UChicago students only.
In this first seminar, I will detail my background and experience and the motivations that led me, a political novice, on a path to run for one of the highest profile and toughest elected offices in America as a political novice. We will discuss how my north stars guided me in public life and helped me navigate the various crises that I confronted as Mayor. I will also outline what it takes to be an effective leader and examples of tough decision-making both inside and outside of politics and government, including my experiences with the Chicago City Council and other elected officials. I will use specific examples to illustrate the point and challenge the audience to weigh in on what they would do as a leader faced with the facts and the politics of particular key decisions.
People often say, “Too bad COVID dominated your term and didn’t allow you to do much else.” Nothing could be further from the truth, particularly on some key public health advancements. In this seminar, I will lay out some of the big public health issues that were flashing like neon signs during the pandemic and how the pandemic actually provided incredible opportunities to address some decades-in-the-making social ills. I will also make the case for why public health matters, is the answer to much of what ails us and is essential to repair a fraying social safety by addressing the root causes of everything from mental health and trauma, generational poverty and community violence and so many other issues plaguing urban and rural communities.
Special Guest: Dr. Allison Arwady, Director, National Center for Injury Prevention & Control
The word “equity” has become fashionable again, but what does that mean in the context of addressing big, systemic social challenges? Many generations-in-the-making issues never get solved and often only get addressed around the margins, despite, in some instances, hundreds of millions of dollars thrown at the problems each year across the country. Neglect of course is not cost-free, but taking on these challenges around poverty, life expectancy gaps, violence, poor health care access, affordability, food insecurity - the list is long - often seems insurmountable. But they are not, and importantly, if these issues are not systematically addressed, another generation of residents will never be able to fulfill their God-given purpose which keeps them out of the legitimate economy, increases the pipeline to the streets and costs even more on the back end. It is important that equity has real, concrete, tangible outcomes and cannot be just an aspiration spoken with passion and reverence that is never met. I will draw upon the ways in which we operationalized equity in Chicago and bring in other national examples of how equity can be something that residents can see, touch and feel.
Special Guests: Dr. David Ansell, Senior Vice President for Community Health Equity & Associate Provost for Community Affairs at Rush University and Dr. Sybil Madison, Director in the Office of the President at the MacArthur Foundation
One of the most important tools to change the fortunes of people, neighborhoods and a city is wealth building. We will examine the realities of systemic impediments that relegate people to crushing financial hardships, lurching from job to job, and what can be done by governments and the private sector to truly lift people out of poverty and into the legitimate economy. We will explore specific tactics used in Chicago, notably our work on fines and fees reform and Invest South West, among other initiatives, as well as other efforts around the country to create real, lasting wealth for those who have been locked out from prosperity.
Special Guests: Gia Biaggi, former Chicago Commissioner of the Department of Transportation; Dan Lurie, former Policy Chief for Mayor Lightfoot; and Samir Mayekar, former Deputy Mayor for Neighborhood and Economic Development
Public safety is an issue that impacts communities of all sizes, geographies and demographics. Historically, the primary or only approach has been a law enforcement first and only strategy. We now have decades of information to prove that is a completely failed strategy. More recently, under the banner of police reform, some have called for the abolition of the police and defunding. These two extreme strategies - law enforcement only or defund - have significant limitations, but taking a good faith perspective both ultimately seek to bring peace to communities plagued by violence, albeit through radically different means. In this seminar, we will explore what it really takes to bring lasting peace to communities, block by block, by getting to the root causes of violence and empowering communities.
Special Guests: David Brown, former Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department; Nakenya Hardy, Program Manager of Outreach and Interventions in the Austin and West Garfield Park Communities; and Talei Thompson, Community Engagement Manager, City of Chicago/Garfield Park Community Council
What is the best way to be an effective advocate, to influence and to have a meaningful impact? In recent times, many, on the left and the right, believe that being a disrupter - through public protest, media shaming and vilification - is the best form of protest advocacy. Is it, and importantly, if influencing policymakers is the objective, does this form of advocacy achieve its goals? In this seminar, we will examine the many forms of modern-day advocacy used by the left and the right that are dramatically and intentionally confrontational. We will explore the many protests that arose during the summer of 2020 and whether any of the objectives of those protests were actually turned into lasting, far-reaching policy.
A vibrant media is essential to our democracy. Period. There are many historical references which underscore this point. A free and independent press is what separates democracies from dictatorships and authoritarian regimes and is a defining pillar of our participatory democracy. We will also probe the current media landscape and make the case that while the Fourth Estate may be failing, it can be resurrected. We will also explore how “the media” can and must be part of the solution to bring our democracy back together. Also, we will discuss strategies on how to be the producer of your own content and brand in order to break through the noise of social media and the “clickbait, if it bleeds it leads” business model of today’s media.
Special Guests: Mark Konkol, Journalist & Documentary Producer; and Lynn Sweet, Columnist & Washington Bureau Chief for the Chicago Sun-Times
The winds of dissension in the current iteration of our democracy have been blowing for some time and long before a certain someone came down the escalators in 2015. Why is intervention necessary, and what to do about it? We will discuss some first principles of our democracy and why it is possible and essential to rebuild our democracy as an inclusive mosaic that makes room for dissent without demonizing dissenters who also care and love our democracy. I will argue that saving our democracy has to begin at the local level and identify some concrete strategies on how to get that done.
Special Guest: Michael Gottlieb, Partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher and former White House Associate Counsel Under President Obama