Bird's complaint is silly. He says on p. 6 of his complaint: "Given his social media posts, his email to Stowe and his comments to Leipsiger, Bird was a “dead man walking”, though he didn’t know it at the time. Defendants realized that the optics of firing Evanston’s Black face of DEI over “progressive” social media posts would be problematic, but they had a plan."
Ok, so he wants us to believe that Biss and Stowe saw his social media posts and then decided they need to hatch some conspiracy to get the Equity and Empowerment Committee to consider a Cease Fire Resolution so they could make it seem like it was his idea and then fire him when it blew up in the city's face??!
That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
LS: "Mr. Mayor? Luke Stowe here."
DB: "Yes, Luke."
LS: "We gotta get rid of Liam. He has 200 followers on Twitter and has been retweeting stuff. Plus he sent me a mildly-worded email."
DB: "Oh boy. 200 followers. That could really tank us."
LS: "Yes, and he has a bandcamp page where he posts songs recorded in his basement that nobody ever listens to."
DB: "Yeah, We need to get rid of this guy. This is top priority. Ok, but even though he is an employee at will and we could fire him without anyone noticing now, we should concoct an elaborate cover story. How can we do this cleanly?"
LS: "I've got it! You know that terrorist event in Israel that happened a few weeks ago?"
DB: "Yes."
LS: "Let's get the Equity and Empowerment Committee to consider a half-baked ordinance and then when the shit hits the fan, we'll blame it on Liam and then sack him."
DB: "Great idea! I"ll get on the horn with Karla Thomas and we'll work out all the details. I'll get her to concoct something crazy, then I'll contact my friends in the pro-Israel committee to rally the troops to the meeting."
LS: "I like it, Mr. Mayor. But how will we pin it on Liam?"
DB: "Not sure..hmmmm"
LS: "I''ve got it! Let's put his email on the city website!'
It doesn’t surprise me to hear that members of the “Equity Committee” made (allegedly) disparaging remarks about fellow citizens. That committee has always struck me as political and performative. What I want to know is who the motherfuckers are!
I love love love when Evanston takes on international positions. It is my favorite thing in the whole world (no pun intended) considering it cannot properly run its own City. Also, does the rest of the world’s actions rest on Evanston’s stance on international issues?
I hope the city doesn’t cave to this disgruntled employee like they normally do since his complaint is pretty weak.
He offers no evidence that he was wrongly terminated. The idea that he is claiming a violation of his first amendment rights is ludicrous. The first amendment does not protect you from getting fired. If I pull a Bartleby and tell my boss ‘I prefer not to’ I’ve expressed my self but I can still be sacked.
The fact that the Equity commission got to the point that they had something so irrelevant to their charge on the public agenda suggests Bird wasn’t doing his job effectively.
I’ve served on city boards in the past and the effective city liaisons ALWAYS reined us in when someone proposed something irrelevant.
The city hasn't been settling with disgruntled employees lately - in fact, quite the opposite, they're fighting everything now and I think there are currently 3-4 open cases like this for various things. The City uses outside counsel for a lot of these at great $$$$ - sometimes better to settle for the $30k..
The most egregious was the Suzette Robinson settlement. I had numerous interactions with her and lets just say she wasn't the sharpest tack. The fact they settled for half a million with her is insane.
I'd need to know more before venturing an opinion on this particular can of worms.
But if writing inept lyrics were cause for termination, he would have no case. His screed on Israel-Palestine is an exceptionally heavy-handed, tin-eared specimen of political verse--even allowing for the tendency of political verse to be heavy-handed and tin-eared.
Thanks for looking into this Tom. Hopefully more info comes to light. Since this is a labor / employment matter you may hit additional roadblocks but this is not my area of expertise.
I might be wrong but I believe Mayor Biss supported all the protests around the George Floyd “ incident” And I might be wrong about his support for Israel after the October 6th attack. The problem is that Mr Bird can’t seem to get political correctness right. It’s not politically correct to support Palestinians
Thanks for your comment, I’ll respond just to clear up any misinformation. The attack by Hamas, a terrorist organization forcibly elected by the Palestinians, was on 10/7 not 10/6. The call for Ceasfire is not pro Palestinian or pro Israeli, it’s pro humanity.
Who doesn’t want it?
However, the timing of a ceasefire is nuanced. At the time of this nonsense by the same 30 citizens who demonstrate group think and call anyone racist for daring to verge from the same thinking they do, it would have been dangerous for a ceasefire. I won’t continue much further to educate here but know that you can’t colonize your own homeland. It’s a misnomer. Jews are called Jews because they are from Judea. It’s not too complicated. What gets people pretty thrown off is the Muslim Conquest of the region. And how Britain wound up with ownership that they didn’t even want. And somehow here we are in Evanston in 2024 evaluating the rights and wrongs and politically correct boundaries of a disputed territory. It’s quite impressive how Hamas has used psychological propaganda to convince some common Americans that they are the “good guys”. As we see from Mr Bird.
The issue isn’t about Palestinians vs Israelis. It’s that it doesn’t belong in Evanstons’ purview. Even if Hamas partner with Black Lives Matter leadership.
I will say one thing and you're welcome to disagree. I think it was a good thing that this was brought to the committee and hundreds of people came and shared their opinion. Especially with this conflict, there's not really a healthy outlet that exists for citizens to voice opinion on this - it's a foreign war so Congress is mostly powerless and the Defense Department isn't going to open my letters. Social media these days are all echo chambers. I think a lot of people felt like they were powerless.
The fact that hundreds of citizens got up and yelled their opinions at Karla Thomas was probably stressful for her, but for the public speakers (having been a public speaker myself) it's incredibly hard and also therapeutic, in a way, to say something and put your name behind it in a setting like that. When you sign up to chair a committee, you have to realize this might happen.
But, I come from a place of believing that local government has a political role, beyond just providing services even if the political role is very weak. I think it could go either way with something like this - lots of cities did resolutions like this, and I think the reason was 80% performative, 20% therapy for citizens. Maybe you could say something like this belongs in church or another public setting, and I wouldn't disagree. I think Democracy is messy and hard, though.
There is a wide range of opinion here, and of course a few token Jews who are in bed w/ Karla, but many Jewish people felt horrified to learn that "The Same 30 People Army/ Keyboard Warriors/Professional Protestors paid by Qatar " had some amount of support to show up to discuss this issue using time that our government could have been helping our actual city. All to "perform" their collective "therapy". Its a misuse of elected official's time, a misuse of the term therapy, and divisive, at best, of our already divided community. We have REAL social issues in this town, bigger than any suburb around us.
I do agree that people needed an outlet to express themselves, and they certainly have a right. Sure, church could be a better place. Or a community center. Even led by therapists who want to hold a group. Wouldn't that be awesome?
One thing I'm still struggling to understand from pro-Hamas Evanstonians is when does free speech usurp hate speech? Have any of TS30 (the same 30) actually read the Hamas Charter? How about the updated version of the BLM charter?
How many teachers in Evanston are inserting pro-Hamas rhetoric into the classroom setting without being checked? Do you know how many Evanston teachers were at the ceasefire protests? That is the really scary part. Their reach is much further than that one event. When this next generation of students starts entering the work force, with sympathy for Hamas and their values, it will be haunting how it will impact local governments and ordinances. Indoctrination is already underway.
By now, most readers have already thrown their hands up in the air and hopefully enjoying this beautiful Sunday. But it is haunting. And seen.
I didn’t see any teachers and very few community members I recognized at the protests during the times I was there. This is a big claim with little evidence.
Same for your allegations regarding Qatar funding - there's no evidence to suggest anyone is funded by Qatar and honestly I think that accusation is ridiculous.
And how much does Qatar pay NU to be an onboarding ramp of radical Islamic thought into the United States political system? These things are not made up. I do hope you will correct yourself Tom. You are a wonderful investigator, journalist, and Evanstonian.
This says absolutely nothing about the claim that any specific individual in Evanston, including the pro-Palestine folks, are funded by Qatar. Yes, Northwestern takes in a ton of money from Qatar but they take in money from literally anyone - prove to me that money flows to these folks and we can talk. Until then, it's all just rumor.
Arguably they had their “outlet” at the rally they held at Fountain Square —less than one month post 10/7 —that ended at NU President Schill’s house. It was a beauty. EYE ROLL.
Surprisingly/not surprisingly this rally for a ceasefire and disinvestment was organized by several of the STPs (same 30 people). These local *stars* even had lead speaking roles, including the chair (or immediate past chair —unclear her role at the time) of the equity and empowerment commission. Shocking, I know. But best of all was the signage and oh yes, let’s not forget the Hamas flag being waived proudly and ball caps and headbands. Yes you heard that right. HAMAS.
Some of the signs are proudly captured in the below article. The Hamas flag etc weren’t shown in this piece but were shared on Twitter.
The damage done from this “event” cannot be understated. The continued abuse —leveled at Jews —at the Equity Commission hearing was beyond reproach, IMHO. So in that regard, Tom, it’s hard for me to see the hearing as a good thing. To me, it was the beginning of a downward spiral for the city in terms of exposing antisemitism within our city boundary lines —led proudly by some of those STPs and their acolytes.
Also, the hot mic was recorded correct?. People heard it that were on Zoom and obviously city management heard it. So—Where is it? Why hasn’t it been shared with the public? Both the current chair and immediate past chair of the Commission were part of that discussion. The current chair is running for alderperson, right? The public ought to know who said what about Evanstonians (namely Jewish Evanstonians) who voiced their opinions that evening.
Bird's complaint is silly. He says on p. 6 of his complaint: "Given his social media posts, his email to Stowe and his comments to Leipsiger, Bird was a “dead man walking”, though he didn’t know it at the time. Defendants realized that the optics of firing Evanston’s Black face of DEI over “progressive” social media posts would be problematic, but they had a plan."
Ok, so he wants us to believe that Biss and Stowe saw his social media posts and then decided they need to hatch some conspiracy to get the Equity and Empowerment Committee to consider a Cease Fire Resolution so they could make it seem like it was his idea and then fire him when it blew up in the city's face??!
That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
LS: "Mr. Mayor? Luke Stowe here."
DB: "Yes, Luke."
LS: "We gotta get rid of Liam. He has 200 followers on Twitter and has been retweeting stuff. Plus he sent me a mildly-worded email."
DB: "Oh boy. 200 followers. That could really tank us."
LS: "Yes, and he has a bandcamp page where he posts songs recorded in his basement that nobody ever listens to."
DB: "Yeah, We need to get rid of this guy. This is top priority. Ok, but even though he is an employee at will and we could fire him without anyone noticing now, we should concoct an elaborate cover story. How can we do this cleanly?"
LS: "I've got it! You know that terrorist event in Israel that happened a few weeks ago?"
DB: "Yes."
LS: "Let's get the Equity and Empowerment Committee to consider a half-baked ordinance and then when the shit hits the fan, we'll blame it on Liam and then sack him."
DB: "Great idea! I"ll get on the horn with Karla Thomas and we'll work out all the details. I'll get her to concoct something crazy, then I'll contact my friends in the pro-Israel committee to rally the troops to the meeting."
LS: "I like it, Mr. Mayor. But how will we pin it on Liam?"
DB: "Not sure..hmmmm"
LS: "I''ve got it! Let's put his email on the city website!'
DB: "Brilliant! Foolproof. Thanks, Luke!"
It doesn’t surprise me to hear that members of the “Equity Committee” made (allegedly) disparaging remarks about fellow citizens. That committee has always struck me as political and performative. What I want to know is who the motherfuckers are!
I know, right? If you are the motherfucker(s), please drop me an email tom@foiagras.com !!
What if different people begin vying for the motherfucker(s) title and you have to do research and a story to sort out the truth!
FOIA Gras Motherfucker of the Year Award
I love love love when Evanston takes on international positions. It is my favorite thing in the whole world (no pun intended) considering it cannot properly run its own City. Also, does the rest of the world’s actions rest on Evanston’s stance on international issues?
Can you imagine if it did
I have to laugh bc when I first saw this I thought “Bird” meant the woodpecker from your story from earlier this year. 🤣🤣
I wish!!!!
I hope the city doesn’t cave to this disgruntled employee like they normally do since his complaint is pretty weak.
He offers no evidence that he was wrongly terminated. The idea that he is claiming a violation of his first amendment rights is ludicrous. The first amendment does not protect you from getting fired. If I pull a Bartleby and tell my boss ‘I prefer not to’ I’ve expressed my self but I can still be sacked.
The fact that the Equity commission got to the point that they had something so irrelevant to their charge on the public agenda suggests Bird wasn’t doing his job effectively.
I’ve served on city boards in the past and the effective city liaisons ALWAYS reined us in when someone proposed something irrelevant.
The city hasn't been settling with disgruntled employees lately - in fact, quite the opposite, they're fighting everything now and I think there are currently 3-4 open cases like this for various things. The City uses outside counsel for a lot of these at great $$$$ - sometimes better to settle for the $30k..
The most egregious was the Suzette Robinson settlement. I had numerous interactions with her and lets just say she wasn't the sharpest tack. The fact they settled for half a million with her is insane.
https://evanstonroundtable.com/2017/11/15/split-council-votes-to-settle-robinson-lawsuit/
Who is paying Bird's legal fees? I can't imagine he can win. But, like you, I am not a lawyer.
I'd need to know more before venturing an opinion on this particular can of worms.
But if writing inept lyrics were cause for termination, he would have no case. His screed on Israel-Palestine is an exceptionally heavy-handed, tin-eared specimen of political verse--even allowing for the tendency of political verse to be heavy-handed and tin-eared.
Yeah, I would probably suggest he not quit his day job
If he still had a day job, that is.
I think Mr Bird should get a new job.
good effort!
Thanks for looking into this Tom. Hopefully more info comes to light. Since this is a labor / employment matter you may hit additional roadblocks but this is not my area of expertise.
As a journalist, these kinds of cases always end in disappointment - a quiet private settlement that doesn't spill all the dirty laundry.
I might be wrong but I believe Mayor Biss supported all the protests around the George Floyd “ incident” And I might be wrong about his support for Israel after the October 6th attack. The problem is that Mr Bird can’t seem to get political correctness right. It’s not politically correct to support Palestinians
Thanks for your comment, I’ll respond just to clear up any misinformation. The attack by Hamas, a terrorist organization forcibly elected by the Palestinians, was on 10/7 not 10/6. The call for Ceasfire is not pro Palestinian or pro Israeli, it’s pro humanity.
Who doesn’t want it?
However, the timing of a ceasefire is nuanced. At the time of this nonsense by the same 30 citizens who demonstrate group think and call anyone racist for daring to verge from the same thinking they do, it would have been dangerous for a ceasefire. I won’t continue much further to educate here but know that you can’t colonize your own homeland. It’s a misnomer. Jews are called Jews because they are from Judea. It’s not too complicated. What gets people pretty thrown off is the Muslim Conquest of the region. And how Britain wound up with ownership that they didn’t even want. And somehow here we are in Evanston in 2024 evaluating the rights and wrongs and politically correct boundaries of a disputed territory. It’s quite impressive how Hamas has used psychological propaganda to convince some common Americans that they are the “good guys”. As we see from Mr Bird.
The issue isn’t about Palestinians vs Israelis. It’s that it doesn’t belong in Evanstons’ purview. Even if Hamas partner with Black Lives Matter leadership.
I will say one thing and you're welcome to disagree. I think it was a good thing that this was brought to the committee and hundreds of people came and shared their opinion. Especially with this conflict, there's not really a healthy outlet that exists for citizens to voice opinion on this - it's a foreign war so Congress is mostly powerless and the Defense Department isn't going to open my letters. Social media these days are all echo chambers. I think a lot of people felt like they were powerless.
The fact that hundreds of citizens got up and yelled their opinions at Karla Thomas was probably stressful for her, but for the public speakers (having been a public speaker myself) it's incredibly hard and also therapeutic, in a way, to say something and put your name behind it in a setting like that. When you sign up to chair a committee, you have to realize this might happen.
But, I come from a place of believing that local government has a political role, beyond just providing services even if the political role is very weak. I think it could go either way with something like this - lots of cities did resolutions like this, and I think the reason was 80% performative, 20% therapy for citizens. Maybe you could say something like this belongs in church or another public setting, and I wouldn't disagree. I think Democracy is messy and hard, though.
There is a wide range of opinion here, and of course a few token Jews who are in bed w/ Karla, but many Jewish people felt horrified to learn that "The Same 30 People Army/ Keyboard Warriors/Professional Protestors paid by Qatar " had some amount of support to show up to discuss this issue using time that our government could have been helping our actual city. All to "perform" their collective "therapy". Its a misuse of elected official's time, a misuse of the term therapy, and divisive, at best, of our already divided community. We have REAL social issues in this town, bigger than any suburb around us.
I do agree that people needed an outlet to express themselves, and they certainly have a right. Sure, church could be a better place. Or a community center. Even led by therapists who want to hold a group. Wouldn't that be awesome?
One thing I'm still struggling to understand from pro-Hamas Evanstonians is when does free speech usurp hate speech? Have any of TS30 (the same 30) actually read the Hamas Charter? How about the updated version of the BLM charter?
How many teachers in Evanston are inserting pro-Hamas rhetoric into the classroom setting without being checked? Do you know how many Evanston teachers were at the ceasefire protests? That is the really scary part. Their reach is much further than that one event. When this next generation of students starts entering the work force, with sympathy for Hamas and their values, it will be haunting how it will impact local governments and ordinances. Indoctrination is already underway.
By now, most readers have already thrown their hands up in the air and hopefully enjoying this beautiful Sunday. But it is haunting. And seen.
I didn’t see any teachers and very few community members I recognized at the protests during the times I was there. This is a big claim with little evidence.
Same for your allegations regarding Qatar funding - there's no evidence to suggest anyone is funded by Qatar and honestly I think that accusation is ridiculous.
There are District 65 educators who are part of the Same Thirty People.
You can see one apologist for the Equity commission who was present at the meeting commenting on the RoundTable article covering the meeting: https://evanstonroundtable.com/2023/12/12/city-council-hears-from-residents-on-proposed-ceasefire-measure/
https://www.newsweek.com/unreported-foreign-donations-universities-foment-anti-semitism-opinion-1546139
And guess who has an actual campus in Qatar?
Did I hear you guess NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY?
And how much does Qatar pay NU to be an onboarding ramp of radical Islamic thought into the United States political system? These things are not made up. I do hope you will correct yourself Tom. You are a wonderful investigator, journalist, and Evanstonian.
https://m.jpost.com/middle-east/pro-palestine-protests-are-generously-funded-by-donors-promoting-radical-islam-studies-analysis-799154
This says absolutely nothing about the claim that any specific individual in Evanston, including the pro-Palestine folks, are funded by Qatar. Yes, Northwestern takes in a ton of money from Qatar but they take in money from literally anyone - prove to me that money flows to these folks and we can talk. Until then, it's all just rumor.
Happy to show you the receipts.
tom@foiagras.com
Arguably they had their “outlet” at the rally they held at Fountain Square —less than one month post 10/7 —that ended at NU President Schill’s house. It was a beauty. EYE ROLL.
Surprisingly/not surprisingly this rally for a ceasefire and disinvestment was organized by several of the STPs (same 30 people). These local *stars* even had lead speaking roles, including the chair (or immediate past chair —unclear her role at the time) of the equity and empowerment commission. Shocking, I know. But best of all was the signage and oh yes, let’s not forget the Hamas flag being waived proudly and ball caps and headbands. Yes you heard that right. HAMAS.
Some of the signs are proudly captured in the below article. The Hamas flag etc weren’t shown in this piece but were shared on Twitter.
The damage done from this “event” cannot be understated. The continued abuse —leveled at Jews —at the Equity Commission hearing was beyond reproach, IMHO. So in that regard, Tom, it’s hard for me to see the hearing as a good thing. To me, it was the beginning of a downward spiral for the city in terms of exposing antisemitism within our city boundary lines —led proudly by some of those STPs and their acolytes.
Also, the hot mic was recorded correct?. People heard it that were on Zoom and obviously city management heard it. So—Where is it? Why hasn’t it been shared with the public? Both the current chair and immediate past chair of the Commission were part of that discussion. The current chair is running for alderperson, right? The public ought to know who said what about Evanstonians (namely Jewish Evanstonians) who voiced their opinions that evening.
https://dailynorthwestern.com/2023/11/05/lateststories/hundreds-call-for-gaza-ceasefire-divestment-from-israeli-military-at-saturday-rally/
Manager of Organizational Performance and Equity for the City of Evanston.... Yeah, that's going to straighten everything out.