Trump's anti-diversity crusade borrows from Chicago’s past

I spent my childhood on 74th Street and South Shore Drive, watching how Chicago negotiates the boundaries of who belongs. Long before I analyzed race and public policy for a living, I was a Hyde Park Academy graduate in the South Side legislative district Barack Obama once represented. I learned early that “merit” is not neutral when the people in power define the measure, set the threshold and decide whose qualifications are presumed credible. That lesson has felt familiar all summer. In June,…