Good morning. It’s fifth week.

President Zimmer spoke at a Senate hearing yesterday titled “Exploring Free Speech on College Campuses.” The hearing was held by the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

• On the importance of free speech: In his five-minute address, Zimmer stated that a good education helps students develop critical thinking skills, like synthesizing different perspectives or understanding history and context. “Intrinsic to students attaining these skills is an environment of ongoing intellectual challenge of which free expression and open discourse is an essential part,” Zimmer said.

• On disruptive protests: “Disruptive protests, or other means of limiting the rights of others to engage in free expression, listening, and open discourse is not acceptable and is a violation of the University's commitment to free expression.”

• Key quote: “[I]t will [be] up to the faculty, university leaders, and trustees, who together help to define institutional culture over time, to forcefully embrace freedom of expression. For the sake of our students…we must embrace freedom of expression and resist the suppression that we are seeing on college and university campuses.”

Sharon Fairley (J.D. ’06), a former federal prosecutor, has announced her candidacy for Illinois Attorney General. She will seek the Democratic nomination.

• Platform: Fairley promises to tackle a lack of police accountability and overincarceration, fight Trump administration policies that she believes are harmful to Illinois residents, and address several issues surrounding sexual assault, women's reproductive rights, consumer protection, and more.

Sad news: David Lee Wallace, professor emeritus in statistics, passed away at the age of 88 on October 9. Wallace became a professor at the University in 1967 and was best known for the use of the Bayesian method of analysis to approach the disputed authorship of The Federalist Papers.

Xavier Ramey, the senior assistant director at the University Community Service Center (UCSC), has left his position in order to start Justice Informed, “a consulting agency dedicated to increasing workplace and community impact.”

Hyde Park Halloween plans scaled down: Crystal King-Smith, Wentworth district commander for the CPD, has asked organizers to scale down plans for a new “Hyde Park Halloween” event.

• Changes: There will no longer be a DJ, a spoken word exhibition, Nerf wars, or bubble soccer for teenagers coming to the event.

• Why: Organizers believe that they were asked to scale down their plans due to lack of support from local aldermen and a shortage of police officers to supervise the event.

• Context: Hyde Park Halloween was planned after a crowd of teenagers threw eggs and shot paintball guns on 53rd Street last Halloween, resulting in property damage and arrests. Organizers and local police want to ensure that the unrest of last year is not repeated.

Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), spoke with Washington Post correspondent Karen Tumulty at an IOP event on Wednesday.

• Perez said that consistent field organizing was important for improving Democrats’ electoral outcomes and did not endorse having a “litmus test” on abortion to decide whether to support prospective candidates.

• Perez defended the DNC and Clinton campaign after the Post reported earlier this week that the DNC and the Clinton campaign funded a dossier, published in full by BuzzFeed in January of this year, describing President Trump’s purported connections with Russia. “To not [conduct research on one’s opponents] is political malpractice,” Perez said.

Political journalists at IOP: Karen Tumulty, Dan Balz, and David Maraniss from The Washington Post participated in a panel discussion on Tuesday titled “The Press and the Pressure: Political Journalism in 2017.” Chief Washington Correspondent for CBS News John Dickerson led the discussion.

• Responding to growing mistrust in media: “For most of us, our hope is that over time, the collective body of the work we do at The Washington Post or other news organizations holds up for its rigor, accuracy, aggressiveness, and for its ability to call things as they are no matter who is in power,” Balz said.

• In memoriam: The event was dedicated to longtime Post journalist—and former Maroon editor—David Broder (A.B. ’47, A.M. ’51) and his wife Ann (A.B. ’48, A.M. ’51), who passed away in 2011 and 2016, respectively.

First Hyde Park brewpub opens: Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales opened at 5251 South Harper Court.

Sports Illustrated featured the U of C football team as part of a video feature profiling old and new football traditions in Chicago.

In Viewpoints

Editor Cole Martin writes in:

The Maroon Editorial Board again urges UChicago's administration to accept the graduate students' overwhelming support for unionization.

Matthew Andersson, a Viewpoints contributor, contends that UChicago is overly punitive to student activists.

In Arts

Editor May Huang writes in:

The Division of the Humanities celebrated the 38th annual Humanities Day last Saturday, featuring speakers from different departments and disciplines.

Lysistrata Jones, a delightful musical comedy that challenges social order through song and satire, will be showing in Chicago’s Unity Lutheran Church through November 19.

Alumni filmmakers Biliana (A.M. ’11) and Marina Grozdanova (A.B. ’13) are creating a documentary series that tracks the 27 songs from the Golden Record sent aboard the Voyager spacecraft in 1977.

Thirty years after the original release of “The Queen Is Dead,” The Smiths remaster their third album to the delight of fans.

In Sports

Editor Cavell Means writes in:

Swimming returns to the water this Saturday.

Men's and women's soccer look to come out with W's in New York this weekend.

Volleyball refocuses ahead of the Aurora Invite.