Members of the Transport Workers Union Local 234 on Sunday, Nov. 16 voted to authorize a strike if union and SEPTA negotiators can’t reach an agreement on a new contract.
Shortly before the current contract ran out at 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 7, TWU’s new president, Will Vera, urged union members to stay on the job. In an unusual move, he delayed a strike vote at the time of contract expiration, saying he had hope that a deal could be reached without the usual brinksmanship.
“We’re asking you to please continue to come to work and put money aside. We want you to be prepared in case we have to call a work stoppage,” he told members in a video at the time.
Local 234 leaders say they’re prioritizing a two-year deal with raises and changes to what the union views as onerous work rules, including the transit agency’s use of a third party that Vera said makes it hard for members to use their allotted sick time.
In a statement, SEPTA said it was aware of the authorization vote and is committed “to continue to engage in good-faith negotiations, with the goal of reaching a new agreement that is fair.”
2023 Fraternal Order of Transit Police Lodge 109 (three days)
SEPTA police officers walked off the job after bargaining with the transit agency for almost nine months, largely over the timing of a 13% pay raise for members. The agreement, partially brokered by Gov. Josh Shapiro, came amid heightened fears about safety on public transit and a funding crisis for SEPTA.
TWU Local 234 walked off the job for six days; the biggest issue was retirement benefits. SEPTA’s contributions toward union members’ pensions did not rise in tandem with wages when workers made more than $50,000. Managers’ pension benefits were not capped. The union also wanted to reduce out-of-pocket health-care costs and win longer breaks for bus, trolley, and subway operators between shifts and route changes.
SEPTA and the union reached an agreement Nov. 7, the day before the general election. Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was worried about voter turnout, and the city sought an injunction to end the strike. It proved unnecessary.
Talk about leverage. TWU was ready to strike just before the first home game of the World Series between the Phillies and the New York Yankees. Gov. Ed Rendell pushed the two sides to continue talking, and the transit workers waited to walk out until three hours after the end of Game 5, the last in the series played at Citizens Bank Park.
It was a bitter strike, coming just a year after the stock market’s meltdown started the Great Recession. TWULocal 234 President Willie Brown called himself “the most hated man” in Philadelphia. Mayor Michael Nutter was harshly critical. Brown called him “Little Caesar.”
The strike was settled Nov. 7 with a deal on a five-year contract. Transit workers got a $1,250 bonus, a 2.5% raise in the second year, a graduated increase in SEPTA pension contributions from 2% to 3.5%, and the maximum pension benefit was raised to $30,000 from $27,000.
2005: TWU Local 234 and United Transportation Union Local 1594 (seven days)
Negotiations collapsed mostly over SEPTA’s insistence that workers pay 5% of medical insurance premiums. At that point, the authority paid 100% of the workers’ premiums for family coverage.
In the end, it was solved by Gov. Rendell, a Democrat who had been Philadelphia mayor in the 1990s. He agreed to give promised state money to SEPTA early, so it could pay premiums in advance, reducing its costs.
In the resulting four-year deal, the unions had to pay for 1% of their medical premiums. They also received 3% yearly raises.
Pedestrians and cars in a chaotic dance at the intersection of Market and 30th Streets during the afternoon commute on the first day of the SEPTA city workers’ strike Nov. 1, 2016.
1998: TWU Local 234 (40 days)
City transit workers’ contract expired in March, but they did not strike until June — and then stayed out for 40 days. The two sides reached an agreement in July, but it fell apart. TWU members had returned to their jobs and kept working under an extension of their old contract. A final agreement was signed Oct. 23.
The union agreed to SEPTA’s demand that injured-on-duty benefits be limited. The old contract gave them full pay and benefits while on leave after a work injury. SEPTA wanted to hire an unlimited number of part-time workers. The union agreed to 100 part-timers to drive small buses.
SEPTA’s chief negotiator was David L. Cohen, famous for reining in unions representing city workers during Philadelphia’s bankruptcy in 1992, as Rendell’s mayoral chief of staff.
A two-week strike stilled city buses, trolleys and subways until an agreement was reached April 10. Transit workers would get 3% raises per year over the three-year span of the new contract, as well as increases in pension benefits and sick pay.
The union agreed to several cost-reduction measures, including a restructuring of SEPTA’s workers compensation policies.
Mayor Ed Rendell, a villain to many in labor for winning givebacks from city unions in 1992, pushed SEPTA to offer more generous terms to TWU than it had initially. Cohen, who was his chief of staff, crunched the numbers to make it work. Three years later, out of the city administration and working as a lawyer, he was hired as SEPTA’s chief negotiator.
1986: TWU Local 234 (four days) and UTU Local 1594 (61 days)
When TWU struck the city transit division in March 1986 over a variety of economic issues and work rules, some bus drivers pulled over mid-route and told passengers to dismount, The Inquirer reported.
Members were particularly incensed at what they considered SEPTA’s draconian disciplinary procedures. Union leaders said the issue was a basic lack of respect. The strike was settled in four days.
Drivers for 23 suburban bus routes, two trolley lines in Delaware County and the Norristown High-Speed Line — all members of the United Transportation Union — struck for just over two months, affecting about 30,000 passengers a day.
Employees in what was then known as SEPTA’s Red Arrow Division — after the private transit company that used to own the routes and lines — made considerably less than their city counterparts and had weaker pension benefits. They won raises and pension changes that brought them closer to parity.
1983: Regional Rail (108 days)
Thirteen separate unions walked off the job on the commuter rail lines that SEPTA had taken over at the beginning of the year from Conrail, successor to the bankrupt Pennsylvania and Reading Railroads.
In addition to wages, a key issue was SEPTA’s demand that union train conductors accept pay cuts. The authority had already cut the number of those workers by more than half.
Eventually SEPTA reached deals with a dozen of the unions. The 13th local, which represented 44 railroad signalmen, held out longer. Main issue: Whether SEPTA had the right to contract with outside firms for some types of signal work.
The Regional Rail strike remains SEPTA’s longest work stoppage since 1975.
Joyce Woodford (center), a 25-year veteran cashier on SEPTA’s Broad Street Line, serves up fried fish for her fellow striking cashiers outside the Fern Rock Transportation Center during dinnertime on the third day of the SEPTA strike in 2016.
1982: TWU Local 234 (34 days)
About 36 suburban bus drivers and mechanics operating routes primarily in Montgomery County, and some routes in Bucks, won an 8.5% wage increase over three years.
The bus routes were the descendants of the Schuylkill Valley Lines and the Trenton-Philadelphia Coach Lines, which SEPTA acquired in 1976 and 1983, respectively. Service has grown, and the collection of bus routes is known as the Frontier Division today.
1981: TWU Local 234 (19 days) and UTU Local 1594 (46 days)
Transit workers shut down buses, trolleys and subways in the city on March 15, seeking job security in the form of a no-layoff clause, wage increases and a bar on SEPTA hiring part-time workers.
And the Red Arrow division went out for 46 days seeking higher wages and better medical benefits. SEPTA also backed down a demand for permission to hire private contractors for some work on the suburban buses, trolleys, and the Norristown High Speed Line.
1977: TWU Local 234 (44 days)
After a bitter strike, union members who run the city transit division got higher wages and more benefits, after rejecting an arbitrator’s proposed contract that was portrayed in news reports as generous.
A furious Mayor Frank Rizzo told reporters the strike “can last 10 years for all I care.” He said of the union’s rejection of the earlier offer: “It is outrageous, and I hope the people won’t forget it.”
1975: TWU Local 234 (11 days)
Transit workers, concerned about the ravages of inflation, wanted a clause giving them cost-of-living increases and enhancements to health-care benefits. Those were granted after Rizzo agreed to add $7.5 million to the city’s annual SEPTA contribution. Perhaps that’s one reason the mayor was so annoyed two years later.
Staff writer Erica Palan contributed to this article.
Max’s Seafood Cafe, which brought lofty dining ambitions to down-to-earth Gloucester City, has changed hands after a quarter-century.
The new owners — Mike and Barb Williams, who previously ran the three Pudge’s sandwich shops still operating in the Pennsylvania suburbs, and entrepreneur Chris Widell — plan to open Tuesday as Pudge’s Pub. It will sport a far more accessible menu of steaks, hoagies, and bar food, as well as some of Max’s bestsellers, such as steamed clams, clams casino, and mussels in three sauces. A former Max’s chef is on board, as is the former bar manager.
Pudge’s Pub’s Facebook page.
But while change is inevitable, especially in the restaurant world, last week’s announcement failed to impress the Facebook crowd. No sooner had the partners swapped out Max’s logo for a jaunty sketch of a mustachioed Pudge on the profile page than the comments flew on the page of the news site 42 Freeway, based on its article about the transaction:
“Oh, my God! They’re not using ‘Max’s’ anymore!” “I’m guessing a joke?” “Change an iconic name?” “Such a classy-looking restaurant for a cartoon character logo and basically takeout food menu.” “Is this AI pulling [a] prank?”
The partners expressed frustration as moderator Mark Matthews tried to reason with the commenters. Marilyn Johnson, moderator of the South Jersey Food Scene page, did the same on her post.
“Give us a chance,” an exasperated Mike Williams told The Inquirer on Friday. Economic reality drove the decision to rebrand as Pudge’s. Max’s hasn’t made a profit in at least three years and foot traffic was low, Williams said.
Many commenters conceded that they hadn’t visited Max’s in a long time. “I don’t want to say we’re saving it, but we want to resurrect a place where all walks of life can come and have fun,” Williams said.
Pudge’s Pub co-owners Mike and Barbara Williams and their son Preston in the bar, formerly Max’s Seafood Cafe in Gloucester City.
They are keeping the neon Max’s Cafe sign, which has cast a glow over the intersection of Hudson and Burlington Streets for decades. They applied a fresh coat of paint to the classic barroom, and are keeping the ornate wood-and-mirror bar, circa 1912, as it was.
The draft-beer list, which included high-brow specialties like Chimay, has been simplified to more standard offerings like Miller Lite, Stella, and Yards. (The fancier beers will be available in bottles.) Williams said they plan to host special events in the parking lot and are adding four TVs inside.
Mike Williams said he had a butcher prepare a custom cut of beef for the cheesesteaks. They’ll use rolls from Liscio’s, also a South Jersey business, since their previous supplier, Conshohocken Italian Bakery, closed last year.
Facebook comments opposed to the changeover at Max’s Seafood Cafe in Gloucester City.
Even the bar’s new focus on cheesesteaks sparked outrage from commenters who lamented that greater Gloucester was on the brink of Whiz overload. Two other shops are due to open soon just down the street: a barroom from Lillo’s (of Hainesport fame) at the former Thomas Murphy’s Pub, and Irishtown Steaks, from a former head cook at the well-regarded Donkey’s Place a few minutes away in Camden. In nearby West Collingswood Heights, Danny DiGiampietro of Angelo’s Pizzeria is planning to open a new eatery.
Pudge’s and Max’s histories
It’s not as if the Williamses are new to the game. The Pudge’s project is a return to their family’s roots. Pudge’s traces its history to Frank’s, the hoagie shop that a 21-year-old Frank Carbone opened at Wister Street and Chew Avenue in Germantown, near what was then La Salle College, after he got out of the service in the late 1950s.
Carbone renamed it Pudge’s — his childhood nickname — when he moved it to Whitpain Shopping Center in Blue Bell, Montgomery County, in 1972. His daughter, Barbara, and her husband, Mike Williams, took over Pudge’s after Carbone’s death in 2000. The Williamses opened locations in the Lansdale and Pottstown areas before selling their last location in October 2024; all three operate under the new owners, and Williams said he has rights to the name.
The Gloucester City bar opened in 1890 as a shoe store and became Leisinger’s Saloon in 1912, when German immigrant Joseph Fred Leisinger installed the bar. After Leisinger’s death in 1937, another German immigrant, Max Waterstradt, bought the business and named it Max’s Cafe, also a neighborhood taproom. By the late 1970s, Max’s had evolved into Max’s Seafood Cafe, known for simply prepared seafood. Time and deferred maintenance caught up with the building, and Max’s went dark in 1998.
In 2001, Tom Monahan — a partner in the nearby Chubby’s restaurant — bought Max’s, restored it, and reopened it with a premium menu whose entrees in its later years were priced in the high $30s. Monahan, who operated Max’s until last week’s sale, did not reply to a message seeking clarity on his restaurant’s gift certificates. Mike Williams and Widell said they would not honor them at Pudge’s.
By the weekend, as the Facebook crowd had moved on to a new tempest (was a new bank planned for Washington Township really necessary?), the partners were applying their final touches to the pub.
Asked how Pudge’s would set itself apart from other local hangouts, Mike Williams replied that an owner — he, his wife, or son Preston — would be on premises from opening till closing daily: “That’s the only way for quality control, and just being friendly — that is an art that is lost these days.”
Pudge’s Pub, 34 N. Burlington St., Gloucester City, N.J. Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and noon to 8 p.m. Sunday. Hours will be extended on select game days.
The Eagles failed to convert a pair of crucial fourth downs in the their last two games, but still managed to come away unscathed.
Six days after the analytics overwhelmingly supported the Eagles punting on fourth down at the end of the Packers game — to the tune of a 5% increase in win percentage had they punted — Nick Sirianni again made an aggressive fourth-down decision that didn’t go the Eagles’ way.
The Eagles, ahead by 10 points, tried to Tush Push their way to a first down on a fourth-and-1 from their own 29-yard line with three minutes to play. The Eagles, down two starters on the offensive line, got stuffed, and the Lions took over in scoring range. They cut the lead to one score and almost got the ball back again to try for a game-tying drive.
Sirianni took the blame for the decision not working after the game, and on Monday was asked again about the topic. The fifth-year Eagles coach said the decision starts with his confidence in his players and the play.
“The analytics can say what it wants, but if you don’t have faith in the players to go execute it, that doesn’t give you a lot of confidence,” he said. “Analytics is a piece of the puzzle. All these different things are a piece of the puzzle: your past successes, the league studies that you do. All these things play into that. I love our process. Just because you have a great process doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to convert every fourth down.”
The Eagles have learned that over the last two weeks.
“Ultimately I have to make those tough calls and be able to have that conviction,” Sirianni said. “When you don’t convert on fourth down it is always going to be on you as a head coach because you ultimately made that decision. And you’re not going to get a lot of praise when you get it on first down … it just doesn’t go that way.
“You have to have a major process that you go through to put yourself in a position where you can have major conviction when you make those decisions. Fully accept all the criticisms that happen when you don’t get it, because that’s my job as the coach, but it can’t affect you moving forward of making the right decisions with the right process as we continue on.”
Eagles film review: Jalen Carter’s dominance, Brandon Graham’s impact
Underrated credit goes to Brandon Graham on the #Eagles first fourth down stop of the game on a tackle that Moro Ojomo made last night. Graham knocks back the #Lions LG into Jahmyr Gibbs and halts his momentum. pic.twitter.com/Z6jKHlAydX
Another dominant game from #Eagles DT Jalen Carter defending the run (also helped create a sack for Jaelan Phillips and batted 2 passes at the LOS).
His quickness and ability to stack, shed, and close just makes it tough for offenses to run through the middle of this defense. pic.twitter.com/Sc9Y2Hmqsx
Even on the plays that ended in a tipped or batted ball, #Eagles DB Quinyon Mitchell stayed in the hip pocket of Lions receivers all game long. Made plays on the ball against Amon-Ra St. Brown and Isaac Teslaa on back-to-back plays, then was in position to make plays on the ball… pic.twitter.com/5lPnvTXI0K
What is a Lisfranc injury, and what is Lane Johnson’s recovery time?
Lane Johnson is waiting on X-ray results to determine if he needs season-ending surgery.
Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson is expected to miss multiple weeks with a Lisfranc sprain in his foot that could land him on injured reserve.
Johnson suffered the midfoot injury in the first quarter and did not return to the game.
What is a Lisfranc injury?
According to the Neville Foot & Ankle Centers, “Lisfranc injuries often occur as a result of a high-energy impact to the midfoot. It’s common to see fractures of the Lisfranc Joint in contact/collision sports like American Football, however low energy incidents (like twisting) can also be a cause.”
According to the Cleveland Clinic, a Lisfranc injury is “any damage to the Lisfranc joint on top of your foot. It’s where your metatarsal bones (the bridges to your toes) connect to the rest of your foot.”
Cleveland Clinic describes the Lisfranc joint as “a busy highway or on-ramp” because so many parts of the foot meet up in one place.
Where does the name come from?
The Lisfranc was named, according to the National Institutes of Health, in homage to French physician Jacques Lisfranc de St. Martin, “who was the first to describe an amputation through this joint.”
Lisfranc was a surgeon and OBGYN who during the Napoleonic Wars was brought in to help France, which was dealing with a physician shortage.
The story has it that a soldier dismounting from his horse had his foot stuck in the stirrups. The blood flow to his lower limb was stopped and it created a “gangrenous foot,” according to the Neville Foot & Ankle Centers. Lisfranc described the surgery as “amputation of the foot through the tarsometatarsal articulation.”
Does a Lisfranc injury require surgery?
Unlike in Lisfranc’s days, the injury isn’t a prescription for an amputation anymore.
It sometimes doesn’t even require surgery.
In Johnson’s case, it might. He is awaiting results from X-rays from Dr. Robert Anderson. While he is believed to have suffered a sprain, a decision will be made if he needs potentially season-ending surgery, according to sources.
Non-surgical Lisfranc injuries could take about six to eight weeks to recover, but sometimes less. If Johnson doesn’t require surgery, he could be back on the field after four to six weeks.
Anderson, a former Packers and Panthers physician, is a sort of NFL authority on the Lisfranc injury.
Have other Eagles suffered Lisfranc injuries?
Yes. Many of them.
Offensive lineman Isaac Seumalo suffered a Lisfranc injury in September of 2021 that required season-ending surgery. Two years earlier, defensive tackle Malik Jackson suffered a season-ending Lisfranc injury in a season-opening game.
More recently, Nakobe Dean suffered a Lisfranc sprain in early November of 2023 that required surgery and ended his season.
Others, like Cre’Von LeBlanc, have suffered Lisfranc sprains that did not require surgery. LeBlanc suffered his injury in training camp in 2019, and while he did not have to have surgery, he did not make his season debut until December.
Johnson’s timeline will all depend on the severity of his sprain.
The Eagles beat the Cowboys, 24-20, in their season opener at the Linc.
After securing a 16-9 win at home over the Lions, the Eagles are gearing up to travel to AT&T Stadium to face the Dallas Cowboys. The teams last met in the season opener at the Linc, a game that saw the Eagles pull out a 24-20 win at home despite a big ejection, a lightning delay, and some shaky early defense.
Now, the Eagles defense looks the best they have all season. Meanwhile, the Cowboys are preparing to play the Las Vegas Raiders on Monday Night Football after losing their last two games.
Ahead of their Week 12 matchup, sportsbooks are favoring Philadelphia, who opens as a 4.5-point favorite at both FanDuel and DraftKings.
The younger Johnson will likely play a critical role at right tackle on the Eagles offensive line for the next month and a half. But just a few months ago, he wasn’t even on the team.
Howie Roseman acquired the 6-foot-7, 326-pound Johnson from the Jacksonville Jaguars on Aug. 24, two days before the roster cutdown deadline, in exchange for a 2026 seventh-round pick. Johnson had signed to the Eagles’ practice squad in 2022 and had served as the depth tackle from 2023-24, but he opted to join the Jaguars in free agency with the aspiration to earn a starting gig.
That didn’t work out, but Johnson said he wasn’t disappointed in the aftermath of the trade.
“I went down there with the right mentality, with the right goals, and I attacked it the right way, the process,” Johnson said on Aug. 27. “It’s one of those things that didn’t end up working out. I developed a lot more of my game mentally and what I go through and how I attack stuff. I’m back here, back ready to do what I’ve got to do for this team and get another opportunity and do what I’ve got to do.”
Johnson played his first substantial snaps with the Eagles in 2024 and started his first game since the 2021 season when he was a member of the Cincinnati Bengals, the team that claimed him off waivers from the Pittsburgh Steelers in his rookie year in 2019. The Steelers had signed Johnson as an undrafted free agent out of Florida.
He played a critical role in the Eagles’ 2024 Week 3 win over the New Orleans Saints when he stepped in for Johnson, who went down with a concussion in the first quarter. Johnson started one game at right tackle and four at left tackle last season while Jordan Mailata was sidelined with a hamstring issue.
This year, Johnson has filled in for the elder Johnson on 144 snaps as he dealt with various injuries. He’s also served as the sixth offensive lineman when the Eagles utilize their jumbo package. With Johnson expected to start at right tackle, Matt Pryor is the next in line to step into the sixth offensive lineman role.
Lane Johnson waiting on X-ray results, season-ending surgery possible
Lane Johnson is awaiting results from X-rays with Dr. Robert Anderson. While he is believed to have suffered a sprain, a decision will be made if he needs potentially season-ending surgery, per sources.
Lane Johnson expected to miss 4-6 weeks with foot injury
Lane Johnson could be back in time for the playoffs.
Eagles star right tackle Lane Johnson is dealing with a Lisfranc sprain in his foot likely to sideline him for multiple weeks, league sources confirmed to The Inquirer.
NFL Network was first to report the update on Johnson, who left Sunday’s 16-9 Eagles win over the Detroit Lions after playing just 14 snaps.
Johnson will undergo further testing, and while the injury is not expected to end his season, he is likely to miss four to six weeks. A placement on injured reserve, which is likely, would force him to miss at least the next four games.
Johnson, who is 35 years old and playing in his 13th season, has dealt with multiple injuries this season. He left the Eagles’ Week 3 game against Los Angeles with a stinger, then left the team’s Week 4 game due to a shoulder injury. He left last week’s game vs. the Green Bay Packers due to an ankle injury and missed a large chunk before returning in the fourth quarter.
Johnson, who has been a first- or second-team All-Pro selection in each of the last four seasons, has played in every game this season and continues to play at a high level despite battling multiple injuries.
This one, however, will cost him at least a few contests. The Eagles are 12-23 in games Johnson hasn’t started since the beginning of the 2016 season. But backup tackle Fred Johnson has filled in well this season — and last year — when Johnson has missed time.
Jalen Carter puts pressure on Jared Goff during Sunday’s win against the Lions.
Jordan Davis, who batted three of Jared Goff’s passes, said it started with film study earlier in the week.
The Eagles noticed Goff had an arm angle that would give them a chance to deflect balls up front, so they spent extra time this week practicing deflections. The Eagles coach their players along the defensive front to get their hands in the air when they’re being double-teamed or if their pass rush is failing on a given play.
This week, the Eagles worked more on the tip drill. Sometimes it was Nick Sirianni at quarterback. Other times it was defensive line coach Clint Hurtt or player development assistant Matt Leo.
Turning drills in practice into on-field success was reminiscent of the Eagles’ Week 7 win over the Minnesota Vikings. Prior to that game, the Eagles sent their edge rushers through extra catching drills. Jalyx Hunt had dropped an interception a week earlier. Against Minnesota, Hunt dropped into coverage and returned an interception for a touchdown.
On Sunday, the Eagles batted five of Goff’s passes. Davis started it all on the first drive, when he batted a pass into the air that Cooper DeJean intercepted.
For the second consecutive game, the Eagles, with their new-look defensive front, dominated a good opponent.
Jaelan Phillips’ busy night, Jihaad Campbell getting less playing time
Eagles linebacker Jaelan Phillips played 76% of the defensive snaps Sunday night.
The Eagles’ offense was on the field for 72 snaps Sunday while the defense played 59 plays. Here are some notes and thoughts from Sunday’s snap counts vs. the Lions:
Rookie linebacker Jihaad Campbell saw his lightest workload of the season. His 20 snaps were just behind the 21 he played in Week 8 vs. the New York Giants. Nakobe Dean’s return (40 snaps, 68%) has meant less time on the field for Campbell, who, according to Pro Football Focus, lined up on the edge just three times and in the box 17 times.
Cornerback Adoree’ Jackson saw much more of the field Sunday than he did last week vs. Green Bay. That’s because the Eagles were rarely in their base package with just four defensive backs. When that package is deployed, Cooper DeJean moves outside. But the Eagles were often in nickel and at least once went into a dime package. Jackson played 57 of a possible 59 snaps. The 57 snaps tied a season-high. Jackson held up well, too, despite being burned for a long pass to Jameson Williams.
Jaelan Phillips led the edge rushers with 45 snaps (76%). Nolan Smith still seems to be on a pitch count like he was last week when he returned from a triceps injury that had him on injured reserve since after Week 3. Smith played 37% of the snaps while Jalyx Hunt was on the field 61% of the time. Brandon Graham got out there for eight snaps (14%) and almost picked up his first sack of the season. Josh Uche, meanwhile, is the odd one out of the rotation. He played solely on special teams (nine snaps).
Offensively, the Eagles played a lot of 11 or 12 personnel. They rarely had more than two receivers on the field. Jahan Dotson played 23 snaps (32%), though he did contribute with two catches for 43 yards. Darius Cooper, meanwhile, the fourth receiver, saw just three snaps.
Lane Johnson left a game early for the fourth time this season. He finished with just 14 snaps before suffering a foot injury. Cam Jurgens also left early. He played 61 snaps before Brett Toth came in for the final 11 offensive plays.
Saquon Barkley’s workload was over 80% (58 snaps, 81%) for the first time since Week 6.
Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni just keeps winning.
The narrative that the Eagles win in spite of Nick Sirianni still exists despite his continued success.
His detractors were given more ammunition on Sunday with another lackluster offensive performance and another aggressive fourth-down gamble from the coach that failed. They’ll point to contradictory decision-making that leaned conservative early on, but was almost reckless in the latter stages at Lincoln Financial Field.
Sirianni’s critics will credit Vic Fangio and his defense for the Eagles’ 16-9 victory over the Detroit Lions. They’ll say any coach can win with the roster general manager Howie Roseman has assembled. And some will spend the next week digging through stats and film to support their claim.
They might have an argument, especially this season. This version of the Eagles may defy logic. But it’s hard to debate facts. They’re 8-2 and possibly two more wins from clinching the NFC East before December. They sit atop the conference having already beaten the 8-2 Rams, not to mention five other playoff teams from last season.
And Sirianni just piles up Ws — 56 in his first 78 regular season games — and in each of his five seasons in Philly he’s found a different way to do so. For most of this season, the Eagles have been a team in search of an identity.
They haven’t quite found one on offense and that remains a concern. But after two dominating defensive performances, it’s clear the Eagles can ride Fangio’s unit to the playoffs as long as Sirianni’s aesthetically unpleasing philosophy holds.
Eagles linebacker Jaelan Phillips celebrates following Sunday’s win against the Lions.
The Eagles’ magic number to win the NFC East is four.
The Birds improved to 8-2 Sunday night, and are currently four-and-a-half games up on the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC East, which the Eagles could clinch before December.
If the Cowboys lose tonight against the Las Vegas Raiders and the Birds defeat them next week in Dallas, the Eagles will be five-and-a-half games up with just six to play. The Washington Commanders, currently five games back, have their bye next week.
The Cowboys’ upcoming schedule is also tough, which also helps the Eagles. After the two face off Sunday, Dallas has to play the Kansas City Chiefs and Detroit Lions.
What helps is the Eagles currently hold tiebreakers against four of the top six NFC teams — the Lions, Los Angeles Rams, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Green Bay Packers. They can add the Chicago Bears to that list on Black Friday.
As for the rest of the NFC, the Rams, Bears, and Buccaneers are currently the division leaders, while the three wild card teams are the Seattle Seahawks, Packers, and San Francisco 49ers.
If the season were to end today, the Lions wouldn’t qualify for the playoffs.
NFC playoff picture
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Week 12 elimination scenarios
As of now, it doesn’t look like there are any official elimination scenarios in the NFC heading into Week 12, but it seems unlikely five teams — the Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Washington Commanders, New Orleans Saints, and New York Giants — have much of a shot of turning things around.
Jalen Hurts and the Eagles’ offense struggled again
Jalen Hurts and the Eagles offense have scored just 26 points combined in their last two games.
The Eagles are a very good team. Winning football games is important. But so is progress. Right now, the Eagles are a long way off from being the best team they can be.
Nothing that we saw from them on Sunday night suggests their fundamental problem has been solved. It isn’t just that the Eagles aren’t scoring enough points. It’s that they don’t appear to be getting any better.
They have scored 17 or fewer in four of their last six games, including a combined 26 in their last two. Are they capable of winning a Super Bowl in their current form? Absolutely. But you can’t ignore how different their current form is from the one that saw them win the Super Bowl last season.
For the second straight game, and for the fifth time this season, the Eagles failed to crack 300 yards of total offense. That only happened three times all last season. Heck, it only happened five times in 2023.
Give them credit for trying something new. They tried to force the ball to Brown, which is something that he and plenty of Eagles fans have been lobbying for in recent weeks. His 11 targets were more than he had in the last two games combined, including last week’s three-target, two-catch nothingburger in Green Bay.
The concerning thing is that nothing else changed. Brown’s seven catches went for just 49 yards. The Eagles scored just one touchdown. Even on a night where Jared Goff was out of sync and the Lions went 0-for-5 on fourth down, Detroit’s offense looked like the more highly evolved unit. The pinnacle came in the second quarter, when Goff hit Amon-Ra St. Brown for 34 yards and then Jameson Williams for a 40-yard touchdown. The 74 yards the Lions gained on two plays were more than the Eagles had gained all game to that point.
A.J. Brown and the Eagles benefited from a bad call late in the game.
Thankfully the worst pass interference call so far this season worked in the Eagles’ favor.
With just under two minutes left, Jalen Hurts failed to connect with A.J. Brown, which would have given the Lions one final chance to tie the game.
Instead, the officials called pass interference on Lions defender Rock Ya-Sin, a call so bad even NBC’s Cris Collinsworth ripped the refs.
“Oh come on. That is terrible,” Collinsworth said during the broadcast. “That is an absolutely terrible call that’s going to decide this football game.”
Cris Collinsworth: "Oh, come on! Come on! That is terrible! That is an absolutely terrible call that's going to decide this football game! If anything, it's an offensive push!"
And it did. The penalty gave the Eagles a first down, and they were able to run out the clock, preventing Jared Goff and the Lions offense from getting one final shot at evening the score.
Following the game referee Alex Kemp was asked by the Athletic’s Zach Berman, the designated pool reporter, about the penalty.
“The official observed the receiver’s arm getting grabbed and restricting him from going up to make the catch,” Kemp said. “So, the ball was in the air, there was a grab at the arm, restricted him and he called defensive pass interference.”
“I thought he played defense like he did the whole game,” Lions head coach Campbell told reporters following the game. “I thought he challenged and played it like he did the very first rep that we played man-to-man. So I wouldn’t tell him to do anything different: Get up there and challenge and play your style. That’s it.”
The Eagles were also the victim of a bad call. Facing third-and-1 from their own 41-yard line in the middle of the third quarter, right guard Tyler Steen was called for a false start when it seemed obvious he was pointing out Lions defender Tyleik Williams had entered the neutral zone.
“That’s a neutral zone infraction,” said NBC rules analyst and former NFL referee Terry McAulay.
Tyler Steen was called for a false start for pushing the Lions’ hand out of the neutral zone pic.twitter.com/qi6ivspqy2
Lane Johnson (center) gives a pep talk to his teammates prior to Sunday’s win against the lions.
Offensive tackle Lane Johnson went down with a foot injury late in the first quarter and didn’t return. He suffered a Lisfranc sprain in his foot and is expected to miss four to six weeks.
Center Cam Jurgens, who entered the game with a right knee injury, left late in the fourth quarter. The 26-year-old starting center went indoors after a visit to the medical tent and was replaced by Brett Toth.
Eagles fans celebrate during the Birds’ win against the Lions Sunday.
The Eagles remain at the top of the NFC for another week thanks to their win against the Detroit Lions Sunday night.
It’s the fourth straight season the Eagles have started 8-2 or better, and Nick Sirianni is a perfect 11-0 as a coach against the NFC North, including playoff games.
Speaking of the playoffs, the Birds now have the head-to-head tiebreaker against four of the top six teams, with a chance to add the Chicago Bears on Black Friday.
NFC standings
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The Eagles also extended their lead in the NFC East Sunday thanks to the Washington Commanders’ wild overtime loss against the Miami Dolphins.
The Dallas Cowboys play tonight against the Las Vegas Raiders. A loss will push the Cowboys back four-and-a-half games behind the Eagles with seven left to play.
NFC East standings
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The Eagles defeated Dak Prescott and the Cowboys 24-20 way back in Week 1.
The Eagles will need another dominating performance by their defense next week against the Dallas Cowboys.
The Cowboys, who play tonight against the Las Vegas Raiders, are averaging 29.2 points per game, fourth-best in the NFL. Dallas has the No. 3 offense in the league and leads the NFL in passing yards, averaging 257.8 points per game.
It’s not like the Eagles’ defense isn’t capable. The Birds held the high-powered Detroit Lions offense to just nine points and 317 total yards, and the Eagles defense hasn’t allowed more than 10 points for two straight weeks.
The Eagles narrowly won their first matchup against the Cowboys, a 24-20 nail-biter in the NFL kickoff game, helped by CeeDee Lamb’s fourth-down drop late in the game. Dallas has lost three of their last four games, and are quietly watching their playoff hopes fade away.
The good news for the Eagles is the Cowboys have the third-worst defense in the league, allowing 378.4 yards and 29.2 points per game. If Jalen Hurts and the Eagles offense can’t get things going against the Cowboys, the Birds may be in store for a tough playoff run.
The narrative that the Eagles win in spite of Nick Sirianni still exists despite his continued success.
His detractors were given more ammunition Sunday with another lackluster offensive performance and another aggressive fourth-down gamble from the coach that failed. They’ll point to contradictory decision-making that leaned conservative early on but was almost reckless in the latter stages at Lincoln Financial Field.
Sirianni’s critics will credit Vic Fangio and his defense for the Eagles’ 16-9 victory over the Detroit Lions. They’ll say any coach can win with the roster general manager Howie Roseman has assembled. And some will spend the next week digging through stats and film to support their claim.
They might have an argument, especially this season. This version of the Eagles may defy logic. But it’s hard to debate facts. They’re 8-2 and possibly two more wins from clinching the NFC East before December. They sit atop the conference having already beaten the 8-2 Rams, not to mention five other playoff teams from last season.
And Sirianni just piles up W’s — 56 in his first 78 regular-season games — and in each of his five seasons in Philly he’s found a different way to do so. For most of this season, the Eagles have been a team in search of an identity.
They haven’t quite found one on offense and that remains a concern. But after two dominating defensive performances, it’s clear the Eagles can ride Fangio’s unit to the playoffs as long as Sirianni’s aesthetically unpleasing philosophy holds.
“I think our guys have this knack of knowing,” Sirianni said. “As I watched football today, I feel like I saw a lot of teams waiting to lose. Our team’s waiting to win because they know how to win.”
Some fans have become spoiled by all the winning since Sirianni arrived. There’s nothing wrong with having a high standard. The Eagles have it themselves and have struggled at times to enjoy the victories when they’ve looked unappealing, particularly on offense.
A.J. Brown has been the most vocal about the deficiencies and despite being targeted Sunday night more than the wide receiver has all season, the offense looked just as inept as it did last week at the Packers. The Eagles averaged just 3.9 yards per play vs. the Lions. They finished with their worst expected points added per drive (-1.40) in nearly two seasons.
But unlike in 2023, they have a defense and a coordinator to compensate. Even Brown seemed resolved to accept this current version of the Eagles. He may have no choice.
“We’re in the business of trying to get better,” Brown said. “It’s not that we just moping around. We’re excited. Guys were just here dancing.”
Sirianni is an offensive-minded coach, but the defense still works for him. Fangio is the schematic architect. And Roseman has built a young group that has elite talent at all three levels. But the coach has established a culture centered on a slogan — “Tough, detailed, together” — that may seem hackneyed until you watch his players execute it.
“I think it comes from the bond and the familiarity within the building,” quarterback Jalen Hurts said. “You’ve heard me talk a lot about those Georgia guys on the other side of the ball and how familiar they are with one another. I think they bring a special energy to the defense and into the team.
“You see it out there today with all those guys making plays. The defense was playing lights out. It was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.”
Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter has some words with Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs.
Two of the Georgia guys — defensive linemen Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter — combined to deflect five passes at the line of scrimmage. One of Davis’ deflected to cornerback Cooper DeJean for an interception.
It was the Eagles’ lone takeaway, but they had five fourth-down stops that Sirianni characterizes as turnovers. The offense, meanwhile, didn’t give the ball away and still has the lowest turnover percentage in the NFL.
“That’s always a philosophical staple and what he believes,” Hurts said of Sirianni and winning the turnover battle. “It’s always been that.”
It wasn’t the only offensive highlight. The four-minute offense finally delivered with running back Saquon Barkley (26 carries for 83 yards) picking up tough gains in the final moments. There were occasional glimmers.
But Hurts and Co. struggled again to get into any rhythm. Offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo’s play-calling resulted in more negative-yard plays and three- and-outs. There were self-inflicted wounds: dropped passes, penalties, missed blocks, and throws.
Hurts completed just 50% of his passes. He was sacked only once. Left tackle Jordan Mailata was instrumental in keeping Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson from wrecking the Eagles, especially after right tackle Lane Johnson left early with a foot injury.
But with Barkley failing to find light on the ground, the drop-back game often resulted in errant throws or Hurts scrambling and throwing the ball away. He forced the ball to Brown at times. Four of his first six attempts went to the receiver and 11 overall. Brown caught seven for 49 yards, but he never broke free after contact or found much separation downfield.
“It wasn’t about targets last week or the week before … it wasn’t about that at all,” Brown said. “It was me trying to help and contribute. That’s all. And regardless of what that looked like in phases, I think I did.
“But like I said, it’s a lot of stuff that we as [an] offense — and me myself — need to continue to get better at.”
A.J. Brown was more involved on Sunday night, but the offense remained inconsistent.
Asked about Brown’s targets after the receiver saw the ball come his way just three times in Green Bay, Hurts said he was “going with the flow of the game” and “how it was called.”
“That may be a KP question,” he added.
Hurts spoke with several reporters off the podium after his news conference ended in the early morning hours. He talked about the various ways the offense has approached each week based on game planning and how it has been defended. He wasn’t making excuses, but it’s obvious the Eagles are still trying to find an element to hang their hats on.
“We have to do a bit of identifying who we are, so we can find consistency in something and go out there and execute at a high level,” Hurts said earlier. “I think there was a lot of encouragement coming into the bye week, where we were still with a ton of room to improve. But you know what I feel about momentum, it can begin to end at any moment.
“But as I told you guys last week, is it half-full or half-empty? Everybody’s got to be all hands on deck and trying to improve that. Nothing takes over the precedent of winning.”
Hurts has faced the same scrutiny as Sirianni and the belief from some that he is a product of his supporting cast. But the idea that the offense, despite returning 10 of 11 starters, has elite talent across the board may be an erroneous one.
And yet, Sirianni rolled the dice on fourth-and-1 with the Tush Push — after falling short on third down — on the Eagles’ 29 with three minutes left in the game. He essentially handed Detroit at least three points when Hurts was stopped short, but his defense — some might say — bailed him out.
“Obviously, I’m going to be second-guessing myself about the fourth-and-1 in our own territory there, but awesome job by the defense holding them to three there,” Sirianni said. “We got about half of it the play before. I thought we could get the other half right there. We didn’t. I have to live with that when we don’t execute on fourth down.”
It was the second straight week that Sirianni’s fourth-down gamble nearly cost his team. Game management has mostly been a strong point, especially after he handed over offensive play calling in 2021. So he gets the benefit of doubt once more.
But the only guy in the Super Bowl era to win at least eight of the first 10 games of a season four times in his first five years — some guys named George Halas, Paul Brown, and Guy Chamberlin did it — may deserve more than that.
All you have to do is look at the rest of the NFL to put Sirianni’s accomplishments in perspective. Lions coach Dan Campbell had multiple dubious calls and decisions that backfired on him Sunday night.
Sirianni will face the gauntlet after another ugly win. He knows as well as anyone that the Eagles won’t likely win another Super Bowl if his offense keeps sputtering.
“Do we want things to be better? Yeah, of course,” he said. “You’re in a constant quest of getting better and we’re going to be crazy tomorrow about the things. We are working tomorrow.”
Immigrants who have ongoing legal cases have been unexpectedly taken by federal agents amid the Trump administration’s push to boost arrests and deportations. In Philadelphia, the arrest of an Indonesian man at a routine visa appointment has sparked outrage among advocates.
Rian Andrianzah showed up for what he thought was a routine biometrics appointment in Philadelphia last month.
Instead, while his wife waited for him in another room, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested the Indonesian man and sent him to a Central Pennsylvania detention center. He now faces deportation.
It’s part of a strategy shift by President Donald Trump’s administration to arrest green-card applicants, asylum seekers, and others who are going through legal processes to stay in the country, lawyers and advocates say.
Meanwhile, members of the city’s Indonesian American community have responded quickly to Andrianzah’s arrest, raising thousands of dollars to support his family.
The parents of a 16-year-old shot and killed last month near Northeast Philadelphia High want the city to know not just how he died, but who he was.
A 21-year-old South Jersey man was charged by federal prosecutors with cyberstalking a 13-year-old girl and coercing her into self-harm.
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office this month charged a record number of Philly cops in a grant theft scandal. DA Larry Krasner has been unusually quiet about it.
SEPTA’s largest employee union voted Sunday to authorize a strike. Transport Workers Union Local 234 represents, among other workers, bus, subway, and trolley operators.
A 14-foot-long great white shark named Contender, the largest tagged and tracked by research group OCEARCH, pinged near the New Jersey coast last week.
Quote of the day
The Ministry of Awe, a new permanent cultural attraction, is set to open in the historic Manufacturers National Bank in Old City this March. Meg Saligman founded the project in 2022 as a nonprofit dedicated to reviving the vacant bank and creating an arts venue with work that riffs on the bank theme.
🧠Trivia time
Amy Gutmann is coteaching an undergraduate class this semester in the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. Which is not one of her past roles?
Cheers to Peter Stevens, who solved Sunday’s anagram: Barnes Foundation. A South Philly teen broke into the institution 73 years ago. It led to a lifelong artistic career.
Photo of the day
The Seeing Eye volunteers from five different clubs across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware took 46 puppies on an exposure outing to the Philadelphia International Airport. The last stop for the puppies was the baggage claim area after successfully deplaning and walking through the terminal, where Quest (right), a 5-month-old yellow lab, stops to rest.
Think back to the night that changed your life that could only happen in Philly, a true example of the Philly spirit, the time you finally felt like you belonged in Philly if you’re not a lifer, something that made you fall in love with Philly all over again — or proud to be from here if you are. Then email it to us for a chance to be featured in the Monday edition of this newsletter.
This “only in Philly” story comes from reader Miles Davis, who describes witnessing the emergence of a cultural movement firsthand:
The night that changed my life and let me know I was from the best city in the United States of America was when I was with my best friend, Eric, heading downtown. It was 1980 at Wagner’s Ballroom. We were going to see for the first time a battle of hip-hop, which was turning up the streets with rap and turntables spinning the newest jams.
The show was so lit and not a person was seen sitting. Heck, in the time hip-hop came out, no one was ever sitting at a hip-hop event. We called people who sit at rap concerts a Wall Flower who holds up the wall.
Hip-hop came on the scene with its own sound and meaning. I was so glad to have been a part of that culture knowing what it meant and where it was going.
Follow your own groove today. Have a good one.
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Though DuPont is a larger company, Qnity, which started trading Nov. 1, is worth more on the stock market, a sign that investors expect its Big Tech customers — chipmakers like AMD and electronics giants like Samsung — will buy Qnity’s Kalrez sealants, Pyralux adhesives, and other products.
And they expect it will do sofaster than DuPont can boost sales to its remaining brands such as Tyvek and Corian.
With expected sales of $7 billion next year, DuPont has a stock market value of about $16 billion. Qnity, with sales expected to approach $5 billion, is worth $20 billion.Both companies are profitable, but Qnity’s margins are bigger.
Based a five-minute walk from DuPont headquarters in suburban Wilmington, Del., Qnity was given away to DuPont shareholders — one share for each two DuPont shares. The company employs around 10,000 at 39 factories and 17 labs worldwide, including 1,300 in the Wilmington area.
It was the latest in a string of sales and spin-offs that have cut DuPont sales from $62 billion in 2017 — after Edward Breen of New Hope, now DuPont’s executive chairman, took over with a mandate to cut costs and boost shareholder payouts — down to an expected $7 billion next year.
DuPont’s Chestnut Run Plaza headquarters in Wilmington, Del. The company’s November 2025 spin-off, Qnity, is based at the south end of the campus.
Qnity’s price quickly spiked from an initial $70 a share to around $100 in early November trading, and stock analysts predict it will go higher on relentless demand for AI and high-speed computer chips.
The company’s name (pronounced CUE-nitty) was “inspired” by the letter Q’s role in electrical notation. It trades as Q on the New York Stock Exchange.
Q is “the symbol for electrical charge and unity,” Qnity CEO Jon Kemp said in a meeting with DuPont investors.
What does Qnity make?
Qnity’s profit margin before financial expenses is a robust 30%, but analysts warn the chip business might not stay so profitable.
“Wafer starts,” a count of how many new silicon pieces are being used to build new chips, rose roughly 5% this year. Qnity is growing faster than the industry because some of its products are in special demand, “fueled by the adoption of leading-edge technologies for AI applications,” Kemp told the investors earlier this year.
Qnity’s “AI-driven technology ramps” include densely layered circuit boards that allow more computing power in a smaller space and barriers to keep data centers from overheating. The company also sells to aerospace, and military equipment and vehicle makers.
At an August investor meeting, JPMorgan analyst Steve Tusa noted the soon-to-be-spun-off company’s reliance on AI growth. He asked whether the global slump in consumer electronics demand was likely to end, broadening the company’s growth prospects.
Kemp, in response, acknowledged that consumer demand had been “weak,” noting that “all of the growth for the last several quarters is really coming from AI-driven applications.”
Worth more in pieces?
DuPont has sold or spun off many of its once-familiar products in recent years.
DuPont still makes Tyvek house and medical wraps, Corian counters, Molykote lubricants, FilmTec membranes, and medical-device packaging systems, automotive battery and aerospace parts, as well aswater, gas, and mining products.
In all, it’s a radical reduction from the 1950s, when DuPont was the most valuable company in the world, and owned major stakes in General Motors and other customers, or in the 1990s, when DuPont owned oil giant Conoco and attempted a drug-making joint venture with Merck.
DuPont was dropped from the Dow Jones 30 industrial stock index in 2017. It remains one of the S&P 500 stocks, a list Qnity has also joined.
The Qnity spin-off is just the latest in the dismemberment that began before Breen joined DuPont and became chief executive and chairman in 2015. Breen, who similarly broke apart the former Tyco International in the 2000s, came to DuPont at a time when some investors were discontented with low profit growth.
The result is a string of DuPont successor companies, most still based in the Wilmington area.
They include Corteva Agrisciences, a 2019 combination of DuPont and Dow pesticide lines and genetically engineered seeds with offices at the old DuPont headquarters. The company expects more than $17 billion in sales this year.
Corteva, whose U.S. operations are mostly in the Midwest, announced this month that it was moving corporate offices from the suburban Wilmington office park that also houses DuPont and Qnity to the former DuPont headquarters complex in central Wilmington.
The Rodney Square side of the former DuPont Co. headquarters in Wilmington is now home to its chemical spin-off, Chemours. The western end of the same campus will soon be home to offices of Corteva, which includes DuPont’s former pesticides business. This 2019 photo also shows a statue of independence leader Caesar Rodney, which was removed from its pedestal after protests in 2021.
Another global leader in pesticides, Philadelphia-based FMC, owns some former DuPont products and the company’s Newark, Del., research farm.
In 2020, DuPont sold its food and biosciences business to a smaller company, IFF, for $7.3 billion. Both companies had plants in the Philadelphia area.
In 2013, DuPont sold its automotive paints group, Axalta, to private-equity giant Carlyle Group. Carlyle took Axalta public the next year, making three times what it paid DuPont for the South Philly-based company.
Axalta and Corteva shares have roughly doubled in value since DuPont spun them off, though the S&P 500 index is up more. DuPont itself trades at about the same price it was worth just before the Dow merger in 2017. Chemours shares are also roughly flat since it went public. (Update: Axalta announced its sale to rival AkzoNobel NV in November, 2025.)
With its stock trading at a premium over DuPont’s, thanks to investor faith that digital demand will keep going up, Qnity has given shareholders more to celebrate — so far.
Sherri Horsey Darden has no family history of brain cancer, nor has she been having persistent headaches, seizures, or any other symptoms that could suggest a tumor.
But when she heard the Brain Tumor Foundation, a New York-based charity, was offering free magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans in Philadelphia, she made sure to get an appointment.
“A lot of times people have things and don’t know,” she said.
She received her scan at Triumph Baptist Church of Philadelphia in North Philadelphia, where the foundation was offering scans last week to the general public. She’ll receive her results within a couple weeks.
The foundation has hosted these screening events for more than a decade, with the goal of promoting early detection of brain tumors.
Using MRI scans for preventive health screening hasgrown increasingly popular in recent years, with celebrities like Kim Kardashian touting expensive whole-bodyscans on social media.
But many doctors worry that the risks outweigh the benefits. They say that screening MRIs of the brain could lead to unnecessary surgeries and anxiety, and that catching a brain tumor early wouldn’t always change a person’s outcomes. These scans are not typically covered by insurance if not ordered by a doctor, and can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000.
“There, to date, is no data available at all that would suggest that this is a useful approach,” said Stephen Bagley, a neuro-oncologist at Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center.
In the best scenarios, preventive medical screening can help catch diseases early when they are most treatable, and give people peace of mind. But they can also lead to overdiagnosis, false positives, unnecessary stress, and costlyfollow-up procedures.
This is why expert panels carefully evaluate which screening tools should berecommended to the general public. Decisions by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, considered the gold standard for evidence-based preventive care, weigh the potential harms involved against the likelihood of improving outcomes.
Even the most common screenings for cancer, like mammograms for breast cancer and PSA tests for prostate cancer, have faced controversy and shifting guidelines regarding who should get them and how frequently they should be administered.
There is no medical evidence showingthat mass MRI screening is helpful. Still, all spots for the foundation’s multiday screening event at Triumph Baptist Church were claimed. Zeesy Schnur, executive director of the foundation, said they aim to scan 100 to 150 people in each city.
Juanita Young, her husband, and her friend all booked consecutive appointments last week. Though she hasn’t had any symptoms that would make her think she had brain cancer, she signed up “just wanting to know,” she said.
Juanita Young, her husband, and her friend all booked consecutive appointments to get screened.
Philadelphia visit
The idea for the early detection campaign came from Patrick Kelly, a now retired neurosurgeon who started the foundation in 1998.
He was frustrated to see the majority of his brain cancer patients die from the disease, and felt that treatment would be more effective if the tumors were found earlier, explainedSchnur, who has been at the foundation since 2000.
Kelly envisioned a future where, similar to going through the scanners at an airport security checkpoint, people could get a full scan of their body, “and then this piece of paper would pop out and say, ‘Hey, you have a problem here,’” Schnur recalled.
The foundation offers brain MRIs for free at their events, covering the cost of administering the scan and having a radiologist read it. They use a portable MRI machine that only scans the brain and takes approximately 15 minutes.
The foundation has chauffeured its machine all over the country through its “Sponsor-A-City” program, which allows people to donate the funds needed to bring the unit to a city of their choice. They usually pick cities that are demographically diverse.
The event in Philadelphia was sponsored by Alexandra Schreiber Ferman, who lives in the area, through the more than $50,000 she raised from running the New York City Marathon.
Schreiber Ferman’s paternal grandfather died from glioblastoma and was a patient of Kelly’s. Her family has been involved with the foundation since its inception.
Schreiber Ferman got her first scan five or six years ago, after she had been having headaches. She pressured her parents to get her in for an MRI when the foundation’s unit was in Brooklyn.
“Thankfully, everything was OK. I just was stressed out,” she said.
Having a family history of the cancer makes her and her family more alert when it comes to headaches and other symptoms. Schreiber Ferman received her second scan Tuesday morning at the screening event.
Alexandra Schreiber Ferman sponsored the Brain Tumor Foundation’s event in Philadelphia.
She said her family and people at the foundation feel that these scans should be “something that’s routine,” like mammograms and skin checks.
“My goal would be that getting a brain scan becomes just a routine part of aging,” she said.
Her father, who serves as chairman of the foundation, wants other people to have the chance to get screened and has helped sponsor past city visits.
However, he himself has only gotten one screening since the program first started, and no longer wants any more.
“My dad is adamant that he does not want to get a scan. I think for him, ‘ignorance is bliss,’” she said.
What doctors say
Screening tests have to meet certain criteria in order to become standard practice, explained Richard Wender, chair of family medicine and community health at Penn and former chief cancer control officer for the American Cancer Society.
A national leader in cancer screening, he would not recommend that people undergo MRIs to screen for brain cancer.
The first criteria for a screening tool to be recommended for the general population is that the disease is common, he said. The disease must also come with a high risk of harm or death and must have stages, so that it can be found before it causes symptoms.
Lastly, available treatments for the disease have to be able to reduce the risk of serious outcomes.
Brain cancer is unlikely to ever meet that criteria, Wender said, mainly because it isn’t common enough. There also isn’t sufficient evidence that finding a brain cancer earlier reduces the risk of a person dying from it.
For example, the most common malignant brain tumor, glioblastoma, is so aggressive and invasive from the start, it is always considered a grade four tumor, noted Bagley, who serves as section chief of neuro-oncology at Penn.
These cancers grow so quickly that the time between the tumor developing and someone showing up to the emergency room with symptoms is typically on the order of months, he said.
“You cannot cure it, no matter when you find it,” Bagley said.
A subset of brain tumors called grade two gliomas are slow-growing enough that catching them earlier could give a patient a better outcome. However, “it’s so rare, you’d have to do so many of these MRIs to find those tumors,” he said.
Another issue with screening the general population is that there will inevitably be false positives.
Some abnormalities in the brain might look like possible tumors on MRIs but turn out to be harmless.
Yet, the person would have to undergo a medical procedure, such as a brain biopsy, to prove that it isn’t cancer.
“You end up putting the patient through invasive brain procedures, lots of anxiety, and existential distress for what ends up to be nothing,” Bagley said.
The same goes for benign brain tumors like meningioma, the most common type of brain tumor in adults. Roughly 39,000 cases are reported each year in the United States. A “very tiny percentage” of these ever become malignant, and it’s unknown if catching them early would help the patient in the long run, Bagley said.
It might just mean the patient has to get MRIs every year for the rest of their life, or get surgery to remove a tumor that probably never would have been become a problem.
Some of these patients have ended up seeking follow-up care fromRicardo Komotar, a neurosurgeon who directs the University of Miami Brain Tumor Initiative in Florida, after finding out they had benign tumors from screening MRIs. He tells these “super nervous” patients that it’s nothing to worry about, but now that they’ve found it, he has to follow it.
As of right now, there is no good screening mechanism when it comes to the brain, Komotar said. He recommends only imaging a person’s brain if there’s a reason, such as a seizure, weakness, or migraines, or an injury, such as in a car accident.
“Brain MRIs as screening have not been proven to help and, in my experience, they only hurt,” Komotar said.
More research needed
Ethan Schnur checks on James Brown as he has his early detection brain tumor screening at the Brain Tumor Foundation event in Philadelphia.
When the foundation first started offering scans, they were finding potential abnormalities in one out of every 100 people they screened. Those included anything from a brain tumor, to silent stroke, to an aneurysm.
One example was a man from Staten Island who had no symptoms, but through the scan, found out he had a nonmalignant brain tumor. He got surgery to remove it.
“He called us afterward to thank us,” Schnur said.
Their stance is that these MRIs should be part of standard of care, so that anyone who wants one has the option.
The foundation has partnered with Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian in New York City for a formal research study using data from their screening events.
John Park, the lead researcher and chief of neurosurgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Queens Hospital, said the study will help assess whether screening MRIs for a general populationcould be useful. They aim to screen up to thousands of patients.
“We don’t know if it will be effective or not,” Park said.
If the study were to suggest the scans are effective, there would still need to be a large randomized trial to validate those conclusions, Wender said.
Park’s team will also look at demographic information in an effort to identify risk factors for brain tumors and other abnormalities.
Research into risk factors could help justify whether certain populations should get routine screeningMRIs, Bagley said. He noted that patients with Li-Fraumeni syndrome, a rare genetic disease that predisposes people to developing cancer, are already recommended to get whole-body MRI scans yearly because they’re known to be at such high risk.
Other than those patients, “we don’t really have any way to say this large group of patients is at high risk for this type of brain tumor,” Bagley said.
A handful of patients have ended up seeking care at Penn from Bagleyafter paying for a whole-body MRI from a private company. These are people who were “completely fine” before happening to find a brain tumor on their scans, he said.
One of them was diagnosed with glioblastoma.
He isn’t sure yet whether being diagnosed earlier will actually extend the patient’s survival time. It might just mean the patient gets a few months’ head start on treating the tumor.
“It’s totally unclear if he did himself any justice by finding this terrible brain cancer any earlier. It’s incurable either way,” Bagley said.
Late in the afternoon on Nov. 7, a Friday, the Philadelphia Police Department announced that nine current and former police officers had been charged with conspiring to defraud the city by using a grant-funded youth boxing program to pad their salaries.
It was the largest number of Philly officers charged together with misconduct in nearly 40 years — a seemingly splashy case for District Attorney Larry Krasner, a progressive prosecutor who has made charging cops a cornerstone of his two terms in office.
Yet Krasner has been unusually quiet about it.
The district attorney was traveling in Switzerland for a conference when the charges became public. His office declined to comment, held no news conference, and issued no public statements — in stark contrast to his trumpeting of police misconduct cases in the past.
Krasner has charged dozens of police officers since taking office in 2018. But he did not publicly acknowledge his largest booking to date until The Inquirer approached him at an unrelated news conference, nearly a week after these most-recent charges were filed.
And even then, he was reluctant to talk about it.
“We had probable cause that they committed the crimes,” Krasner said Thursday. “Having said that, I wanna be very clear: There are a lot of great cops in the city. … I don’t think that this group of nine should in any way taint the rest of them.”
Prosecutors accuse Nashid Akil, former captain of the 22nd District in North Philadelphia, and eight of his officers of stealing $44,576 in taxpayer-funded anti-violence grant money between January and September 2022, according to charging documents.
Those funds came from a $392,000 city grant awarded to Epiphany Fellowship Church to support Guns Down, Gloves Up, a boxing and youth mentorship program that Akil founded at his nearby district building. No one from the church was charged, and Krasner said Thursday the church should not be “tainted” by the allegations against police.
Former Captain Nashid Akil, shown here while at the boxing program Guns Down Gloves Up, at the 22nd District, in Philadelphia, Friday, October 7, 2022.
City employees are prohibited from receiving grant dollars. Yet after vowing in the grant application that police time would be volunteered, Akil, using the church as a pass-through, allegedly paid himself and eight district officers for their work as boxing instructors, an arrangement that came to light through an Inquirer investigation in 2023.
Police now say some officers were paid during their scheduled shift hours.
A law enforcement source familiar with the case said the district attorney’s office concluded its probe into the grant scheme months ago. Krasner did not approve the charges until Oct. 31, according to a police department spokesperson. That was days before the Nov. 4 election, when Krasner was handily reelected to a third term. The defendants began surrendering to authorities three days later.
Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel issueda statement after the arrests saying he was “deeply troubled” by the officers’ alleged actions and “particularly disappointed by the involvement of a former commanding officer.”
But neither Krasner nor his spokesperson responded at the time to repeated requests for comment.
On Thursday, Krasner attributed the timing of the charges to logistical issues with bringing in the nine codefendants.
Akil was forced to resign in February 2023 after The Inquirer’s reporting on the boxing program, and three other officers who allegedly took the money had since resigned. Bethel has moved to fire the five active officers.
Only one of the nine officers listed an attorney in court records, and that lawyer could not be reached for comment.
Officials at Epiphany Fellowship Church did not respond to a request for comment.
An unusual silence
The last time nine officers were charged together in Philadelphia was in 1986, for taking bribes to conceal an underground gambling ring.
An Oct. 14, 1986 article in the Philadelphia Daily News shows the last time nine current and former Philadelphia police officers were charged following a single investigation.
Since the charges were filed in the boxing program scandal, Krasner’s office has put out ninenews releases — but nothing on the nine officers charged.
It’s a departure from how the typically loquacious district attorney has handled previous allegations of police misconduct.
In 2021, for example, when The Inquirer was reporting on widespread abuse of the department’s injured-on-duty program, Krasner said he believed some officers were “gaming the system, and in my opinion, committing crimes by engaging in fraudulent practices to stay home.” The disability system was reformed and hundreds of officers returned to work, but no criminal charges were filed.
The next year, Krasner issued a lengthy news release after the arrest of Officer Daniel Levitt on perjury and related charges, stemming from an allegedly illegal search that led to the recovery of a handgun. The charges against Levitt were initially dismissed but have since been refiled.
In 2023, Krasner was again out front in announcing the arrest of former Officer Patrick Henon for sexually assaulting young girls. Henon pleaded guilty.
In May, Krasner called a news conference after a jury convicted two former detectives convicted of making false statements about DNA evidence.
A month later, when Donald Suchinsky, a former homicide detective, was sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting relatives of murder victims, Krasner appeared outside the Criminal Justice Center to condemn Suchinsky’s conduct and urge any other victims to come forward.
And in July, Krasner again held a news conference to criticize what he called a lenient sentence of former Officer Mark Dial, who was paroled following his voluntary manslaughter conviction in the shooting of Eddie Irizarry.
“I am deeply disappointed with a verdict that I think makes people lose faith in the criminal justice system,” Krasner said.
A sensitive issue
In contrast, when approached by reporters Thursday, Krasner requested an advance list of questions about the alleged grant misappropriation, then huddled privately with two of his top prosecutors for several minutes before offering littlecomment.
Asked about his reticence toward this case compared with past cases, Krasner alluded to outside concerns.
“We have to do certain things in court in a certain kind of way, and we have to operate with our partners, and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.
He declined further questions.
Krasner’s uncharacteristic silence has not gone unnoticed by nearly a dozen communications consultants, lawyers, and law enforcement officials, who spoke with The Inquirer on the condition that they not be named.
They speculated that Krasner might be downplaying the arrests due to political sensitivities or because — unlike in cases of wrongful arrests and shootings — there is not a clear victim in this case, outside of city taxpayers. Some acknowledged that there could also be legal reasons why Krasner would decline to draw additional attention to the arrests.
Carl Day, a pastor who runs Culture Changing Christians, noted that Krasner is allied with Black clergy members who have supported his political campaigns. Day suggested that the district attorney might be trying to avoid further scrutiny into the church that was in charge of the grant.
“My hope and belief is that it’s a level of respect,” Day said. “In this work, you become scrutinized a ton and placed under microscopes, especially when you are a Black-led organization and getting government money.”
The boxing program scandal is one of several incidents that have raised concern about the city’s oversight of millions of anti-violence grants, scores of which have been awarded to small nonprofits in the Black community.
Day said nonprofit leaders need to be held accountable for misspent funds, but he argued that Black-led nonprofits, many of which do not have the financial resources of large organizations that typically get city grants, face heightened scrutiny.
If that is the case, Day said, he is puzzled why Krasner wouldn’t come out and say so.
On Oct. 16, Rian Andrianzah walked into a Philadelphia office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for what he thought was a routine biometrics appointment. He expected to be fingerprinted and photographed and sent on his way.
Instead, while his wife waited in an outer room, he was arrested by ICE ― and now faces deportation in a case that has angered the city’s Indonesian community.
Andrianzah, 46, is among a growing number of immigrants whose families say they showed up for in-person appointments or check-ins, only to be suddenly handcuffed and spirited into detention.
Green-card applicants, asylum-seekers, and others who have ongoing legal or visa cases have been unexpectedly taken, part of a Trump administration strategy, lawyers and advocates say, to boost the number of immigration arrests and to deport anyone who can possibly be deported.
“ICE was waiting for him,” said Philadelphia immigration attorney Christopher Casazza, who represents Andrianzah and his family. “In 15 years, I have never once seen somebody arrested at their biometrics appointment ― except in the past few months.”
Andrianzah legally entered the United States on a visitor’s visa in February 2000, but did not return to Indonesia. He was placed in removal proceedings in 2003, and a judge issued a final order of deportation in November 2006. His appeal was denied two years later.
The removal order was never enforced, as had been common for what the government thensaw as low-priority immigration violators. Some people with final orders have lived in the U.S. for decades.
In the ensuing years, Andrianzah worked factory and warehouse jobs ― and married Siti Rahayu, 44, also of Indonesia. They made a home in South Philadelphia, parents to two U.S.-citizen children, a son, age 8, and a daughter, 15.
Andrianzah and his wife went to USCIS that day as part of her application for a T visa, available to people who have been victims of human trafficking. In an interview with The Inquirer,Rahayu said she was sent to the U.S. in 2001 by relatives who saw her as a means to pay off a debt, delivering her to an underground organization that puts people in low-paying jobs, then keeps them working indefinitely.
Siti Rahayu of Philadelphia, here on Thursday, November 6, 2025. Her husband Rian Andrianzah walked into United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office for a routine visit but he was sent to Moshannon detention center to await deportation.
Casazza, of the Philadelphia firm Palladino, Isbell & Casazza LLC, said Rahayu has a strong case for a T visa, which offers permission to live in the U.S. and a path to permanent residency and citizenship.
As her husband, Andrianzah would receive those same benefits under her visa.
That’s why, Casazza said, it makes no sense for ICE to confine and deport him. Once his wife’s visa was approved, Andrianzah would be able to legally live in the United States, the attorney said.
Asked about Andrianzah’s arrest and the couple’s situation, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson in Philadelphia said in a statement: “Due to privacy issues, we are not authorized to discuss this case.”
Andrianzah is being held at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, an ICE detention facility in Clearfield County, Pa.
As President Donald Trump presses his deportation agenda, what were routine meetings with federal authorities have now become risky for immigrants. Advocates say many of those arrested were following the rules and doing what the government asked:
On May 27, the wife of a Marine Corps veteran was detained in Louisiana after meeting with USCIS about her green-card application, CBS News reported. Paola Clouatre, 25, said she came to the U.S. as a child with her mother, but was abandoned as a teenager and unaware that the government had ordered them deported. She spent about eight weeks in custody before being fitted with an ankle monitor and released.
On June 3, federal agents in New York City arrested at least 16 immigrants who showed up for check-ins, after a private contractor working with ICE summoned them to urgent appointments, The City, a news organization, reported.
On Oct. 22, a 21-year-old California college student was arrested by ICE at an appointment at a USCIS office in San Francisco, Newsweek reported. Government officials said Esteban Danilo Quiroga-Chaparro, a Colombian national and green-card applicant, had missed mandatory meetings, though his husband said that was untrue.
On Oct. 23, a Venezuelan couple pursuing asylum were arrested during a check-in at the ICE office in downtown Milwaukee, Urban Milwaukee reported. Diego Ugarte-Arenas and Dailin Pacheco-Acosta sought protection after fleeing their homeland in 2021. An ICE spokesperson told the news agency that “all aliens who remain in the U.S. without a lawful immigration status may be subject to arrest and removal.”
“There’s a lot of risks right now,” said Ana Ferreira, who serves on the executive board of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Some clients went intoimmigrationappointments knowing there was a possibility they could be detained, she said. Others were shocked to be taken.
“None of this would have happened years ago,” Ferreira said. “It’s a completely different landscape.”
Siti Rahayu of Philadelphia holds a photograph of her husband, Rian Andrianzah. He walked into a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office for what he thought would be a routine visit but was sent to the Moshannon detention center to await deportation. Photograph taken on Thursday, November 6, 2025.
Rahayu said that on Oct. 16, she completed her own biometrics appointment, then grew concerned when her husband did not appear. She asked the staff what was happening.
“They [said they] don’t know anything, and they say this is new for them,” Rahayu said.
Finally someone told her: He’s gone. Rahayu fears for her husband’s health in custody because he suffers from diabetes, which impairs his vision.
The local Indonesian American community reacted immediately, supported by Asian Americans United, the advocacy group. An estimated 2,000 Indonesians live in Philadelphia, the 10th-largest community in the nation.
Andrianzah said through his wife that he wished to thank everyone who has tried to help him and his family, that he is grateful for their care and concern. Supporters have raised about $13,000.
Each year thousands of people physically report to ICE or related immigration agencies for mandatory check-ins.
Some immigrants are required to appear every couple of weeks, some once a month, others once a year. The appointments help immigration officials keep track of people who in the past have been low priorities for deportation, allowed to live freely as they pursue legal efforts to stay in the United States.
Biometrics appointments are usually brief sessions, perhaps half an hour, at which the government captures fingerprints, a passport-style photo, and a signature. The immigrant may also be asked to provide information like height and weight.
Despite the fresh risk of being arrested on the spot, immigrants have little option except to show up. Many types of immigration applications require in-person appearances. And failure to appear for a required ICE appointment can by itself result in an order for removal.
“They’re trying to grab everybody, wherever they can,” and that included Andrianzah, Casazza said. “ICE is going to do their best to deport him.”
The undergraduateclass at the University of Pennsylvania vigorously discussed the use of affirmative action in college admissions, half the room charged with arguing one side and half the other.
Their task, informed by the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended the use of race-conscious college admissions, was to brief and advise a popular governor of a swing state who had not yet taken a position on the issue.
“Guess who is the governor?” said their professor, Amy Gutmann. “I am the governor.”
And for 90 minutes, the entirety of the class period, Gutmann guided a lively discussion in which students talked as much as she did.
While never a governor, Gutmann has quite the leadership portfolio. She was president of Penn for a record 18 years, leaving in 2022 to become U.S. ambassador to Germany under former President Joe Biden, a post she held until 2024. She is also a Harvard-educated political scientist who cowrote the book The Spirit of Compromise and in 2018 was called one of the world’s 50 greatest leaders by Fortune magazine.
Now, for the first time in about 25 years — since she was a politics professor at Princeton — Gutmann is back in the classroom teaching a full course this semester in the Annenberg School for Communication. Sarah Banet-Weiser, dean of Annenberg, who initially came up with the idea for the course, is her co-teacher.
For students, the professorial star power was hard to pass up. There was a waiting list for the class.
“It’s kind of a power duo,” said Evan Humphrey, 21, a senior communications major from Seattle. “Got to take that class.”
Senior Evan Humphrey said she was drawn to enroll in the class because of the two professors and their distinguished careers.
Focusing on teaching — the heart of a university — has been especially meaningful to Gutmann, and to Banet-Weiser, too, at a time when higher education has had its federal funding threatened and its approaches attacked.
“It literally gives me life every week,” Banet-Weiser said.
Gutmann, 75,who said she aspired to be a teacher since she was 5, said it has made her feel productive “in a way that goes to the heart of what a university is about.”
“We should never lose sight of that heart of the university and how valuable it is,” she said.
The goal of the class, called “The Art and Ethics of Communication in Times of Crisis,” is “to learn how and why to communicate with greater insight and understanding across differences,” while creating space “for free and open dialogue about controversial issues.”
Seniors Luiza Louback (left) and Sarah Usandivaras (right) participate in the class discussion.
It could be a primer for the politically divided nation.
“My pitch is that you can’t really know what you believe if you don’t know what people who disagree with you believe and what their reasons are,” Gutmann said in an interview. “I always say I don’t care what your position is. I care that you can give reasons for it and understand the strongest arguments on the other side.
“That’s the method to search for truth, and it’s the way we serve a democracy.”
Bringing experience to the classroom
During class, Gutmann frequently drew on her experiences as a first-generation college student, a young professor at Princeton, a college president, and an ambassador.
When she got her first teaching job, a male colleague congratulated her, but later she learned he told someone she got the job because she was a woman.
“Did I take that as a compliment? Mm-mm,” Gutmann told the class.
Humphrey said she especially likes hearing about Gutmann’s vast experiences.
“She’s like, ‘Well, when I was the president here, this is something I dealt with,’” Humphrey said. “It’s really interesting knowing the experience she has and her background and the perspective she brings.”
Amy Gutmann (center), president emerita of the University of Pennsylvania and former U.S. ambassador to Germany, is presented with the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History’s Only in America® Award during a gala at the museum this month. The award recognizes “Jewish Americans who have made enormous contributions to our world … often despite facing antisemitism and prejudice.” Among those posing with her are Ramanan Raghavendran (far right), chair of Penn’s board of trustees, veteran journalist Andrea Mitchell (next to Raghavendran), Penn President J. Larry Jameson, (to the immediate left of Gutmann), and David Cohen, former Penn board chair, (next to Jameson.)
Gutmann’s life outside class continues to be full, too. After class Wednesday, Gutmann, whose father fled Nazi Germany, flew to Berlin to receive the Prize for Understanding and Tolerance from the Jewish Museum Berlin.
Having returned to Philadelphia to live after leaving Germany, Gutmann said it wasn’t hard to find her stride again in the classroom. She had given one-off lectures as Penn’s president.
“I have a lot of muscle memory on teaching,” she said.
Her style has changed from her early days at Princeton, where she worked from 1976 to 2004. She said readinga student’s notebook left behind and open after one of her ethics and public policy lectures was a major turning point.
“‘That’s not what I said,’” Gutmann thought. “And I realized it’s not what you teach them, it’s what they learn. At that point, I realized I needed feedback.
“So I changed from doing the 45-minute [lecture] thing to doing five or 10 minutes, max, and then asking them questions. Then I got them to argue with one another, and once I found that, I found what I really discovered worked for learning.”
Amy Gutmann talks with sophomore Brian Barth (right) at the end of class she co-teaches at Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication.
Gutmann said she spends Fridays and weekends preparing for the class, which meets twice a week.
“It’s a ton of work,” she said. “I’m really delighted to be doing it.”
The class comes against the backdrop of fraught times for colleges. Penn earlier this year scrubbed its website of diversity initiatives after President Donald Trump’s administration threatened funding to schools employing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. In the summer, the school struck an agreement with the administration over the past participation of former transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, and Penn was one of nine schools originally asked to sign a compact that would have given the school preferential consideration for federal funding in exchange for complying with certain mandates affecting admissions, hiring, and other university operations. Penn declined.
‘One-of-a-kind’ discussions
Gutmann and Banet-Weiser do not allow laptops, phones, or any electronic devices in class so that students completely focus on the conversation. To prepare for the affirmative action discussion, students were assigned related readings and review of the court cases.
The two professors interacted with each other and prompted discussion among students with deep questions: Is treating people equal the same as treating them equally? Is it right to use affirmative action for only one racial group? What about other forms of affirmative action or preference, including for athletes, low-income students, and legacies whose parents attended the university?
The approach resonated with students.
“I wanted to take a class where I would really be encouraged to step out of my comfort zone and be able to learn not only how to understand my own beliefs and values but understand the beliefs and values of others,” said Sarah Usandivaras, 21, a senior communications and political science major who was born in New York and grew up in Paraguay.
She found it in Gutmann and Banet-Weiser’s classroom.
“It’s a one-of-a-kind,” she said.
Ariana Zetlin, a doctoral student in Penn’s Graduate School of Education, is auditing the class to observe its approach.
“The discussion and the debates are so much deeper and stronger than what I’m seeing in classrooms that don’t necessarily have these structures,” said Zetlin, 30, who is from New York.
During class, those on both sides found common ground.
Senior Angele Diamacoune said she was learning from the day’s lesson.
“So I’m hearing agreement that diversity is a good thing but disagreement on how you get it,” Gutmann said.
She asked students how many believed that having low-income and racially diverse students in class contributed to their learning. Every hand went up.
“That to me is really striking,” Gutmann said. “There aren’t that many things that we can get unanimity on.”
She asked students how they would advise colleges to teach the issue.
“It would be good to teach with activities like this,” said Angele Diamacoune, 21, a senior communications major from Allentown.
