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"It's an enormous leap to say that because Brandon Johnson's top deputies and policymaking positions are African American, that the city is discriminating on the basis of race in its hiring of ordinary, non-policy making employees," said Carolyn Shapiro, professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law.

“They are arguing that the categories of people that they are attempting to exclude are not subject to jurisdiction,” says Christopher W. Schmidt, law professor and co-director of the Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States at Chicago Kent College of Law. “Their argument being that if you’re not legally in the country, [or] temporarily, you’re not, in some sense, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Now, even as I talk through that, it doesn’t seem to really resonate in any meaningful way when people think about why you’re subject to jurisdiction.”

“A curious part of sentencing is that no one will get the answer to the question we all have asked: Why did he do it?” said Doug Godfrey, a professor of legal writing and research at Chicago-Kent College of Law. “He won’t say and I doubt he will take responsibility or apologize. So, as to the fundamental question, we will not know.”