investigating systems of power and constructing counter-archives

The FOIA Bakery uses public records research to connect with people and build a people's archive through workshops and action

support our work

Our Work

The City of Chicago should do good things instead of bad things.

The FOIA Bakery works with communities to conduct research on issues that affect Chicagoans, working to contextualize how government operates in our lives. We cover many areas including education policy, health policy, housing policy and governance. Our work is anchored in Chicago's South and West sides.We use archival research and file Freedom of Information Act requests. We fight agency denials and publish results working with communities to run workshops, research together and win demands together.

1400

FOIA requests

Lawsuits

Agencies

Click more to see more about this project:

Students with disabilities are owed a free and appropriate public education but Chicago Public Schools routinely violates students with disabilities denying them access. When disabled students thrive, all students thrive. Based on our research and action, we won multiple Corrective Actions, including correction for failing to transport students with disabilities or programming exceedingly long bus routes and failing to assign students to school at all, so CPS can avoid triggering a transportation requirement. We have forced Chicago Public Schools to enact policy changes prioritizing students with disabilities and poor students for bus service, increasing wages for bus drivers and providing school assignments. This work is ongoing. Through lived experience, research and litigation, we continue to work for better material conditions.

We are all owed dignity, immigrants included. In 2023, Chicago proposed building a refugee detention camp, contracting with GardaWorld, a military contractor. Gardaworld was responsible for building the immigrant detention facility in the Everglades, often referred to as Alligator Alcatraz. People would have been housed on the site of a former zinc smelter in large communal tents with no privacy and no accommodations for families, children, or people with disabilities. Once built, detention camps tend to stay - they are not taken down. Through our research, litigation, workshops, and work with others in the City, we blocked the construction of not just a GardWorld detention camp but any detention camp. Concurrently, the City was not motivated to improve shelter conditions, leading to the death of a 5 year old boy. We demanded a single shelter system with more resources to serve all unhoused people. We worked with investigative journalists leading to increased access to free healthcare. The same people who are vulnerable to conditions set by the City of Chicago are also subject to hostilities from ICE agents. We continue to research enforcement coordinates with federal agents.

Systems of power make archives that are not neutral in order to protect themselves. Chicago Public School principals are empowered to ban parents from schools by issuing Visitor Violation Letters. We have worked with countless parents to undo the effects of these parent ban letters, using press, research and litigation as tools to remain whole in the face of bureaucratic violence. Maps are not neutral documents and our work on the elected school board maps interrupted the flow of power. By generating thousands of possible electoral maps and providing testimony at the Illinois General Assembly hearings, we were able to provoke further discussion leading to better decision-making. When complaints are made against Chicago Public Schools officials and employees, the legal department investigates itself. The Investigative Memo they create is not a neutral document meant to ensure the safety of the bureaucracy at the expense of the student. CPS works hard to protect their archives and we’ve had to force these investigations out via multiple lawsuits. There are over 8,000 investigative memos and we intend to excavate every single one.

The technologies that governments use are an expression of power in our everyday lives. When the City of Chicago issued a request to expand the use of surveillance technology, we filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department. The City’s Department of Technology and Innovation also keeps records on behalf of the City and it is important for us to continually challenge this terrain, especially when the City uses its power to recreate Ugly Laws and evicts unhoused people from public spaces. The Office of Emergency Management and Communications operates the police call center. Technology systems make records which reveal how people are categorized and assigned value and while agency leadership prefers to keep their choices a secret we flush them out in litigation. By studying how the Fusion Center operates in Chicago, we can understand how we are constantly under surveillance and by contextualizing contemporary systems like 9-1-1, we can be clear about which systems need to be challenged.

Patriarchal systems govern our lives. We challenge them. When we started to hear from women sharing their experiences of sexual harassment at City Hall in 2024, we took them seriously. Misogyny is rampant in the workplace and a Mayor’s Office is not exempt. We went to work researching Complaints and listening to multiple women tell their stories of abuse in the workplace. We shared our work with the intent of making change. In this specific instance, a high-level staffer in the Mayor’s Office was fired. We continue to push this work through research, litigation and community because we know women continue to experience violence.

Young people in Chicago deserve safety and an ability to make choices in their lives. In the summer of 2020, we worked with students and state legislators to change the law, increasing the number of student representatives on local school councils in Chicago. Students can find safety in numbers on an otherwise all-adult council. Building on our work to ensure safe environments in the school system, we forced Chicago Public Schools to enact a policy ensuring behavior intervention plans are created so students can stay safe. Our research into physical restraint practices at Chicago Public Schools led to a systemic change into how staff are trained. We work to show others how systems of power interlock to ensnare young people. We investigate how students are criminalized through truancy laws and our lawsuit related to truancy forms shows how the Chicago Public Schools works directly with the Chicago Police Department to catch kids out on the street. Similarly, our lawsuit on truancy forms and research on suspensions shows in an ongoing way how Chicago Public Schools works to exclude students.

Where your donation goes

Community workshops, filing fees, legal costs when agencies deny requests, and the time it takes to read, redact, and publish thousands of pages — your donation funds all of it. Every dollar goes directly to the work.

Keep the Oven on

Your contribution is fully tax-deductible

The FOIA Bakery

Chicago, Illinois
501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organization • EIN 33-3321418