Chicago City Wire

In December 2023, Benard McKinley completed his nearly 23-year sentence for murder, and this fall will begin law studies at Northwestern University— accepted after completing an in-prison undergraduate program.

The press was effusive in its coverage of McKinley’s transformation, including a vague description of the “gang-related murder” he committed as a 16-year-old. 

According to a November 2020 appellate court description of the June 24, 2001 crime: “…16-year-old defendant shot and killed a 23-year-old man named Abdo Serna-Ibarra, as he tried to enter a Chicago park [Koz Park]. One of defendant's friends, a 15-year-old named Edward Chavera, may have handed defendant the gun. Chavera then told defendant to shoot Serna-Ibarra. Defendant obeyed, shooting the victim in the back. When Serna-Ibarra turned around with his hands raised, defendant shot him several more times, killing him.”

It’s unclear if Northwestern is waiving McKinley’s tuition, and whether his admission means that another applicant was denied, since the school only accepts four percent of applicants. The law school did not respond to Chicago City Wire's request for comment.

This isn't the first time the university has made headlines with its provocative moves.  

In 1991, the law school hired Bernadine Dohrn as the founding director of the Children and Family Justice Center, despite her role as one of the leaders of the radical left Weather Underground (initially called Weatherman), responsible for numerous bombings of government buildings. She was also one of the organizers of the four Days of Rage Chicago riots in October 1969. 

Dohrn, who is now retired, also considered the Manson murders an inspired political act, wrote Elizabeth Kolbert in 2001 in the New Yorker.

" 'Dig it,' Dohrn declared. 'First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. Then they even shoved a fork into a victim's stomach. Wild.' "

Dohrn and her husband Bill Ayers were on the run from the FBI for 11 years, but according to a 2012 National Review report she “has never renounced her past.”

And in 2011, Northwestern parted company with David Protess, Medill School of Journalism Professor and founder of the Innocence Project, over his handling of the case of Anthony McKinney, who was convicted of murder in 1978.

“Protess knowingly misrepresented the facts and his actions to the University, its attorneys and the dean of Medill on many documented occasions,” the university said in a statement concerning the case. “He also misrepresented facts about these matters to students, alumni, the media and the public.”

In addition, in 2015 Northwestern settled a lawsuit brought by Alstory Simon who spent more than 15 years in prison for a double murder he did not commit. In the lawsuit, Simon alleged that an investigation into the murders, conducted by Protess, led to him being coerced into a false confession when presented with fabricated evidence and “terrifying” threats.

Anita Alvarez, the Cook County State’s Attorney at the time, said that the “investigation by David Protess and his team involved a series of alarming tactics that were not only coercive and absolutely unacceptable by law enforcement standards. They were potentially in violation of Mr. Simon’s constitutionally protected rights.”

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

The Simon conviction freed Anthony Porter, convicted of the murders in 1983. In 1998, Porter was days after from being put to death when a stay was issue. He was freed in 1999. It was the Porter case that led former Gov. George Ryan in 2003 to declare a moratorium on executions. In 2011, Illinois abolished the death penalty.