Editor's note: This article has been revised from a previously published version to reflect the Supreme Court's denial of the petition for emergency relief, and include comments from Protect Our Parks.
The U.S. Supreme Court won't step in to stop construction of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago's Jackson Park.
On Aug. 20, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett denied a petition from the organization known as Protect Our Parks for an emergency order putting work on the project on hold while the organization continues to press its legal claims that federal agencies glossed over concerns about potential damage to Jackson Park's ecology and historical nature from the OPC project.
The denial came three days after Protect Our Parks asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put construction in the park on hold, saying to allow the project to move forward at this point would embolden the destruction of public park land to satisfy the whims of the elite.
“This entire history threatens to undermine the structure of environmental law developed in this Court over the last 50 years in ways that will allow other cities and municipalities to run roughshod over public parks at the beck and call of powerful political forces,” the organization known as Protect Our Parks wrote in its petition filed with the Supreme Court.
“That trend must be stopped now.”
The petition, filed Aug. 17, marked the latest attempt by those seeking to protect Chicago’s massive South Side urban park from the extensive transformation it is slated to undergo as part of the plans pushed by the Barack Obama Foundation and the city of Chicago to build the museum and monument to the presidency and legacy of the nation’s first Black president.
Opponents of the Obama Presidential Center have fought for years to stop the construction in Jackson Park, urging the Obama organization and city to instead steer their efforts to other sites on the South Side which, they say, would greatly benefit from nearly $1 billion in economic investment earmarked for the OPC.
Protect Our Parks first filed suit in 2018, with plaintiffs accusing the city and Chicago Park District of engaging in a “short con shell game.” They accused city officials of effectively conspiring with the Obama Foundation to build the Obama Center project in Jackson Park, regardless of the resulting destruction to the historic park.
The plaintiffs noted the plan would involve the clearing of more than 19 acres in Jackson Park, including the “wanton” destruction of many mature trees. It would also require the closure or redirection of numerous roads through and around Jackson Park, and the widening of Stony Island Boulevard and Lakeshore Drive, to accommodate the expected increases in traffic resulting from the project.
Ultimately, the project would include a 12-story structure, towering above Jackson Park. It will not be a traditional presidential library, but rather a museum and monument focused on Obama himself, operated by the Obama Foundation, with the goal of furthering the legacy and politics of America’s 44th President.
Court challenges to the project have failed to win over judges, to date.
In 2019 and 2020, federal judges rejected Protect Our Parks’ arguments that the cooperation between the city and the Obama Foundation represented an unconstitutional betrayal of city residents, effectively “an institutional bait-and-switch,” designed to give legal cover to an otherwise illegal transfer of control of prime, historic city park land to a private organization.
In its most recent court challenge, Protect Our Parks argued federal reviews of the project and its environmental impact were all but a sham, conducted in such a way to ensure the project’s true environmental impact would not be evaluated, or come to light.
U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey rejected Protect Our Parks’ request for an injunction blocking the Obama Foundation and city from beginning work on the project. The work was scheduled to begin on Aug. 16.
Blakey was appointed to the federal court by Obama.
The efforts to halt construction also ran into a wall, once more, at the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The court rejected the request for an injunction. A day later, on Aug. 19, the appeals court delivered an unsigned per curiam – or, unanimous – order, saying the court did not believe Protect Our Parks’ arguments could overcome the “deference” normally enjoyed in court by regulatory agencies.
The appeals court noted the federal review agencies conducted tree surveys, and considered the impact the construction of the Obama Center could have on the historic character of Jackson Park.
The court said it would not insert itself at this point to second-guess the federal reviewers’ conclusions that the “benefits of change” would outweigh any negative impacts on the park’s overall nature.
“(Protect Our Parks’) arguments are, as the district court recognized, disputes with the agencies’ substantive judgment, which we typically do not second-guess, so long as the agency has followed the required procedures,” the appeals court wrote.
Before the Seventh Circuit handed down its written opinion in the case, Protect Our Parks took its case to the Supreme Court, submitting an application for an emergency stay, directed to Justice Barrett, who handles such emergency requests for relief from Illinois and other states within the Seventh Circuit. Barrett declined to forward the petition to the other eight justices for further consideration.
Barrett's denial came without further comment.
Protect Our Parks’ petition asserted such emergency action should have been required to prevent the city and Obama Foundation from moving forward with work that would destroy sections of Jackson Park, even though, they argue, key legal questions remain over whether the required reviews were conducted properly.
Protect Our Parks argued the lower court judges ignored Supreme Court precedent, by allowing federal reviewers to “segment” the overall project into two separate projects for the purposes of skirting environmental review standards.
They noted the greenlighting of the Obama Center construction, and the resulting destruction of trees, stands as an “odd reversal” of positions by the administration of President Joe Biden, who served as Obama’s vice president from 2009-2017. The petition noted the Biden Administration has otherwise encouraged the preservation of mature trees throughout the U.S.
“… The Biden Administration sends the unmistakable message that this broad pronouncement does not apply to the trees in Jackson Park,” Protect Our Parks wrote. “Rather, the Biden Administration helps its powerful political allies to secure the right to construct the OPC in Jackson Park.”
The plaintiffs said the federal reviewers, in allegedly balancing the benefits and the drawbacks of the Obama Center plan, all but “overlooked significant negative impacts that the completed project would have on Jackson Park, including impacts on mature trees, migratory birds, historical characteristics, transportation, and the public generally.”
Protect Our Parks said the judges “turned a blind eye” to the legal requirements, allegedly making “a mockery” of prior Supreme Court decisions concerning federal environmental review law.
“There is massive evidence that the ultimate decision of whether to place the OPC in Jackson Park falls squarely within the federal statutes that require review of a major federal action generally impacting the environment and other protected federal interests,” Protect Our Parks wrote.
Federal regulators and other defendants did not respond to the emergency application.
Protect Our Parks and other plaintiffs are represented in the action by attorneys Michael Rachlis, of Rachlis Duff & Peel, of Chicago; Thomas G. Gardiner and Catherine M. Keenan, of Gardiner Koch Weisberg & Wrona, of Chicago; and Richard Epstein, of Norwalk, Connecticut.
In response to the Supreme Court denial, Protect Our Parks said they intended to continue press their challenges in court.
"Today's Supreme Court decision is disappointing, but not surprising," said Rachlis. "We still believe that preserving the status quo is fundamental to preventing irreparable harm in Jackson Park.
"Nonetheless, our core arguments seek to protect the long-term environmental and historical resources in Jackson Park, and we look forward to presenting our evidence and these arguments in the appellate and district court in the coming weeks."