Heidi Stevens

Heidi Stevens is a former Chicago Tribune columnist.

Proponents of affirmative action hold signs during a protest at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 1, 2023. (Joseph Prezioso/Getty-AFP)

Heidi Stevens: Banning DEI and race-based programs in schools chips away at the very mission of education

February 21, 2025 at 5:00 a.m.

To be a sharper, deeper, more careful, more creative, more flexible thinker requires diversity — inside classrooms and all across campuses.

Piles of old snapshots on Kevin Mayer's desk show the couple and their five children: Kevin, Ted, Mary, Jan and Christina. (Mayer family)

Heidi Stevens: ‘What a ride! I love you.’ They were married for 72 years and died a day apart, holding hands until the end

February 14, 2025 at 5:00 a.m.

Marie and Kevin Mayer's five children found a drawer full of love letters — mostly from their dad to their mom.

Tommy Tuberville questions U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth during his Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C.. (Andrew Harnik/Getty)

Heidi Stevens: Even amid this cloud of cruelty, Sen. Tuberville’s comments about beating kids with ADHD stand out

February 7, 2025 at 5:00 a.m.

Tuberville lamented what he says is an overreliance on medication to treat ADHD. He lost credibility when he mentioned whipping a child.

Heidi Stevens: We can’t go it alone despite America’s notion of rugged individualism

January 31, 2025 at 5:00 a.m.

We're living in a country where needing help is for losers and providing it is for suckers, writes Heidi Stevens.

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, left, arrives as President Donald Trump looks on during the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)

Heidi Stevens: Bishop Budde’s bold sermon, history’s ‘moral mavericks’ and finding our own courage to go rogue for humanity

January 22, 2025 at 4:31 p.m.

When she addressed Donald Trump, Budde undoubtedly expected blowback. But that didn’t prevent her from speaking her conscience.

Stuart McCallister, 64, right, hugs his son-in-law Donald Bryce, after seeing McCallister's home that was destroyed in the Palisades fire, on Haverford Avenue in Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7, 2025. McCallister has lived in the home he built since 1996. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Heidi Stevens: Yes, 2025 is off to a heartbreaking start. And we can help heal it

January 17, 2025 at 8:08 a.m.

We should resist the urge to wall ourselves off from what’s painful, and instead take improv's "yes, and" approach, writes Heidi Stevens.

Dan O’Conor, the “Great Lake Jumper,” makes his daily leap into Lake Michigan as he nears completion in his year of jumps Tuesday, May 25, 2021, at Montrose Point.

Heidi Stevens: His wife told him to jump in the lake. More than 4 years later, he still is. ‘There’s just a lot of joy in jumping in the water’

January 3, 2025 at 5:00 a.m.

In the summer of 2020, when a pandemic gripped the globe and civil unrest filled city streets and dread clouded the air like a low-hanging fog, Dan O’Conor would get...

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