James Ewan Kalven (born 1948) is an American journalist, author, human rights activist, and community organizer based in Chicago, Illinois.

James Ewan Kalven, born 1948 in Chicago,[2][3] grew up in the city's Kenwood neighborhood and is a lifelong resident of its South Side.

[2][5][12] Upon his father's death, Kalven paused his freelance writing career and spent the following 14 years working on the manuscript, which was eventually completed and published by Harper & Row in 1988 as A Worthy Tradition: Freedom of Speech in America.

The young journalist also occasionally traveled to New Haven, Connecticut, to discuss the book with Owen M. Fiss, a professor at Yale Law School and Harry's former colleague at the University of Chicago.

[14] The attack prompted Kalven to investigate the drivers of violence, poverty, and racial divisions in America; Evans is white, and her assailant was black.

Kalven faced criticism for sharing intimate details of his and Evans's lives, especially writing as a man in a field that mainly affects women.

He helped rehabilitate vacant lots into gardens and parks, and in 1997 he founded the Neighborhood Conservation Corps, which offered job training and social services.

In the mid-1990s, after years of reporting on Stateway, he became a formal advisor to the housing project's resident council, supporting negotiations with government agencies and private developers.

[4] Around 2000–2001, Kalven, his wife Evans, and computer developer David Eads started the Invisible Institute as an informal team focused on journalism and community organizing.

They occupied an empty apartment in Stateway, reporting on abusive policing at the housing project through their photojournalism blog and webzine, The View from the Ground.

[1] In April 2003, a black Stateway resident, Diane Bond, was allegedly attacked and harassed by a group of white Chicago police officers called the "Skullcap Crew".

[21] Kalven had been investigating stories of other alleged abuses by the Skullcap Crew over several years, and he was dissatisfied with how the police department handled his complaints.

The clinic filed a federal civil rights suit – titled Bond v. Utreras – in April 2004, but the incident went unreported in the mainstream media.

The series comprised 17 articles covering police misconduct allegations in public housing, published on his webzine The View from the Ground,[5] and was completed by 2006.

Bond's attorney, Craig Futterman, asked the police department to hand over misconduct complaints and disciplinary records, as part of discovery to establish a pattern of abuse.

[22] U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow agreed to lift the protective order, finding that the information had "a distinct public character", relating to the official duties of the police officers.

The appeals court overturned Lefkow's ruling on procedural grounds, finding that Kalven lacked standing to intervene because the case had already been settled.

However, the appeals court also stated in a footnote that Kalven was not prevented from seeking the records from the city directly through the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The city denied the requests, arguing that the complaint register files were exempt from disclosure under FOIA because they related to the police department's adjudication proceedings, and also because they contained preliminary recommendations on potential disciplinary actions.

[16] After the 2014 court decision, the Invisible Institute incorporated as a nonprofit organization and recruited staff members to work on the release of the police information.

[21] In the fall of that year, Kalven published an exposé on the Watts crew, a group of police officers who allegedly harassed public housing residents in the South Side.

The work was published on The Intercept, and the Institute petitioned the Circuit Court of Cook County to review possible wrongful convictions associated with those officers.

[18] Starting in the early 2010s, the Institute worked on an initiative, called the "Youth/Police Project", to educate black teenagers on their constitutional rights, and to document their frequent experiences with police.

[21] Kalven reported on the murder of Laquan McDonald, a black teenager, by white Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke in October 2014.

[28] The official story from the police department initially suggested that McDonald had rushed at officers with a knife, and died from a single gunshot by Van Dyke.

However, in early November, a confidential whistleblower from the police department informed Kalven and Futterman of the existence of a dashcam video that contradicted the official account.

[6] Kalven's and Futterman's work led to political fallout, including protests and demands for the resignation or recall of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other officials.

Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan quashed the subpoena, finding that Van Dyke's attorneys were engaged in a "fishing expedition" and did not demonstrate that Kalven's testimony would be relevant to their case.