Chicago public school parents are calling on local radio personality Amy Jacobson to step down as head coach of Amundsen High School’s boys and girls varsity volleyball teams after she mocked Gus Walz, the son of vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, last week. Gus Walz has a nonverbal learning disorder that affects one’s physical coordination and ability to read social cues, according to advocacy group, Child Mind Institute.
“That’s my dad!” the 17-year-old enthusiastically shouted as he sobbed and pointed as his father took the stage at the Democratic National Convention last week to accept the party’s nomination for vice president. During his speech, Tim Walz described his family as “my entire world.”
Jacobson mimicked Gus Walz’s animated reaction and laughed as podcast co-host Dan Proft compared him to a Chris Farley character in a “Saturday Night Live” spoof on their weekday radio show, Chicago’s Morning Answer. The show and hosts are known for their strong right-wing commentary.
Amanda Griffith-Atkins, wrote a letter to Amundsen’s principal, Kristi Eilers, requesting an apology to the school community after listening to Jacobson and Proft’s August 22nd show. Her son, who’s in 10th grade and has Prader-Willi Syndrome, attends the high school as part of a cluster program designed for children with disabilities.
“(Amundsen is) definitely a place where there are lots of kids with disabilities in the building, and so I think when I heard about the podcast, I was just honestly shocked,“ Griffith-Atkins, who is a licensed therapist, said.”This isn’t about what her political views may or may not be. It’s about the fact that she mocked a child with a disability or that she sat there silently while somebody else did it, and she didn’t speak up about it,” she said.
Griffith-Atkins is part of a local Facebook parents group that prompted other Amundsen parents and community members to send letters to the school’s leadership.
Chanon DiCarlo learned about Jacobson’s comments from the same Facebook group. Her 14-year-old child is a freshman at Amundsen.
“I would like to see her not work with children in our public school system,” DiCarlo said. “The model someone like a coach, sets when they laugh along with someone who is mocking a special needs child is not what we as parents want our children to have.”
She said she felt a “bitter irony” comparing the example Walz set as a high school football who decided to advise the school’s gay-straight alliance and Jacobson’s actions last week.
DiCarlo also plans to email Eilers calling for Jacobson’s firing. Based on her positive interactions with the school administration so far, she’s hopeful leadership will listen.
Neither CPS nor Amundsen High School leadership responded to the Tribune’s requests for comment. Her biography on Amundsen’s website says Jacobson has been involved with the volleyball program for several years and has two sons on the varsity team.
The radio personality is not a stranger to controversy. She was fired from her previous job at the Chicago-area NBC outlet WMAQ-TV in 1995 after a video surfaced of her in a bathing suit at the home of a man she was investigating in connection with his wife’s disappearance.
Jacobson did not respond to requests for comment either, but she and Proft publicly apologized on their show the morning after their provocative remarks.
Proft has also faced backlash. He was presumably ousted from the board of Envision Unlimited, according to a Sunday statement from the disability advocacy organization that refrained from mentioning him by name but said to a board member who “made comments that were wholly inconsistent with our values and code of ethics” was removed.
“I would have reacted differently if I had the additional information. I had no idea he had any type of learning disability or ADHD,” Jacobson said on-air. Walz and his wife, Gwen spoke publicly about Gus prior to last week’s Democratic National Convention, explaining that he has ADHD and anxiety in addition to a nonverbal learning disorder.
Nonverbal learning disabilities have been misunderstood for a long time, according to Evanston-based educational therapist Jordi Kleiner.
“I think educators should be informed about (nonverbal learning disabilities) and many people just don’t get enough special education training,” he said.
Kleiner believes recent ill-informed comments about the vice presidential candidate’s son are a salient reminder of the need to raise awareness about nonverbal learning disabilities.
Conservative media pundit Ann Coulter also made headlines after calling Gus Walz’s reaction “weird” on X (formerly Twitter), a jab at Tim Walz’s comments about Donald Trump and JD Vance. Coulter has since deleted her comment.
Jacobson has similarly backtracked her original assessment of the family moment as “bizarre.”
“Regardless of his politics and whether he’s lying to the American public or not and is a fraud, I mean clearly he loves his family and clearly his kids love him,” she said in her on-air apology.
