An Illinois mayor and congressional frontrunner admitted to an “ill-advised” relationship with his former student only hours before polls opened for the Democratic primary, according to reports.
A spokesperson for Daniel Biss, the mayor of Evanston and the Democratic congressional frontrunner for the state’s 9th district, confirmed his relationship with his former student while working as a professor at the University of Chicago in 2004 to The Daily Northwestern — just hours before primary voters were slated to head to the polls on Tuesday.
The former student, Megan Wachspress, alleged that she and Biss had a relationship that crossed student-teacher boundaries when she was a mathematics and political science major at UChicago in a Bluesky and Substack post on Monday.
“It took becoming a professor myself to realize the implications – what it means to be attracted to someone who categorically has less power than you,” the current Stanford Law School Lecturer wrote in a second Bluesky post.
“I don’t know if it’s disqualifying, but there are too many women not getting a platform as a result of behavior like this for me not to say something.”
A spokesperson for the aspiring congressman said in a statement late Monday that Biss was 26 and Wachspress was 20 when the “ill-advised relationship” took place. He was not married at the time.
“In 2004, when Daniel was 26 and before he met his wife, Dr. Wachspress was a 20-year-old student in a course Daniel taught during his time as a postdoctoral instructor at the University of Chicago,” a Biss campaign spokesperson said to the outlet.
“After the course ended, Daniel and Dr. Wachspress went on a handful of dates over the course of a few weeks. Daniel realized then, as he does now, that it was ill-advised, and he ended it.”
Biss, 48, taught as an assistant professor of mathematics at the university from September 2002 to August 2008, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Wachspress elaborated on Substack about what it was like to be a woman math major at UChicago, alleging that Biss had given her increased attention and courted her while she was his student.
“My professor’s responses to my emails got longer and longer, topics extending well beyond mathematics; office hours lasted later and later. Flattered and insecure, I convinced myself it didn’t mean anything – I was a student, after all! – until the quarter ended, and he emailed to ask if I wanted to meet up, socially,” she wrote.
“He brought a book, with an inscription, which began ‘On the occasion of an end and a beginning…’ It was signed, ‘With bundles of admiration.” Wachspress said.
“After a few very intense evenings, he had second thoughts. It was wrong to date a student, of course, so we would have to stop making out. Of course, we could still hang out, and so we continued to spend time together in what to any external observer would look like dates, until gradually that stopped, too.”
The pair crossed paths “a few years ago” during a Zoom call relating to Wachspress’s “energy work,” after which she claimed Biss “offered an apology, of sorts.”
Biss’s campaign and Wachspress did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Democratic primary polls compiled by the New York Times show that Biss is the current frontrunner in the 9th congressional district race. Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old former journalist and influencer, has been in second place behind the former state lawmaker.
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