This got lost in a comment, so going to put it back up here, because I think its super interesting. There was this Axios article that got some discourse play last year based on a survey where people were asked how much you have to earn to be financially successful. Gen Z says they need 587k

I’m hiring a postdoc! Flexible in terms of details, but I’m looking for someone to collaborate with on research about labor market inequality. I’ll review applications as they come in and the posting just went up here:
apply.interfolio.com/178873

I'm so excited to read this!

“The System Sucks”: Computer Programs and Technical Control in Entry-Level White-Collar Work Researchers often examine how technology controls the labor of precarious workers while demonstrating the limits of technology on controlling professional workers. Drawing on a subset of 46 in-depth i...

Check out my new article in the Journal of Organizational Sociology, where I examine how technology limits the autonomy of entry-level workers. I theorize two subtypes of technical control and discuss its implications for gender inequality
www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Hey at least you can press the button for help!

The main person quoted in this story is my undergrad student. Voter suppression of students is strong in Indiana.

@cmpech.bsky.social I think IU admin would find this book pretty informative. Excited to read this!

Hey Seth, I just wanted you to know I made a really good pot of coffee today. Not to strong, not too weak. Just right! Mmm nothing like a good cup of joe. I love coffee so much, I might be addicted 😜. My favorite is Philz coffee, but there are others I like too.

Graph

New from me: "Projections show that increasing the birth rate (as if you could) is the wrong way to get more workers" familyinequality.wordpress.com/2025/06/10/p...

Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.

This seems like a terrible idea. What I’ve seen in the classroom is that AI makes it way too easy to cheat and to avoid critical thinking. It is a massive net harm. My fear is that if universities wholesale adopt AI, their graduates will be stigmatized. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t...

At Chapel Hill, Only Health-Sciences Professors Have Been Getting Tenure The UNC Chapel Hill board hasn’t tenured a single professor in fields outside the health sciences since January. The inaction has prompted confusion and alarm among faculty.

This is shameful. The UNC Board of Trustees fails to vote on all tenure cases in Arts & Sciences, holding faculty in limbo without any explanation or timeline. This affects both assistant profs up for tenure and new tenured hires.

www.chronicle.com/article/at-c...

This is so interesting. Does it make a difference if it’s a difficult family tie versus a difficult friend tie? I guess I could just read it :)

Associations Between Negative Social Ties and Accelerated Biological Aging, Inflammation, and Multiple Morbidities Negative social ties, or "difficult ties," are pervasive yet understudied components of social networks that may accelerate biological aging and morbidity. Using ego-centric network data and DNA methy...

"That one toxic friend" might be aging you faster!

Our new working paper shows that negative social ties are common and linked to faster epigenetic aging, higher inflammation, and poorer mental and physical health.

Link: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Two very good pieces on the same topic. First from Kate Shaw: "The Supreme Court has undermined lower courts seeking to protect the rule of law and emboldened an administration eager to trample it."
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/o...

If this bill becomes law, ICE will become the best-resourced law enforcement agency in the history of the country, with more funding for detention than the entire federal Bureau of Prisons.

ICE Arrests Mississippi Father at His Citizenship Hearing ICE arrested Kasper Eriksen, a Mississippi father, at his citizenship hearing, imprisoning him and threatening him with deportation.

In the days of grief after his wife's miscarriage in 2015, Kasper Erikson forgot to submit an immigration form.

The Mississippi father thought he was on the verge of becoming a citizen when ICE arrested him in April.

Now he’s in a Louisiana prison, facing deportation over the 10-year-old mistake.

The Professors Are Using ChatGPT, and Some Students Aren’t Happy About It

After reading this article, I'm eagerly awaking the Butlerian Jihad. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/t...

Class evaluations are in! In response to the question, "what did you like least about this course," one student wrote: "The thing I liked least was how often he backed into things. Has a real lack of surroundings."

Killin' it.

Rare for a public poll, we did a survey experiment to test whether priming respondents about the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia impacts support for Trump's broader immigration agenda. It does. Support for blanket deportations fell 20 points after hearing about Garcia's case.

“The pope will be from Chicago” sounds like an 1880s Republican’s dire prediction for if we don’t stop Irish immigration

Exclusive: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones US science funder also plans to screen grant applications for compliance with ‘agency priorities’.

🔔BREAKING🔔

The NSF has frozen all research grant awards—cutting off life-saving science midstream and demanding ideological screenings for future funding.

This is censorship disguised as oversight.

Here’s how you can help us spread the word ➡️🧵(1/3):
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Got this in the mail yesterday—the newest addition to my bookshelf. Thanks@uchicagopress.bsky.social! Can't wait for the book to come out next month! Link to pre-order 👇

Updates on NSF Priorities

NSF's new research "priorities" seems absurd:
research should not "directly/indirectly exclude individuals or groups. Research projects with more narrow impact limited to subgroups of people based on protected class or characteristics do not effectuate NSF priorities."
www.nsf.gov/updates-on-p...

Herbert J. Gans, 97, Dies; Upended Myths on Urban and Suburban Life A leading sociologist, he explored American society up close — living in a Levittown at one point — to gain insight into issues of race, class, the media and even the Yankees.

Congratulations to Herbert Gans for a life well-lived. Strongly recommend his famous piece "The Positive Functions of Poverty", which he always stressed was serious & not sarcastic. Also, recommend his books _The War Against the Poor_ & _The Urban Villagers_.

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/b...

I'm disappointed to share that my NSF career grant on anti-Asian dehumanization was terminated. This affects ongoing project activities, which have shown great progress so far, and support for my research team and more.

I'm sad to share that the hiring of the postdoc role is currently on pause.

A teacher in Warrick County is speaking out after Indiana Governor Mike Braun removed Dolly Parton’s “Imagination Library” from the state’s budget. Imagination Library is a book-gifting program for children under 5 in hopes of fostering early literacy. With the pending removal from the state’s budget, the program will have no funding to get books into the hands of families.

Cutting Dolly Parton’s program that helps kids learn how to read <<<<<<<

www.14news.com/2025/02/19/t...

“The thing that I can’t get over is that the actual richest man in the world directed my fucking firing. I make $50k a year and work to keep drinking water safe. The richest man in the world decided that was an expense too great for the American taxpayer.”

'Unprecedented': White House moves to control science funding worry researchers If the Trump administration continues targeting DEI in science and seeking to slash funding, American science will look fundamentally different.

A very clear statement of what is happening to science right now.

And on the social science side: "This cuts across economics, psychology, sociology. In all these fields, there are whole chunks of the discipline that may just not be possible to carry on anymore."

Of the 50 hardest-hit schools on this list, 32% are in states that voted for Trump. Losses range from $36.2 to $129.7M—per school.

We can organize around that. Electeds, even Republicans, don’t want mass layoffs in their districts.

(NB: If you reply by celebrating people’s pain, I’ll block you.)