"Matthew Goodwin has been paid a salary of up to €10,000 a month [from Hungary's state-funded MCC], according to leaked documents obtained by Hungarian investigative journalists Direkt36 and reported by the Good Law Project"
That could all end if Orbán loses...
open.substack.com/pub/democrac...
Post from Andrew A.N. Deloucas @aandeloucas.com: In line with discussion about the job market, the latest majors being closed at Syracuse University: Nine majors "sunsetting": • Classical civilization • Classics (Greek and Latin) • Digital humanities • Fine arts • German • Latino-Latin American studies • Middle Eastern studies • Modern Jewish studies • Russian ALT
The First University in the Nation to Build a Center Dedicated to the Creator Economy Syracuse University is creating something that doesn't exist anywhere else in higher education. The Center for the Creator Economy is the first academic center of its kind on a U.S. college campus. Led jointly by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Martin). Whitman School of Management, the center reinforces Syracuse University's commitment to bold, forward-looking academic leadership. By aligning strengths in entrepreneurship, media, communications, athletics and digital infrastructure, the University is charting how higher education can prepare students for the 21st-century economy.
Another university getting rid of things you could only ever do at a university and replacing them with stuff a 13-year-old can do on a phone
Does being high-skilled protect you from ethnic bias when applying for a UK visa? In a new pre-registered experiment to be published in International Migration Review, I find that high occupational status doesn't shield immigrants from ethnic prejudice — it may activate it.
My latest article is online now at American Sociological Review: “Kinship Interlocks.” It’s about how some elite families manage to stay rich and powerful for many generations while others don’t. 🧵 (1/16)
The Strait of Hormuz is open for transit
Takeaway: High skills are not a shield against ethnic bias in immigration preferences.
Pre-registered Aug 2024 · fielded with Prolific UK · International Migration Review, forthcoming
I ran several robustness checks — Tobit, census weights, full sample including non-White respondents, post-treatment attention check sensitivity — all return consistent results. The core finding holds.
Caveats worth flagging:
– Sample overrepresents university graduates (51% vs 31% nationally) → likely a conservative estimate of bias
– AI-generated images; South African context; UK-only sample
– Interaction term is directional but not formally significant
This contrasts with previous research, which finds the skill premium to be more or less uniform across the population. Here it's 3× larger among immigration opponents than supporters — and it's the Black doctor who gets penalised more sharply as attitudes harden.
Who drives this? It depends heavily on pre-existing immigration attitudes.
Among the most immigration-sceptic respondents, the doctor-vs-fast-food rating gap reaches nearly 3.8 points. Among the most pro-immigration respondents, the same gap is only 1.2 points.
Two competing hypotheses:
H1 (compounded disadvantage): non-White + low-skill = double penalty
H2 (bias activation): high status makes ethnicity more salient
The data support H2. The interaction term (fast-food × African = +0.24) points the right way but doesn't reach significance.
Fast-food workers: no ethnic penalty. OLS coef. for African descent: –0.06, p > .05. Race didn't shift evaluations for the low-status applicant.
Medical doctors: clear ethnic penalty. OLS coef.: –0.30, p < .01. Being Black cost the doctor ~1/3 of a rating point.
In the pooled OLS model (both occupations), African descent carries a penalty of –0.18 pts (p < .05). But disaggregating by occupation tells the real story:
Overall the sample was fairly pro-immigration: average rating of 7.55/10 across all vignettes. Only 23% of respondents thought immigration had a net negative impact on the UK. But that average hides a striking occupation-by-ethnicity interaction.
Four vignettes — same text, only photo changes. Mean visa ratings (1–10):
Doctor "Dr Ben Williams"
White: 8.87 | Black: 8.56 | Penalty: –0.30 (p<.01**)
Fast-food "Max Botha"
White: 6.42 | Black: 6.36 | Penalty: –0.06 (n.s.)
In the experiment, respondents rated two South African visa applicants — identical in every way except ethnicity (African vs. European descent, via AI-generated images) and occupation (medical doctor vs. fast-food worker). One question: should they get a visa? (1–10 scale)
Does being high-skilled protect you from ethnic bias when applying for a UK visa? In a new pre-registered experiment to be published in International Migration Review, I find that high occupational status doesn't shield immigrants from ethnic prejudice — it may activate it.
Matthew Goodwin, who only speaks one language, seems to assume that kids who speak another language at home are also incapable of speaking English?
Then there's the probable incoming plagiarism lawsuit by Murray.
Have to admit I enjoyed reading this somehow.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
In my time "going woke" was just called "acknowledging what everybody knows is true"?
Also notable that the student could not remember my name but knew I was Swiss, and not French, Italian, Spanish or whatever nationality I have been assigned over the years.
qUëSTîoNabLe pRønUNçiAtioN
Preparing to teach another class in Dutch and am reminded of this evaluation I got at KCL.
Do we understand the politics of this kind of cost-shock inflation (and the policies that might help address it)? I think not so much: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
Actually that joke did have its origins in a Guardian piece. A profile of Anthony Burgess, which I dictated down the phone and in which I referred to him as an 'expatriate man of letters'. The Guardian rendered this as 'ex-patriot' and he threatened to sue.
If you are looking for a fun, interesting, and collegial conference where not everything is the same old stuff, @sasemeeting.bsky.social is it. I had a terrific time in Limerick 2024 with great talks by tons of amazing folks. This year, Bordeaux looks great too.
sase.org/events/2026-...
failed at unblocking our kitchen sink, imagine if I had to unblock the strait of hormuz
Fascinates me how this guy is considered to be some sort of oracle of wisdom because he is a billionaire.