Making tenure count, for MSNOW I wrote about my employer, The University of Iowa, creating a center for intellectual freedom. It's a reactionary project built on decades of conservative propaganda about higher ed.
Posts by Colby
“…survivor’s guilt for escaping a state where so many trans people remain trapped and struggling…
Leaving Florida feels less like a choice now and more like a banishment sentence handed down by a few people who decided she shouldn’t have health care or use bathrooms at the airport.”
I joined Amanpour & Company to talk about why "working homeless"—a term that should be a scandal—has become an ordinary fact of American life.
40% of officially-counted homeless people have jobs. And that's before we get to the millions who are rendered invisible, who are never counted at all.
The NSF 2027 budget has noted that they will close out the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science Program (SBE). This is not a good thing. nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/FY-202...
During WWII, the US couldn't find enough women to fill factory jobs. So, Congress used Lanham Act funds to build childcare centers in key defense production locations, offering full-time, high-quality care (and even summer and afterschool care) for <$10/day in today's dollars. 2/
incredible comment on one of my youtube videos
A few people have replied to my Artemis posts with links to Gil Scott-Heron's "Whitey on the Moon." Here's a story from Space.com about Artemis II pilot Victor Glover, currently en route to fly around the Moon, and his connection to that piece. www.space.com/space-explor...
My students had not heard of AI psychosis. So we talked about it.
NEW on Wonkhe: Universities serve purposes beyond market demands. Jim Dickinson asks if the pendulum between planning and markets is about to swing back - and what that should mean to protect student interests bit.ly/3XDc1z6
Our library info literacy school presentation used to teach students to question the reliability of Wikipedia, and now it’s one of the better (starting) internet sources, especially compared with chat gpt. Additional sources and databases are still needed too.
chat is this bad?
In honor of Mr. Rogers’ birthday, here’s your regularly scheduled reminder that the quote of his you keep sharing, that in times of crisis we should look for the helpers, was for his audience of children.
We’re adults now. We’re supposed to *be* the helpers.
Here is the spreadsheet DOGE had ChatGPT produce, to determine which grants were too DEI www.historians.org/wp-content/u...
Oh boy you guys that was rough
AI companies are paying screenwriters, lawyers, and other white-collar professionals to produce the training data needed to automate their jobs. I spoke with more than 30 workers about conditions inside this fast-growing and extremely secretive new gig economy.
Thanks to @chadaldeman.bsky.social for highlighting our work evaluating the impact of Arkansas's min teacher salary increase: Raise the Floor on Teacher Salaries open.substack.com/pub/aldemano...
We are so old, look at them
Congrats to @ncaaup.bsky.social & all who fought against this surveillance policy that would've allowed admin to hijack microphones in the classroom for secret recordings.
This move would've chilled classroom discussion & suppressed students' willingness to ask questions & take intellectual risks.
Just fyi- Trump claims he ended DEI...but literally last month we won our lawsuit, preventing him from cutting civil rights laws including the commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in schools. www.aft.org/press-releas... . www.aft.org/press-releas...
Yesterday, those who teach Intro to Sociology at Florida colleges (as opposed to universities) received a ready-made curriculum from the state and were ordered to teach it.
Yes, you read that correctly. The *state* is enforcing a curriculum on college profs, complete w/ the following restrictions:
Report: Staff at Dilley raiding cells to confiscate kids' letters and drawings detailing conditions inside
ProPublica published children's letters and drawings documenting their sadness and suffering at Dilley. And Dilley staff are now retaliating by confiscating kids' letters and drawings.
www.sacurrent.com/news/san-ant...
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND Plaintiffs, * * * * * * * * Civil Case No.: SAG-25-628 Defendants. * * MEMORANDUM OPINION On February 14, 2025, the United States Department of Education ("DOE") published a "Dear Colleague Letter" ("the Letter") explaining the new administration's positions with respect to diversity, equity, and inclusion ("DEI") principles and federal antidiscrimination law. A few weeks later, DOE issued an announcement that it would require states and school districts to affirmatively certify their compliance with DOE's interpretations of Title VI and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ("SFFA"), 600 U.S. 181 (2023), within ten days ("the Certification Requirement"). Those documents, and whether they created new legal obligations or merely restated existing law, have been the focus of this litigation.
This case illustrates why following procedures is so important. The stringent procedures outlined by the APA are not hollow gestures designed to manufacture the appearance of fair and reasoned decisionmaking; they exist to ensure that agencies stay within the bounds of their delegated authority and exercise that authority within the constraints of the law more broadly. See Nat'l Fed'n. of Indep. Bus. v. Dep't of Labor, 595 U.S. 109, 117 (2022) (*Administrative agencies are creatures of statute."). Still here, this Court takes no view as to whether the policies at issue in this case are good or bad, prudent or foolish, fair or unfair. But, at this stage too, it must closely scrutinize whether the government went about creating and implementing them in the manner the law requires. Here, it did not. And by leapfrogging important procedural requirements, the government has unwittingly run headfirst into serious constitutional problems. Plaintiffs have shown that neither challenged agency action was promulgated in accordance with the procedural requirements of the APA, and that both actions run afoul of important constitutional rights. Both challenged actions accordingly must be vacated. The administration is entitled to express its viewpoints and to promulgate policies aligned with those viewpoints. But it must do so within the procedural bounds Congress has outlined. And it may not do so at the expense of constitutional rights.
ORDER OF JUDGMENT For the reasons stated in the accompanying memorandum opinion, it is this 14th day of August, 2025, ordered that: 1. Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, ECF 66, is granted as to Counts One, Two, Three, Five, and Six and denied as to Count Four; 2. The government's motion, ECF 72, construed as a motion for summary judgment, is granted as to Count Four, and denied as to all other counts; 3. Judgment is entered for Plaintiffs on Counts One, Two, Three, Five, and Six; 4. Judgment is entered for the government on Count Four; 5. The Dear Colleague Letter of February 14, 2025 is VACATED under 5 U.S.C. § 706; and 6. "The Reminder of Legal Obligations Undertaken In Exchange for Receiving Federal Financial Assistance and Request for Certification under Title VI and SFFA v. Harvard" is VACATED under 5 U.S.C. § 706. /s/ Stephanie A. Gallagher United States District Judge
THEREFORE, the Parties do HEREBY STIPULATE AND AGREE as follows: 1. The challenged Agency Actions have been vacated and set aside by the final judgment entered in American Federation of Teachers, et al. v. United States Department of Education, et al., No. 1:25-cv-00628 ("AFT"), and the vacatur and terms of the judgment in AFT apply to Plaintiffs; 2. The challenged Agency Actions will not be relied on in any way by Defendants including by way of seeking to enforce its substance through ED or DOJ civil rights enforcement procedures; 3. The certification demand issued on April 3, 2025 will not be reinstated in substance even if under a different name; 4. The challenged Agency Actions creates no obligation, responsibility, or condition on Plaintiffs in any manner;
NEW: In cases brought by the NEA and AFT, there are now final court orders: Last year's anti-DEI "Dear Colleague" letter is vacated and unenforceable.
DOJ/DOE gave up the fight, dismissing the appeal and case in the Fourth Circuit and subsequently dismissing the the second case with a stipulation.
wealth concentration is already 200% as bad at is was in 2020. think about that
straight out of those Civil War histories where some ill informed white Union soldier got a view of slavery up close and became hyper abolitionist in an instant
Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes!
"Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."
Daniel Craig: LADIES AND GENTLEMAN DR. TEETH AND THE ELECTRIC MAYHEM
"By the end of the two-year period, 94% of participants reported they were housed."
A million pilot programs show the same thing: when people are given enough money to afford housing, homelessness ends.
Other supports matter, but housing comes first. Not policing. Not moralizing. Homes.