me probably

Letter from an English Department on the Brink | Sarah Blackwood I write to you with news about the state of the English major at one nonelite, midsize, regional comprehensive private university in New York City. At

The "death" of English departments and other liberal arts fields is not about their obsolescence but about the fact that they're being actively *killed* by institutions that don't value them on principle, not because of any evidence. Glad ppl are catching up. www.nybooks.com/online/2023/...

Screenshot of article which reads: None of the panelists expressed much enthusiasm for the institutional neutrality policies that have gained popularity among college presidents since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. The panelists argued that some events are so dangerous that they require everyone—including college leaders—to speak out. Baker said she often asks herself, “What did institutions do in the 1930s in Germany, and how different is that from what we see at present?” While she acknowledged there are certain things university presidents shouldn’t weigh in on, she asked, “At what point is every member of our society supposed to say something? Is it the point when U.S. citizens are murdered in the street? Maybe university presidents have a moral responsibility as human beings.”

Feels like authoritarianism should matter but I get that places need to care about too many Black women having jobs

Screenshot of article which reads: The challenge of creating a “higher ed NATO,” Baker said, is that it needs to represent such a wide range of institutions. “We need to think from a broader perspective than the Columbias and Michigans of the world,” she said. “How do we create a coalition that works for the good of community colleges and … highly resourced research universities?” Though the discussion was short on concrete answers, it placed the current moment in historical context. Bollinger said universities were caught “flat-footed” by Trump’s relentless assault on higher ed; Baker said she wasn’t surprised, given her prior experience in Texas, where the Legislature sought to control university operations in an all-out effort to win federal research funding. “A lot of the authoritarian policies that we are seeing nationally have actually been tested in states previously,” she said.

I want every conversation about US higher education to include open access institutions like community colleges and regional public universities. We should also find ways to learn from our "laboratories of democracy."

Higher Ed Experts Want to Create “NATO for Universities” Panelists at a New America forum expressed real fears of the damage Trump has done to higher ed, as well as lofty hopes for a coordinated response to the ongoing attacks.

Nice overview of our talk yesterday! I'll do a lil mini thread.

Also, my mama is gonna love this action shot of me talking.

www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

This was a good session. I watched live & already forwarded it to colleagues.

Training AI to do your job via mouse clicks is like my idea of my dad’s job when I was 8: "he talks on the phone and types on the computer"

Faculty Defect From Texas Publics, Citing Censorship Fed up with the state’s censoring of Plato, Joan of Arc and Romeo and Juliet, humanities professors are leaving Texas public institutions in pursuit of academic freedom.

'Texas A&M philosophy professor Martin Peterson is leaving the university after administrators told him in January that he couldn’t teach Plato’s Symposium in his philosophy class; they said the ancient Greek philosopher’s work violated the system’s restrictions on gender and sexuality content.' 1/3

We are very close to hitting our goal of 10,000 signatures to sign the Committee to Protect
Journalists petition demanding the release of Ahmed Shihab-Eldin.
Please sign & share to get us over the top, to show the world how much we love our colleague #FreeAhmed cpj.movements.mov/pet/kuwait-r...

The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden's Surveillance Machine Famously vengeful Knicks owner Jim Dolan has long spied on people at his iconic arenas. WIRED goes deep inside the operation that allegedly tracked a trans woman, lawyers, protesters, and more.

Using facial recognition tech, the Knicks surveilled a trans woman, tracking her every move out of fear she'd show up on MSG's tv broadcast

And they can do it to any "enemy" of Jim Dolan, who's built his own deep state. From @noahshachtman.bsky.social & me @wired.com www.wired.com/story/madiso...

bleak iteration of this general pattern bsky.app/profile/loui...

AI’s New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails AI’s New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails

"Defunct startups are being liquidated for their Slack archives, Jira tickets, and email threads—operational exhaust that AI labs now treat as premium training data."

Data centers are a physical manifestation of AI infrastructure and they've become a flashpoint precisely because they're tractable. They exist in specific places, consume specific resources, can be seen and pointed to. I spoke with @lorenaoneil.com @rollingstone.com about our urgent AI reckoning.

Nearly 1.6M criminal records cleared under Michigan ‘clean slate’ law - Bridge Michigan Over three years, Michigan has automatically expunged more than 1. 5 million criminal convictions under a bipartisan ‘clean slate’ law. Advocates say that’s opening doors to jobs, housing and more.

Bridge Michigan reports on a recent reform that has cleared more than 1.5 million criminal convictions in the state:

Feels important to uplift Rep Pressley's leadership. She puts in a lot of work on issues that others often don't see as a priority. I've appreciated her anti-criminalization work over the years. She's a worker.

but they’d still have to, like, book tickets and wait for a flight and be registered as going where they want to go….that’s not what they’re accustomed to!

Imagine billionaires without all the global mobility.

I will vote for the candidate who will burn them or donate them to elementary school bake sales

Private Planes and Luxury Yachts Aren’t Just Toys for the Ultrawealthy. They’re Also Huge Tax Breaks. What’s the only thing better than having your own Gulfstream jet? Why, getting to claim millions in tax deductions for it. All you have to do is make a case you’re using it for business, which turns o...

and www.propublica.org/article/priv...

screenshot from article linked in a reply: "The Gulfstream IV jet was operated by Journey Aviation, a Miami-based charter company that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has previously used to carry out its third-country “deportations” to African countries, but it is owned by Michael Dezer and his family via a shell company. The wealthy often lease their private jets to charter companies part-time to qualify for a huge tax break that Trump signed into law in his first term.” source: https://zeteo.com/p/this-family-made-billions-on-trump

there should be some term like escape velocity for when we exceed dystopian fiction. I am just trying to contemplate what it would be like to experience this.

wait what? billionaire jets doing ICE deportation charters???

OpenAI: We’re burning money like the Joker. A miracle needs to happen for us to turn a profit

Microsoft: Please please use our AI systems, we’re teetering on the edge here

Anthropic: I wonder what’ll kill us first: lawsuits, regulations or model collapse

Media and universities: AI is here to stay

She reportedly parted ways with Bezos with a jaw-dropping $38.3 billion in Amazon stock. Their divorce settlement included a 4 % stake in the online retail giant or 19.7 million shares. Under the agreement, Bezos kept 75% of the couple's Amazon stock, along with voting control of her shares. Jan 11, 2023

MacKenzie Scott has given away over $19 billion in the last 5 years and experts say she's 'changed entire fie... MacKenzie Scott acknowledged another $2 billion in donations as 2024 comes to a close.

MacKenzie Scott, worth $41.1 billion, is on a philanthropic tear and has donated an estimated 46% of her net worth.

Just to give a sense of the insane scale of billions of dollars…MacKenzie Scott got about $38 billion after divorcing Bezos in 2019. She has become the world’s most generous philanthropist, giving away over $19 billion…and she’s currently wealthier than she started.

Just. Tax. Them.

2-yr Postdoc @ Indiana in the History of Black Writing Research Center to highlight Black archival collections across the country.

Deadline: May 15, 2026

I study racism for a living and can still manage to be shocked by how institutionalized it is. What do you mean they were giving tax-breaks to white supremacists celebrating treason?

just a wild country

the influencer can make cocoa puffs from scratch and you should too!
with all self raised ingredients including hand threshed wheat

it’s not enough, we need new policies and subsidies to help the men “left behind” who “don’t want to go to college” or “don’t want girly jobs"

the only reason these men think like this is that by liberating by women from the domestic sphere we have already “cut the [husband’s] invisible but very real support strings”. but luckily the gender pay gap and the motherhood penalty serve to keep him on top anyway!

The Fifth Pillar: Where Higher Ed Goes from Here

Almost forgot, next Tuesday I'll be on a panel at New America to discuss the new book from Columbia's former president and the future of US higher education

www.newamerica.org/events/the-f...