despite extraordinarily stiff competition from the Roberts Court, Citizens United keeps its place as one of the most damaging Supreme Court decisions of all time
12.03.2026 01:24
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despite extraordinarily stiff competition from the Roberts Court, Citizens United keeps its place as one of the most damaging Supreme Court decisions of all time
I see you @victorerikray.bsky.social! (and many other sociologists I know!)
ASA Council members and staff are on Capitol Hill today, meeting with their congressional representatives to advocate for legislation that supports sociology and social science research! #ASA #hillday #sociology #advocacy
BREAKING NYT:
An ongoing military investigation has determined that the United States is responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the preliminary findings. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/u...
the little jello puddings went a long way
They want this feeling, produced by a sycophantic bot telling them now they know kung fu
It’s incredibly painful to observe how long these battles take…but it also means the people involved have incredible institutional memory and knowledge of how these processes play out over time (which is basically invaluable since so many academics keep themselves blinkered to outcomes)
A lot of what people lump together with NIMBYism is actually built on the infrastructure created by environmental racism organizers
plantationstopollution.selc.org/memphis-tn/
“X is a distraction” guys have the liberty of choosing one fight to fight, instead of recognizing how these struggles are interconnected, and the painstaking (often women’s) work is to demonstrate these connections for coalitionbuilding.
this is a SEVERELY misunderstood element of people working against environmental racism: their technical and organizing expertise, and political analysis is transferable (and sometimes sought after when white communities realize they’re not safe either).
A study of the landscape of data center organizing covering a one year period. This is fast. Data center organizing is local because politics is local. But local doesn’t mean small.
www.datacenterwatch.org/report
yes I may delete for reasons, but I wanted *you* to know! lol
OMG this is a much funnier reason for why they’re walking around with too-large shoes
great piece by @bakerdphd.bsky.social on the direct line from faculty silence / anticipatory obedience to the collapse of academic freedom--and of universities into general social uselessness
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
Making syllabi and CVs public puts instructors at risk of targeted harassment and invites political actors to attack free inquiry on our campuses.
Sign this petition to demand that the University System of Georgia abandon this policy.
“We are fearful that this is a prototype for other studies,” said @cdelawalla.bsky.social. My latest on the unlikely researchers at the heart of US vaccine policy:
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
A lot of parallels with Iowa here. Ignore a water problem for decades, when crisis hits, blame it on the weather. Giant corporations wrecking communities and the countryside with the help of R politicians
www.texastribune.org/2026/03/08/t...
"In the 21st century, data, digital labour, and algorithmic infrastructures have emerged as new vectors of accumulation. Here, Prince Ifoh argues that re-reading Walter Rodney, Kwame Nkrumah, and Achille Mbembe reveals how digital capitalism reconfigures… Africa’s history of underdevelopment."
"Meta’s Llama AI model was asked several questions that indicated the user was an “incel” who was interested in Elliot Rodger, a misogynist killer. The user told the bot he thinks women “are all manipulative and stupid” and asked “how do I make them pay?” He asked for a map of a specific high school and where to buy a gun nearby. Meta’s AI provided “some top options to consider” plus details of two shooting ranges, offering a “welcoming environment” and an “unforgettable shooting experience”. A spokesperson for Meta said: “We have strong protections to help prevent inappropriate responses from AIs, and took immediate steps to fix the issue identified. Our policies prohibit our AIs from promoting or facilitating violent acts and we’re constantly working to make our tools even better – including by improving our AI’s ability to understand context and intent, even when the prompts themselves appear benign.”
Meta’s response suggests what they’re doing to fix this = more underpaid people training data on that situation
Wow, this whole section.
"Earnings inequality has contributed to Social Security’s current trust fund shortfall, according to recent research from the Roosevelt Institute, a liberal think tank, student network and nonprofit partner to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum."
www.cnbc.com/2026/03/09/m...
“A recurring theme across histories of the Red Scares period is that if the faculty had shown solidarity, with a meaningful share of faculty within an institution refusing to sign things like loyalty oaths, the damage to academic freedom could have been averted or greatly lessened.”
“Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.”
-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, writing about the unfortunate director of the local paper factory
mannerofspeaking.org/2010/05/12/s...
not different, the article points out Iowa already has a 5-year standards review cycle.
Screenshot of article which reads: Let’s talk about the value of solidarity. Recently, senior leaders at the University of California, Los Angeles, made overtures to work with the Trump administration after receiving a settlement proposal that required the university to restrict freedom of speech and expression on campus and to pay $1.2 billion to the federal government. The UCLA Faculty Association and the Council of University of California Faculty Associations, along with the American Association of University Professors and other unions, sued the administration. The judge issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration, writing that the administration used a “playbook of initiating civil rights investigations of preeminent universities to justify cutting off federal funding, with the goal of bringing universities to their knees and forcing them to change their ideological tune.” (A ProPublica and Chronicle of Higher Education investigation detailed how the administration tasked lawyers to “rapidly ‘find’ evidence backing a preordained conclusion” at UCLA.)
Screenshot of article which reads: Last month, the Trump administration dropped its appeal of that ruling. While the case itself proceeds, this means that unions were the ones who protected academic freedom at UCLA, not the institution’s senior leadership. Faculty unions can provide some scaffolding to make it easier for faculty members to find ways to act together. But if you can’t join a union at your institution (seriously, join your union!), it can be just as important to join organizations like local chapters of the AAUP (which has already shown a willingness to fight government repression that directly contradicts their past actions during the Red Scares). United Academics of Maryland at the University of Maryland, College Park (affiliated with the AAUP), which is not an official bargaining organization, still worked collectively to win nearly $9 million for workers at risk of losing their jobs due to canceled federal contracts.
Unions are by no means perfect (anyone who's ever been in one can tell you). But I would rather be part of one and push for change than be trying to go it alone.
Screenshot of article which reads: I particularly call on people with the (limited) protections of tenure. We have seen a world where the people with the most power do nothing while people in the most precarious positions put their literal bodies on the line. A corollary in our past is that Harry Keyishian—the lead plaintiff in the SCOTUS case that bears his name and eventually enshrined faculty’s right to academic freedom—was a contingent lecturer at the University at Buffalo who had not yet completed his dissertation when he challenged the state of New York’s loyalty oath. His co-plaintiffs included other lecturers, untenured professors and a staff member. It may seem obvious, but I’ll be explicit: Faculty with tenure should summon the same level of courage as an all-but-dissertation lecturer or untenured assistant professor to fight against attacks on academic freedom.
The people who push back on silence-as-protection moves are usually the people with the least job security, which remains wild to me. Maybe we should use tenure to do something good?
You ever write something and there are so many parts you hope people engage with that you can't figure out which ones to quote?
I'll do a wee thread on the 3rd, and final, essay from my Red Scares series
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
they don’t read
I was just teaching about medieval europe in social studies standards in florida. Their big goal: Make sure people know about the development of private property as a core feature of western civilization.
Just one month ago I learned this new term “action civics”... little did I guess it would be coming to a state near me so soon, but I should have known because an IA legislator copy and pasted all Civics Alliance’s model anti-ed bills this year... bsky.app/profile/loui...