Tessera

Ali Watts

@aliwatts13.bsky.social

She/her. Asst Prof of Higher Ed, big old nerd. Social movement learning. Playful/resistant pedagogy. Politics of funding. And dog pics

74 Posts1134 Follower 756 Folgt

sr_toliver @srtoliver.bsky.social · 2h ago

It’s out!! The free link is here and can be used up to 50 times. After that, just email or text me, and I’ll send!! www.tandfonline.com/eprint/7PG9D...

ABSTRACT
Academia teaches us to hate our bodies, to acknowledge the fleshy organ encased behind bone and swimming in blood, while demonizing the skin that protects. We apologize for its existence: designing studies that minimize the presence of being, generating data but hiding the body that collects, writing research in a way that attempts to atone for using hands to create. Thus, the focus of this article is a consideration of how we might reject body shame in academia, and instead, embrace a stance that demands the acknowledgement and upliftment of bodies. To do so, I consider Sonya Renee Taylor's The Body Is Not an Apology as an ontoepistemological frame for understanding how embodied research practices generate new forms of academic storytelling that refuse the traditional narrative of disembodied objectivity.

Introduction

This is my body unfolding. Arms and legs moving to the rhythm of a band that plays in the backyard of my mother's house. It's her birthday, and the dance floor is full of her friends, my aunties, my cousins, all of us somewhere on the long road of learning to inhabit our flesh without apology. And today, for once, I am on the floor with them. I'm not watching from the sidelines, present in body but absent in mind.
I'm not editing every movement before I make it, shrinking before anyone asks me to. Today I move to the center and stop watching myself from the inside. My hips find the rhythm before my mind can second-guess them, and I laugh, not at myself, but with myself, with this body that knows how to do this, that has always known. And I think: isn't it something, to move a body, to be in a body and know it as a place of joy?

I write from this place; the music is pumping through my veins as I make alphabetic symbols on this page. And I am still, honestly, a little amazed that I let myself dance, that I chose to let this body move on freely rather than wiggling in my seat on the margins.

Jonathan Feingold @jpygold.bsky.social · last wk.

New #RaceClass Podcast is out. We dive into Texas GOP's assault on its own universities. Lots of tactics, strategies & people(!) plucked straight from DeSantis' own effort to resegregate & undermine Florida's once heralded institutions. soundcloud.com/user-8088721...

Ep. 66 | Why Education Scares Texas' GOP

Why is Texas' GOP so scared to educate their own students? Jon & Arnie discuss the rising repression across Texas' public universities. The Texas state legislature, with help from handpicked rightwing

soundcloud.com

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold.bsky.social · 2w ago

It's come to this. The people are standing up to protect Texas' public universities from their own administrators & government. *People’s Hearing on Protecting Ethnic and Women’s and Gender Studies in Texas Higher Education* Wednesday, August 12, 2026 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.

You are invited: The People's Hearing Threats to Diversity and Academic Freedom in Higher Education

Ben Allen @evodynamics.bsky.social · 3w ago

Congrats we just made it impossible to come here for a PhD www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/16/m...

Trump administration limits student visas to four years, changing longstanding policy - The Boston Globe

The new rule, which also restricts the international students’ ability to transfer schools or change majors without approval in their first year, will go into effect in mid-September.

bostonglobe.com

Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 3w ago

Thank you to @chronicle.com for publishing my letter to the editor—“Scholarly ‘Activism’ Is Free Expression”—in response to several recent commentaries which claim that many professors have become “activists” rather than scholars. #EduSky www.chronicle.com/blogs/letter...

Letter | Scholarly ‘Activism’ Is Free Expression

Recent debates have failed to define a key term, writes Bradford Vivian.

chronicle.com

Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 4w ago

Whoa, over a quarter million people (so far!) have left a comment on the egrgious openly fascist takeover attempt of the OMB. You can too! @standupforscience.net has instructions and everything you need. It's not hard, and it's critically important to science. fight2win.standupforscience.net

Stand up for Science

fight2win.standupforscience.net

elizabethginexi.bsky.social@elizabethginexi.bsky.social · 4w ago

The comment count as of Sunday July 11, 2026 1:05pm ET.

AAUP @aaup.org · 4w ago

Ohio’s #SB461 forces state universities to fund partisan "civic centers" at record levels—even if students aren't taking the classes. Instead of fixing soaring tuition, lawmakers are wasting tax dollars to force an agenda. Ohio families deserve affordable education, not mandated indoctrination. 🎓❌

Texas Conference of the AAUP @texasaaup.bsky.social · 4w ago

www.statesman.com/news/educati...

Professors' union sues Texas Tech over LGBTQ, race teaching restrictions

The professors' union says Texas Tech University System policies restricting instruction on LGBTQ identity, race and gender violate the Constitution.

statesman.com

Lauren Merry Vale (they/she)@pixielauren.bsky.social · 4w ago

So many examples of Democratic candidates embracing transphobia and losing -- or supporting trans people and winning! -- but yet the f*cking party can't seem to figure it out? 🙄 As an Ohio voter, this is beyond disappointing.

The Buckeye Flame@thebuckeyeflame.com · 4w ago

Dr. Amy Acton betrays Ohio’s trans community and yet again forces us into the ‘lesser of two evils’ debate. Just weeks after walking in Columbus Pride, she chose to legitimize a discriminatory law that targets an infinitesimally small number of vulnerable youth in Ohio.

Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 4w ago

Grant: "Though the government has plenty of ways to promote its own viewpoint, puppeteering every university professor in the state is not one of them."

More credibly, the State explains that it also seeks to protect
its “most cherished ideals.” But that justification fails, too. Though
the government has plenty of ways to promote its own viewpoint,
puppeteering every university professor in the state is not one of
them. Forcing an official government line—in a college classroom
of all places—is exactly the “pall of orthodoxy” that the First
Amendment will not tolerate. Keyishian, 385 U.S. at 603.

Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 4w ago

BREAKING: Eleventh Circuit, on a 2-1 vote, upholds injunction blocking Florida from enforcing its 2022 Stop WOKE Act in the university context. The majority opinion is from Judge Britt Grant, a Trump appointee: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Before GRANT, LAGOA, and WILSON, Circuit Judges.
GRANT, Circuit Judge:
"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." U.S. Const. amend I. The First Amendment, incorporated against the States in 1868, is this country's written commitment to the idea that freedom of speech is essential to freedom of thought, and that both are essential to maintaining our liberty. The Supreme Court has long been clear that teaching and scholarship are due some measure of protection under the Amendment. But how much? And in what contexts? That Court has not had to say, but this one is now put to the test. The State of Florida legislated a broad set of speech restrictions banning certain viewpoints relating to race, color, sex, and national origin in various settings. The provision at issue here bars Florida's educators from promoting or endorsing those distavored ideas when instructing students. Its prohibition applies not only in primary and secondary education, where states traditionally exercise a great deal of control, but also in public colleges and universities, where the state government's role has been far more limited.
When several groups of professors challenged Florida's new restrictions, the State cast about for an existing case or doctrine that could support its speech ban in the university setting. Finding none, it tried to marry public-employee speech cases with government speech doctrine, resulting in a new rule: if the

government pays a professor's salary, it has total control over her classroom speech.
That is not a blessed union. Florida's salary-for-speech rule is a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the State's own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry-classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth. This new rule also runs headlong into the Supreme Court's repeated, if imprecise, endorsements of academic freedom. If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it.
Nor does this Court's leading academic speech precedent,
Bishop v. Aronov, demand the outcome Florida seeks. 926 F.2d 1066 (11th Cir. 1991). In fact, it counsels the opposite. The restriction in that case was imposed by one university, against one professor, relating to speech about one thing— personal religious views that got in the way of the course's well-understood parameters.

That precedent makes clear that universities and even other government entities have crucial authority to shape curricular content, discipline teachers, and take other steps to guide and govern postsecondary education. But the speech ban Florida's political leaders seek to impose here is different in both nature and degree from these ordinary concerns. The rule Florida developed for this case does not withstand scrutiny.
11 Case: 22-13992
Document: 156-1 Date Filed: 07/07/2026 Page:
22-13992
Opinion of the Court
5
The ideas Florida targets may well be noxious. Or maybe
not.
Either way, in this context the First Amendment trusts students to figure it out for themselves. We affirm the district court's preliminary injunction.

Rebecca Colesworthy @rcolesworthy.bsky.social · 4w ago

PLEASE SIGN to support Prof Tiffany Willoughby-Herard! 2 yrs ago Prof W-H stood up to protect students, rightly declaring “we cannot have a genocidal foreign policy in a democracy” while being violently arrested. Tell UCI to DROP all disciplinary charges against her! sites.google.com/view/withdra...

Home

On May 15, 2024, several hundred heavily armed police were called in to break up a peaceful encampment at UC Irvine in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Among those arrested that day was UC Irvine G...

sites.google.com

Ali Watts @aliwatts13.bsky.social · last mo.

Mrs. White's 'Flames' Scene from Clue

ALT: Mrs. White's 'Flames' Scene from Clue

static.klipy.com

Ohio Capital Journal@ohiocapitaljournal.com · last mo.

Bill would give more independence to Ohio’s civic centers one year after Senate Bill 1 took effect ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/07/02/b...

Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · last mo.

Absolutely this. Right-wing capitalism wants to reinforce the idea that the only meaningful 'returns' on education or intellectual endeavor are economic. They've successfully restricted the meaning of 'return' to mean $, salary, ignoring or dismissing the non-economic returns of thinking.

Alice Wickenden@awickenden.bsky.social · last mo.

I agree with all the takes about an attack on the humanities being an attack on critical thinking, &c. It’s also about joy, though. ‘Why bother studying that’ is always also a sneer at — why do you think you should get to do something you enjoy? Grow up and be miserable all the time!

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · last mo.

Cape Verde defeats Argentina via a 2-3 loss in extra time

Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union @ruaaup-ptl.bsky.social · last mo.

📣 BREAKING (GOOD) NEWS!‼️ The 2024 lawsuit against Rutgers AAUP-AFT, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, AAUP-BHSNJ, AFTNJ, and AFT over the 2023 faculty strike was dismissed with prejudice—affirming public sector unions’ rights to free speech & collective action. Press release: https://loom.ly/xVmkrVA

BREAKING NEWS:
Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Filed Against Rutgers Faculty Unions Alleging Damages
From 2023 Strike

Yesterday marked a meaningful and victorious end to the lawsuit against our three faculty locals (Rutgers AAUP-AFT, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, and AAUP-BHSNJ), our state federation (AFTNJ), and national union (AFT), over the 2023 Rutgers faculty strike. The lawsuit, filed in March 2024 by former Rutgers student Jeremy Li, was dismissed with prejudice, with the court upholding the rights of public sector unions and their members to engage in free speech and collective action.
The suit was filed in March 2024 by Rutgers student Jeremy Li and alleged that the unions deprived Rutgers students of a week of education in Spring 2023 as a result of our strike. Our unions filed two motions to dismiss this complaint on the basis of free speech, noting that free speech and conduct “were a matter of public concern.”
Li is one of many students who have filed such lawsuits in an attempt to curtail the right of collective bargaining units to strike.
Li’s attorneys, Patrick Hugues and Daniel Suhr, have filed similar lawsuits against teachers’ unions in Massachusetts and Kentucky for financial and emotional damages stemming from strikes there– and they’ve lost each one.

“This ruling is a bright spot in a difficult year, affirming the critically important right of public higher education workers to take collective action in order to win stronger and better contracts through collective bargaining,” says Rebecca Givan, president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT.
“Our students' learning conditions can only be as good as the working conditions of the faculty and staff who support their education,” says Heather Pierce, president of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union.“Our fight is not only for ourselves, but for our students too. This is not only a win for labor rights—it is a win for the future of public higher education.”

“This ruling affirms our longstanding position that we are fighting for all of Rutgers—and we have the right to do so,” says Cathy Monteleone, president of AAUP-BHSNJ.

Ali Watts @aliwatts13.bsky.social · last mo.

May be losing my mind just a smidge

wes(is no longer)injapan@wesinjapan.bsky.social · last mo.

We are lucky to be watching this. Has to be one of the greatest World Cup games ever, right?

Matt Hodler @mhodler.bsky.social · last mo.

so vital for graduate employees to have unions

Anna Meier@annameier.bsky.social · last mo.

A professor in Tufts University’s School of Engineering required one of his international graduate students to work an unpaid TA job this past spring semester. After she went to her union and blew the whistle, Tufts withdrew her from her program. A thread of rage. 1/

Kevin Carey @kevincarey1.bsky.social · last mo.

1/ Important new investigative report from my colleague @jbeowulf.bsky.social about "Maestro," advertised as "the AI University" on TikTok, that turns out to be a chatbot bolted onto a failing for-profit business school in order to illegally harvest Pell grants. www.newamerica.org/insights/the...

The AI College: How One For-Profit School Substituted Instructors With a Chatbot

An inside look at AI-powered Maestro University exposes a pattern of policy failures, potential legal violations, and widespread frustration among students—acting as a warning sign for higher educatio...

newamerica.org

AAUP @aaup.org · last mo.

“SB 461 requires Ohio’s universities to fund the five new civic centers before anything else — even if they aren’t offering courses that help students graduate or don’t have students enrolled in their programs or courses." —Jennifer Price, Ohio Conference of the AAUP Executive Director

Bill would give more independence to Ohio's civic centers one year after Senate Bill 1 took effect • Ohio Capital Journal

An Ohio state senator recently introduced a bill that would give the five Ohio "civics centers" created last year by Republican lawmakers more autonomy at their various universities.

ohiocapitaljournal.com

ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · last mo.

Christ, Kavanaugh joined the judgement but dissented on the Constitutional question... meaning that the vote is only 5-4 that the 14th Amendment exists.

Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · last mo.

I do not think there is sufficient appreciation for how catastrophic yesterday’s decision in Slaughter is for this country. As Justice Sotomayor said in her dissent and she intoned from the bench yesterday, “today the majority reshapes our Govt.”

Shannon McGregor, PhD @shannimcg.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My UNC colleague @toriekstrand.bsky.social has a powerful op-ed today in the N&O on the insidious nature of so-called "institutional neutrality" - and how in practice it means anything but. www.newsobserver.com/opinion/arti...

Professor: Here’s an alternative to UNC’s charade of ‘institutional neutrality’ | Opinion

The author is a professor at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

newsobserver.com

Haymarket Books @haymarketbooks.org · 2mo ago

New virtual event! 250 Years of Resistance Join @brianjoneseducator.bsky.social and @keeanga.bsky.social for a conversation about the inspiring history and extraordinary capacity of ordinary people to resist and organize for a better world. Friday, July 3rd Live from Chicago Get tickets:

Register now – 250 Years of Resistance: Brian Jones and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor in Conversation – National Public Housing Museum (919 South Ada Street))

250 Years of Resistance: Brian Jones and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor in Conversation – National Public Housing Museum (919 South Ada Street)), Fri Jul 3, 2026 - Take a break from the bizarre and depressin...

events.haymarketbooks.org

Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 2mo ago

In bad news, with disability education oversight being moved to the Department of Health and Human Services from the Department of Education, that means Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will have power over disability policy positions. New from me at @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

RFK Jr. will oversee disability education policy

The dismantling of the Department of Education continues apace.

motherjones.com

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 2mo ago

BREAKING MS NOW: FBI agents on Thursday raided the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative — a pro-democracy organization that helps register voters in that state, according to three people briefed on the search.

FBI raids Ohio voting-rights organization

“Just straight up intimidation tactics”: Sources tell MS NOW agents also fanned across the state, showing up at staff members’ homes.

ms.now

Texas Conference of the AAUP @texasaaup.bsky.social · 2mo ago

⭐️Please join with AAUP, AFT, and Stand Up for Science to stop OMB’s proposed “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance” rule by adding your feedback and comments to the Federal Register during the public comment period, open until July 13, 2026.⭐️ fight2win.standupforscience.net/campaign/164...

Stand up for Science

fight2win.standupforscience.net

Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Wrote a little about the work the U.S. put into helping academics escape fascism during WWII and why we can't rely on that for our future www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

No One Is Coming to Save Us

The realization can either break you or liberate you.

insidehighered.com

Imani Gandy @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 2mo ago

The New York Times—during Pride—published an essay about the joys of being heterosexual. So in the spirit of not doing that, here's my conversation with @chescaleigh.bsky.social about coming out late, finding your queer self on your own timeline, and why it's never too late to be gay.

It’s Never Too Late To Be Gay, Featuring Franchesca Ramsey

YouTube video by Rewire News Group

youtube.com

Pam Herd @pamherd.bsky.social · 2mo ago

As we wrote, turning NIH and NSF program officers into political appointees, combined with the proposed rule to weaken peer review, will fundamentally shift the agency from science driven by knowledge and expertise to science driven by politics. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

What might this mean for scientific agencies?
Agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes for Health (NIH) cannot meet their statutorily mandated scientific missions if politics, rather than scientific expertise, drive decision-mak-ing. Federally supported science has been so successful, in no small part, because agency staff are typically expert scientists beholden to ensuring that the agencies deliver world-class science. Now, many could be turned into political appointees. The proposed policy defines grantmaking positions as "policy-mak-ing," which includes "drafting of funding opportunity announcements, evaluation of grant applications, or recommending or selecting grant recipients." This definition, which neatly matches agencies' own definitions for certain career staff, would include most NIH program officers and NSF program directors.

Mark Dowhy@empiricalcuriosity.bsky.social · 2mo ago

More crap for the list of 'Let's destroy Science today' 🤬 @cdelawalla.bsky.social @standupforscience.net White House reclassifies federal epidemiologists and other scientists from civil servants to “at-will” hires www.scientificamerican.com/article/whit...

Ali Watts @aliwatts13.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Absolutely pumped to be part of the incoming cohort of Free Speech and Civic Engagement Fellows! See below for more about the Center and Fellows projects

UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement@ucfreespeech.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🎉 Congratulations to the Center’s 2026 - 2027 class of fellows! This cohort’s research examines topics such as the role of AI in civic education, fostering cross-partisan community and protecting academic freedom. Learn about their projects: buff.ly/03L58ah