artists of chicago and the midwest! 5 days left to submit proposals for ART IN THESE TIMES, in conjunction w #falloffreedom artists unite against authoritarianism! artists reconsider political art! (politics here start with: selected artists will be PAID!) interccect.com/art-in-these...

Art In These Times – Fall of Freedom

Art in These Times October 2–4, 2026 Authoritarian assaults on free thinking, fellow feeling, and creative making call for artists to unite in defiance. The 2nd annual Fall of Freedom festival conv…

interccect.com

The paperback of Invisible Rulers is out today! To celebrate I dropped audio of the Twitter Space where Mike Benz first groomed Matt Taibbi into believing there'd been "mass censorship" of "hundreds of millions of tweets"—something he'd then testify before Congress. open.substack.com/pub/agentsof...

When Matt Taibbi Met Mike Benz

How independent media turned an obscure political operative into a "whistleblower"—and his claims into government action.

open.substack.com

What Harvard has done with its writing center defies any kind of sense until you realize that students are rarely at the center of this kind of administrative action. It's an unfortunately common attitude at these sorts of institutions. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Harvard Administrators Don’t Care About Student Learning

I know, news flash, right?

insidehighered.com

Not recommended: summer flu.

I’m with @biblioracle.bsky.social: I’m disgusted too at the Harvard administrators who decided to fire @janerosenzweig.bsky.social. Read John’s piece at:

Harvard Administrators Don’t Care About Student Learning

I know, news flash, right?

insidehighered.com

Me on the AAU "The AAU claims to be comprised of America’s leading research unis...But if the member presidents choose the guise of institutional neutrality as a way to gain political cover, they may now be leading higher ed toward greater authoritarianism." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

How Elite Colleges Aided Censorship During the Red Scares

Powerful organizations during the Red Scares crafted a world where “academic freedom” was conditional on political allegiance.

insidehighered.com

Great thread. Yale’s efforts at some kind of settlement should cast doubt on its much-publicized April report on the humanities. It wasn’t a report, but a performance to satisfy political censors. Pundits who praised the “report” as a source of “bold ideas” for reform should admit their complicity.

Gregg Gonsalves@gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 3d ago

Need to have some frank talk about #Yale President McInnis, General Counsel Alexander Dreier and the trustees. First, they keep saying that they are compelled to enter into a settlement with the #Trump administration. Untrue. 1/

look. nobody here likes paying consultants. but the only alternative is paying *instructors*

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · 6d ago

“Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

The MAGA assault on free speech is unlike anything we’ve seen since at least the McCarthy era, but it’s also so slow-building that we easily lose track of it amid the daily chaos of the Trump administration. The story is now too big to be ignored. trib.al/eKvitTT

The Campus Free Speech Wars Are Over. MAGA Won.

The right spent years trying to convince us that campus lefties were authoritarians in waiting. But then an actual authoritarian became president.

trib.al

Has anyone seen reporting on this? Who wrote it? Were any faculty or shared governance bodies involved? I’d be grateful if anyone had info on this

Brendan Cantwell@cantb.bsky.social · 5d ago

This is some postliberal lunchmeat in an enlightenment wrap and I'm pretty sure there's some diarrhea lettuce mixed in www.vanderbilt.edu/declaration/

Vanderbilt continues to signal itself as the most authoritarian-curious of the major universities. I think they see it as a market opportunity, a differentiator, if you will.

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 6d ago

Amazing that there are still university administrators who think that bootlicking will save them. www.vanderbilt.edu/declaration/

We should see generative AI tools not as a vehicle for doing more more more, but an invitation to do less that matters more. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

For Learning, Focus on the Essence and the Experiences

The threat of LLMs is an invitation to get to the roots, rather than layering on more, more, more.

insidehighered.com

A. K. Venrinn@venrin.bsky.social · 5d ago

Omg not Hank Green using AI for research and calling to his “bad habit” 💀😭🤡

My book (More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI) is obviously targeted towards education leaders/teachers/faculty, but a handful of students have found their way to it and universally tell me that they had never been introduced to writing as an expressive act in school.

Looking forward to the insider blow by blow in Maggie Haberman's next book on whether or not the president sharts himself when he nods off in public.

Ladies and gents, I bring you the university that wants to lecture the rest of the industry about how to restore trust in higher education while engaging in secret negotiations with the Trump administration about giving Trump oversight of admissions. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Harvard Fought Trump’s Abuses. Yale May Fold. I Think I Know Why.

Seeking to set a new course for the conservative movement, J.D. Vance in 2021 declared war on institutions of American higher education.

slate.com

Spot on. We need to talk about this stuff as a form of governmental accountability and preparation for future events. What's happening is NOT that.

Don Moynihan@donmoyn.bsky.social · 6d ago

New, from me: It is fine to disagree with aspects of the pandemic response. But what we saw at Fauci's hearing was something different: a show trial where cranks tried to threaten and shift blame to an public servant. Here is why this is bad for all of us.🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/watching-t...

This from @joshtpm.bsky.social is exactly right and it's why I've been so disappointed in the campaign of @drannieandrews.com in my state of South Carolina. The odds are long, period, in a state like ours. Fighting at least gives you a chance to break through. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/whose...

www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

In Defense of the Harvard College Writing Center | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson

As current and former Harvard College Writing Center tutors, we write to condemn the dissolution of the Writing Center as an independent entity and the laying off of its director, Jane Rosenzweig.

thecrimson.com

Hoping for a moratorium on this kind of framing when it comes to academic disciplinary disputes primarily because it's not accurate, not even at a metaphorical level.

This is one of the most absurd decisions by higher ed administrators that I can recall in recent (or even longer) memory. This is an absolute, irrefutable signal that the leaders of Harvard puts no value in the student experience of LEARNING. It's a joke and should be seen as hugely discrediting.

Mary Lewis@profmarylewis.bsky.social · last wk.

It‘s quite possible that with this move, @harvard.edu could become the only Ivy League university without a writing center. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Why Do We Tolerate Elon Musk’s Racist Commentary? www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/o...

Turned this rant into a blog post. davekarpf.beehiiv.com/p/the-data-c...

The data center backlash Is working. That's why the New York Times is so concerned.

I have a

davekarpf.beehiiv.com

Dave Karpf@davekarpf.bsky.social · last wk.

I'm reading the "environmentalists are wrong about data centers" piece from the NYT and ohmygoditssofuckingbad. Apparently, so long as you're punching left, they'll just let you say any goddamn thing you please... www.nytimes.com/2026/07/25/o...

Can we please stop it with the AI woo-woo?

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2w ago

Could AI be conscious?

For some reason I was still identified on the later printings of the hardcover.

Sad that @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social had erased my name from my review extract on the paperback of “James” because it was my best shot at someone knowing I existed 100 years from now. Now, I’m just the Chicago Tribune.

As @biblioracle.bsky.social has eloquently noted, "doing school" is not the same as learning. Grammarly promises that its agents are "built for school" and indeed it is not learning to check "your projected grade hundreds of times" (and also of course not a thing unless your instructor is the bot).

I almost can't take these people seriously because this Jeremy Wayne Tate dude reached out to me in his early days because he thought I'd be agreeable to his SAT alternative and it became clear in just a handful of emails that he is a goof. Now this goof is going to control curriculum for everyone

Annie Abrams@annieabrams.bsky.social · 3w ago

they're going for broke classiclearningtest.substack.com/p/welcome-to...

Read this and also check out the picture of the shelves of the guy who has published 450 books using AI through Amazon. It's like he's done it so he can have a bunch of books with his name on the spine for decoration.

Kashmir Hill@kashhill.bsky.social · 3w ago

Got this text a couple months. Had to investigate it. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/t...

The government is releasing rules to put time limits on student visas. There’s gonna be a lot of attention about how this will harm campuses’ ability to attract fee paying undergrads and that matters. But this is *really* gonna challenge doctoral education www.federalregister.gov/public-inspe...

Public Inspection: Establishing a Fixed Time Period of Admission and an Extension of Stay Procedure for Nonimmigrant Academic Students, Exchange Visitors, and Representatives of Foreign Information Me...

Establishing a Fixed Time Period of Admission and an Extension of Stay Procedure for Nonimmigrant Academic Students, Exchange Visitors, and Representatives of Foreign Information Media

federalregister.gov