Kirsten Weld
@kirstenweld.bsky.social
History professor, author of PAPER CADAVERS, co-president of Harvard’s AAUP chapter
Soooo how did signing that agreement work out Brown?
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4d agoVance: "Some of America's most elite universities bring in foreigners to undercut wages of American residents. There are 9 universities in particular we believe merit an investigation. Those are Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, the University of Pittsburg, UC Davis, Cal Tech, Arizona State, and MIT."
🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING: The AAUP is suing the Trump administration over new policies that threaten green card applicants with family separation. 1/
Today, on appeal, the Trump administration will try once more to defend its blatantly illegal & unconstitutional campaign of retribution against Harvard. @aaup.org, AAUP-Harvard, and UAW first sued to stop it — and won in federal court. Here’s hoping the First Circuit upholds that decision.
@aclu.org & @amnesty.org just published a massive report "Student Speech Under Attack." 300pp & 2 years in the making it offers the definitive account of how the speech of students (faculty and staff) was silenced, and continues to be policed, on campus. @aaup.org www.aclu.org/publications...
"Student Speech Under Attack: Suppression of Pro-Palestine Speech and Dissent on Campus" | American Civil Liberties Union
"Student Speech Under Attack: Suppression of Pro-Palestine Speech and Dissent on Campus," an ACLU and Amnesty International USA research report, documents the heavy-handed responses by certain univers...
aclu.org
In response to their Cold War dictatorships’ widespread practice of forced disappearance, Latin Americans developed the legal remedy — the writ of habeas data — for precisely this kind of situation, e.g. to compel regimes to reveal info about people killed or secretly detained.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 3w agoNEW: @apnews.com confirms that ICE has begun electronically "disappearing" people in the agency's custody who have final orders of removal. As of last week, anyone jailed by ICE with a final order of removal will NOT appear in the ICE Online Detainee Locator System, making them effectively vanish.
More than any higher ed development in recent memory, institutional subsidies for AI at R1 universities prove that austerity is a choice. It is not “too expensive” to invest in a humanities research infrastructure; rather, it is a choice that R1 universities make not to & subsidize AI instead.
Avery@dyingsignals.love · 4w agoThe amount of money I saw one department paying for several AI services in a school year could cover the University’s pay one price textbook costs for nearly their entire enrolled student body in said department
Important piece by @serenamayeri.bsky.social and Amanda Shanor on the Trump administration's assault on academic freedom. College Presidents, Don’t Be Fooled by Linda McMahon www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/o...
Opinion | College Presidents, Don’t Be Fooled by Linda McMahon
Her open letter to American universities is a trap.
nytimes.com
The dream of "be your own boss" meets the reality of "be your own scab." www.nytimes.com/2026/08/22/b...
Harvard Is Selling a $699 Course Taught by A.I. Clones of Its Faculty (Gift Article)
To create a new bootcamp for entrepreneurs, Harvard Business School made A.I. avatars of its instructors.
nytimes.com
To people outside of academia, 10% might not sound that much — and, tbh, I don’t understand why anyone would come here to study — but these 10% of foreign students “subsidize” a much larger group of U.S. students, who will face fewer professors and programs at higher costs.
The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 2mo agoThere will probably be far fewer foreign students on college campuses nationwide this fall following the Trump administration’s crackdown on international visas. A new report predicts international enrollment will decrease by 9.5 percent this fall.
Honored to join Ellen Schrecker & Sam Lebovic in submitting the Historians' Amicus Brief in AAUP v. Rubio. 🗃️ The brief focuses on the First & Second Red Scares, & on the development of free speech jurisprudence. Read ⬇️ Grateful to @brennancenter.org & Counsel www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...
Historians’ Amicus Brief in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio
Historians filed a brief supporting a challenge to the federal government’s policy of arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen students and faculty on the basis of their speech and associations.
brennancenter.org
finally reading the AAUP v. Texas A&M complaint & makes such a joke of the "Woke 1" discourse. If ya want cancel culture go to Texas. Student secretly records & complains abt prof. who discussed gender. Governor says "fire" the prof. A&M Pres. fires prof. (then regents fire him bc too woke.)
Just filed: Our opening brief in @aaup.org v. Rubio, asking the First Circuit to affirm Judge Young's conclusion that the Trump administration's policy of targeting pro-Palestinian protesters for arrest and deportation violates the First Amendment. knightcolumbia.org/documents/ex...
A reminder that UC _faculty_ and Faculty Associations — not the universities themselves nor their administrators — are waging this battle in court, demonstrating great bravery and moral clarity.
White House admits it used keywords to kill billions worth of California research grants
Federal agencies that terminated more than a thousand research grants at the University of California last year admitted that they used keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COV...
apnews.com
"This wave of anticipatory obedience is all the more egregious because – just as in the debates at Yale – non-leaders might sometimes just know better."
The federal government isn’t America’s only authoritarian institution | Jan-Werner Müller
Backlash at Yale to its negotiations with Trump shine a light on the danger of smaller authoritarian structures in civil society
theguardian.com
"The decision by the university’s AAUP chapter to retain outside lawyers is the latest example of faculty members and other groups choosing to fight settlements with Trump in ways that the colleges themselves often seem reluctant to." @aaup.org @yaleaaup.bsky.social
Yale Professors Vow to Fight Trump if the University President Won’t
The opposition to a potential deal with the government reveals a strategy that Yale groups have spent a year honing.
chronicle.com
Incisive rejoinder to the Vanderbilt/WU report on the humanities, by Harvard AAUP’s Dick Moran: www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
The Wrong Way to Criticize the Humanities
A recent report, commissioned by the chancellors of Vanderbilt and Washington University, invites further intrusions on scholarly self-governance.
bostonreview.net
many of the faculty that have been fired were critics of the administration - a chilling and shameful episode we should be following, especially those of us in higher ed
The New School AAUP@newschoolaaup.bsky.social · 4mo agoThe New School chapter of the American Association of University Professors condemned what it described as “a major gutting of our full-time faculty body”… saying that no explanation had been provided for why certain jobs were cut. www.chronicle.com/article/its-...
What's really astonishing is not the far right authoritarian party doing this, but the near-total lack of <loud public collective action> by university chancellors & presidents to oppose this existential crisis. Almost impossible to overstate how total a failure of leadership this is.
Katie Mack@astrokatie.com · 5mo agoIt’s truly astonishing to see how comprehensively the US government is tearing down every part of the system that has made it up until now a world-leading power in science, research, and technological development. The entire world will suffer from this wanton destruction.
Thank you to Daniel Hemel and David Pozen for this. The concept of the Universitas litterarum that emerged in the Middle Ages was a self-governing community of scholars engaged in a quest for truth. What has emerged in the US today is a nightmare that has no relationship with the founding idea.
$6.2M/yr for the endowment manager guy who gets the university a lower rate of return than the S&P 500 Certainly puts the grad union's requests in perspective www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
Harvard Paid Claudine Gay $1.5 Million in 2024 After Resignation, Financial Disclosures Show | News | The Harvard Crimson
Former Harvard President Claudine Gay earned more than $1.5 million in 2024, according to Harvard’s annual tax filings, receiving a higher compensation package in the year after she resigned from the ...
thecrimson.com
"For too long, the university has ignored the wisdom of the donor class and hired based on academic excellence. Regrettably, this has led to the underrepresentation of discredited viewpoints in elite higher education." www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/wer...
We’re Diversifying the University by Hiring More Crackpots
“For too long, the university has ignored the wisdom of the donor class and hired based on academic excellence. Regrettably, this has led to the underreprese...
mcsweeneys.net
Academics are, on the whole, dedicated teachers, researchers, and community members who not only prop up regional economies but also care about knowledge and the public good. The demonization of faculty and grad students at all ranks is a travesty.
Ted McCormick@tedmccormick.bsky.social · 5mo agothe Dem tendency to malign academics as a cheap and lazy populist gesture, at a moment when Republicans are destroying academia while deploying cheap and lazy populist rhetoric, and while the main discernible Dem promise is not being Republicans, is neither great messaging nor great substance
Important statement in support of Derek Peterson by @aft.org @aaup.org and our AAUP chapters at UM Ann Arbor and Flint: www.aaup.org/news/aaup-af...
AAUP, AFT, Labor Leaders Support University of Michigan Professor Derek Peterson
The AAUP and AFT strongly defend the academic freedom of Professor Derek Peterson and condemn the escalating campaign of political pressure and public intimidation directed at him following his remark...
aaup.org
