my best friend worked at University of Mississippi at the time when nearly the entire faculty and student body was demanding the Confederate statue at the entrance be taken down but it wasn’t, because apparently the answer to Mike’s question is “a handful of very rich football families”

Mike Boylan-Kolchin@mbkplus.bsky.social · 4h ago

As I’ve asked many times now, what constituencies does a university president represent? Because too often, the answer seems to not include anyone who works or studies at the university, and that seems like a problem.

As I’ve asked many times now, what constituencies does a university president represent? Because too often, the answer seems to not include anyone who works or studies at the university, and that seems like a problem.

It so clearly shows that leadership does not believe that accountability matters. If this was in a book, I would say the author had laid it on a bit thick.

Yeah, the incident with Cornell’s president and his car / hitting the current and former students will really be pointed to as an important moment moving forward. He concocted some ridiculous story, didn’t express any regret, and everyone just moved on.

Ended with: "When I was thinking about my feedback regarding Ivy League institutions that [have] already done more to destroy trust in the past year, these are the types of incidents I'm thinking about (there's tons more like Harvard shutting down silent protests in their library)."

That this is *not* the trust that has been broken astounds me. I gave feedback earlier this year on some restoring trust projects. I mentioned Cornell's president hitting a student and alum with apparently little regret as the type of damage these projects need to care about. Elite impunity matters.

Mike Boylan-Kolchin@mbkplus.bsky.social · 7h ago

Cornell Police and the County Prosecutor's office seem intent on saying, in barely concealed terms, the other is to blame. It's a system where they're both happy to be able to pass off any responsibility while preserving their authority / power / territory; something fundamental has to change.

Abolish the CUPD katemanne.substack.com/p/that-time-...

That Time the Cornell University Police Tipped off a Frat

And compromised a female undergraduate victim’s safety

katemanne.substack.com

I PROMISE IT WON'T JUST BE A DRIVE-BY

This is said in humor. But it isn’t funny because it’s true.

Ya. This nice touch on NPR today: "Cornell has also denied my station's public records request for information from the University Police Department. We've been told the department's records are private because Cornell is."

'Disturbed' by Cornell rape investigation, NY governor puts state AG in charge

The Cornell University Police Department is leading the investigation into an alleged gang rape two years ago. How effective is that approach, and is the campus police accountable to the public?

npr.org

This story doesn't help Cornell pass the buck as much as they hoped. The conclusion is basically: No DA should ever trust campus police. (Raising the question: why do private universities have real police again?) www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/n...

The fiscal year is over. The dying Social, Behavioral, and Economic division of NSF ended up awarding 90 total grants this year, as opposed to ~700-800 in recent past years. Source: grantwitness.org/nsf/analyses...

~Approximately no one in the general public knows because the leaders of the R1 research universities - whose budgets, programs, & personnel are entirely or significantly dependent on federal funding - have been totally absent from the public square in explaining & collectively protesting this.

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 2d ago

I don’t think everyone realizes how bad things are for US science: For the fiscal year that just ended, the Trump regime withheld $1.4 billion from the National Science Foundation’s research budget, which is about 1/5 of its primary research budget.

Here is Lin in her own words:

Opinion | I Coined the Term ‘Sexual Harassment.’ Corporations Stole It. (Published 2017)

A word that once promised revolution has been made business-friendly and bloodless. It’s time to reclaim it.

nytimes.com

In 1974, Cornell lecturer Lin Farley began recognizing a pattern in the experiences women shared in her Women and Work course: women were being pushed out of jobs by men’s sexual behavior. Farley coined the term, “sexual harassment.”

No one can fill this void left by the theft of basic research funding.

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Here's a chart showing who funds basic research in the US. It's easy to tell that private funding cannot make up for significant cuts to government funding.

I have absolutely wondered about this. Amazing.

worm@rfksbrainworm.bsky.social · 2d ago

If you ever wondered why visible light is those particular wavelengths, it's because life evolved to see in the narrow range where water is transparent

Okay so remember how Alex Pretti had confronted ICE agents a few days before they shot him

Dhruv Mehrotra@dmehro.bsky.social · 2d ago

NEW: DHS agents tracked people observing ICE arrests, photographed them, ran their plates, pulled personal information, and added them to a Palantir database, according to newly unsealed court filings. w/ @regret.bsky.social

Earlier this week, I agreed to interviews with two USA Today journalists. They wrote fantastic articles about the Cornell case that I'm proud to have been a part of. What I did not know is that their employer considers interviews to proprietary and opens up recordings to be used by any journalist.

"The current level of political animosity is exactly what one would expect to see if an extremist faction attempted to rescind the hard-earned rights of the vast majority of the country’s citizens." There are not enough exclamation points to convey how I felt reading this paragraph

Do yourself a favor. Read these 7 pages by @lilymasonphd.bsky.social right now. It is the most concise explanation of the current situation in U.S. politics I've seen and it captures why calls to reduce "polarization" can ultimately worsen the problem 🧵 www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/pol...

Polarization Is Not the Problem | Journal of Democracy

Americans have never been angrier with one another. But polarization is not the disease—it is the response to a revanchist movement seeking to roll back sixty years of social progress.

journalofdemocracy.org

"In other words, the people who are the most 'polarized' in the U.S. electorate are those who are racist and sexist, and those who oppose racists and sexists."

You have to accurately assess the problem to create proper solutions

Writing something where I will be liberally citing @lilymasonphd.bsky.social's latest and realizing that I can't cite every single thing I would like to because then I'm just reprinting her work. So, I've gotta thread about it instead. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

...

Cornell Interfraternity Council Presidents Unanimously Vote to Cancel All Parties This Weekend

The presidents of all 22 IFC fraternities voted unanimously on Wednesday to cancel all social fraternity events this weekend, according to internal communications obtained by The Sun.

cornellsun.com

Now that I have this travel data I am of course messing around with it further. Here’s all monthly visits Jan 2015-June 2026, smoothed. The size of the Canadian reaction to the Trump administration’s attack on them really is remarkable. Elbows up, Canada. kieranhealy.org/blog/archive...

@hockeyviz.com I found some beautiful data viz for you

Big sigh. Cornell edited its faq after the NYT story about the CUPD omitting details from the victim statement: “Any mention of sharing “all investigatory information” with the district attorney had been removed from the page.” www.wskg.org/regional-new...

Cornell quietly edits FAQ page about fraternity sexual assault allegations amid public backlash

On Wednesday, the university removed a sentence stating that campus police “shared all investigatory information with the Tompkins County District Attorney's Office.”

wskg.org

Cornell PR: "A continuation of the false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case is irresponsible, will make victims feel less safe and supported, and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault." PR Pro: "It is hard for so many problems to exist in one sentence."

Cornell, the DA and the communication choices that deepened a crisis - PR Daily

Communications is shaping -- and worsening -- the alleged gang rape at Cornell University.

prdaily.com