Facial recognition is a major threat to immigrants in NYC. Federal agents have requested, subpoenaed, or obtained biometric data through a warrant. Databases have been hacked  documentedny.com/2026/08/03/n... @shahanafrombk.bsky.social @socialists.nyc @erinmcel.bsky.social @stopspyingny.bsky.social

Fearing Threat to Immigrants, Advocates Push for New Regulations on Facial Recognition

As face and voice scans appear at NYC businesses and residences, new bills take aim at reining in the new technology.

documentedny.com

Dr. Iván Chaar López: “If you want a productive university…that supports the state, its citizens, its neighbors, I’m not sure that you want the workers in this institution to be nervous, to be looking over their shoulders… Academic freedom is not under duress—it’s being dismantled.”

Prof Denied Tenure: Academic Freedom at UT Being Dismantled

Border-surveillance researcher Iván Chaar López received a near-unanimous recommendation from faculty and outstanding external support letters. Still, he was denied tenure without explanation.

insidehighered.com

Please share my post, share my outrage and sign, and share this petition: actionnetwork.org/petitions/op...

Open Letter Concerning the Tenure Denial of Dr. Iván Chaar López

The denial of tenure to Dr. Chaar López has become a national concern because it raises questions that extend far beyond one faculty member or one institution. Scholars across disciplines depend upon ...

actionnetwork.org

Sarah T Roberts, PhD@ubiquity75.xyz · 2w ago

UT President interfering with faculty tenure. Just the latest egregious example of administrator overreach and political capitulation. Non-paywall follows.

The art school built its art therapy program around social justice, then claims of anti-Semitism devastated the department. https://bit.ly/4fEo7Bf

SAIC's Palestine problem - Chicago Reader

The art school built its art therapy program around social justice, then claims of anti-Semitism devastated the department.

chicagoreader.com

More news about lawsuits: court sides with fired professor on free speech grounds. Dr. Shirinian will not be reinstated, but she is closer to getting paid for her trouble (State officials must now approve the settlement). www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

U Tennessee to Pay Millions to Prof Fired for Kirk Comments

The University of Tennessee System will pay $1.9 million to settle a lawsuit brought by a former professor who was fired for comments she made about the late conservative pundit Charlie Kirk, Knox New...

insidehighered.com

The techlash needs a target close to home, say Arjun Hassard and Erin McElroy, arguing tenant screening—with its algorithmic discrimination, junk fees, and lifelong digital stigma—is the bold, common-sense tech fight candidates should pick.

Populist Candidates Need More Tech Policy—Reforming Tenant Screening Is A Good Start

The regulation of tenant screening software presents a tailor-made policy opening, write Arjun Hassard and Erin McElroy.

buff.ly

7 of every 8 renters who lost housing assistance in the past 2 years still needed it. For many, their assistance stopped because of time or assistance limits or the program ran out of money. This and other findings in @nlihc.org's new National Renter Survey nlihc.org/national-ren...

2025 National Renter Survey

Learn more about NLIHC's 2025 National Renter Survey.

nlihc.org

After spring 2024’s revival of the student protest movement at a scale not seen since the 1960s, reactionary administrators & faculty got together to opportunistically discredit & try to reverse intellectual trends they didn’t like and blamed for creating the encampments like Vandy report & this one

Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 2mo ago

“We question the ‘study’s’ purpose in a time of institutional capture by political actors that prohibit independent inquiry and dissent.” New at PB: Iván Chaar López & @erinmcel.bsky.social on Richard D. Kahlenberg and Lief Lin’s critique of American Studies.

“We question the ‘study’s’ purpose in a time of institutional capture by political actors that prohibit independent inquiry and dissent.” New at PB: Iván Chaar López & @erinmcel.bsky.social on Richard D. Kahlenberg and Lief Lin’s critique of American Studies.

Who Benefits from Distorting American Studies? - Public Books

“There is a movement undermining, constraining, and eradicating those who document, understand, and name the experiences of systematically marginalized communities in US history.”

publicbooks.org

Excited for this to be out in the world!

Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Iván Chaar López & @erinmcel.bsky.social respond to Kahlenberg & Lin’s critique “The Distortion of American Studies.” Their “‘study’ questions the contributions and merits of a whole scholarly field without the rigor of engaging its insights.”

For those in Montreal!

@erinmcel.bsky.social , co-founder of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project and author of Silicon Valley Imperialism, will be speaking as a part of our Data Activism in the Age of Trump webinar on April 28. Register at the link below.

Data Activism in the Age of Trump | Events - Concordia University

concordia.ca

Erin McElroy@erinmcel.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Thank you so so much to @muybarra.bsky.social, @desireefields.bsky.social, @liviu-chelcea.bsky.social, Ananya Roy, and Magie Ramirez for their generous reflections on Silicon Valley Imperialism! @dukepress.bsky.social doi.org/10.1080/2325...

Thank you so so much to @muybarra.bsky.social, @desireefields.bsky.social, @liviu-chelcea.bsky.social, Ananya Roy, and Magie Ramirez for their generous reflections on Silicon Valley Imperialism! @dukepress.bsky.social doi.org/10.1080/2325...

Our PhD student Kennedy Orwa, who studies applications of AI to health care, was hastily deported today to Kenya along with his 13-year-old son without opportunity to speak to legal counsel. King 5 reports that he held a valid visa that was rescinded without explanation.

UW graduate student deported through SEA as protesters demand answers

A union representing University of Washington graduate student workers says Kennedy Orwa’s student visa was rescinded without explanation.

king5.com

While we can’t levy sanctions as individuals, we can try to make US tech companies feel the pain a bit

Paris Marx@parismarx.com · last yr.

Silicon Valley’s alliance with Donald Trump was a mask off moment and showed the world we can’t depend on US tech companies. For the past few months, I’ve been trying to get off US tech and I put together a guide so you find alternatives too. I hope you find it helpful!

The U. of Washington stripped its Director of Middle East Studies of his position for writing an email that said “Israeli actions tell us that they seek the destruction of the state, not just its ruling class” and that Iran had not been pursuing nuclear weapons. In other words, for stating facts.

University of Washington professor fired from director job after sending email criticizing Iran war

University of Washington professor fired from director job after sending email criticizing Iran war

Aria Fani of University of Washington’s Middle East Center is latest critic of Israel to lose position at US university

theguardian.com

NEW: Thomson Reuters, the media company which is also a data broker, has long provided personal data for ICE tools, according to documents obtained by 404 Media and sources. There are also indications its data is now part of the Palantir system ICE uses to find which neighborhoods to target.

How Thomson Reuters Powers ICE and Palantir

Thomson Reuters’ data, which can include peoples’ addresses and details on their ethnicity, is linked to tools used ICE.

404media.co

The fight against the University of Michigan–Los Alamos data center reveals the “political and planetary stakes” of AI and the threat of “tech-enhanced militarism,” @tisjune.bsky.social , @shreyachowdhary.bsky.social & @nathanckim.bsky.social write in #Academe:

AI as a War Issue, War as a Workers’ Issue

The fight against the University of Michigan–Los Alamos data center.

aaup.org

"Siliconization, technofascism, and their unbecomings" journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1... Thanks to Kavita Dattani, Manissa Maharawal, Daniela Rosner, @nassimparvin.bsky.social, @profgillian.bsky.social and @michelelancione.bsky.social @societyandspace.bsky.social @dukepress.bsky.social

🌉 IJURR at AAG 2026 | San Francisco Join us for the IJURR Lecture by Erin McElroy and explore our new Virtual Issue on San Francisco. Check it out 👇 www.ijurr.org/ijurr-at-the...

For those at the AAG, come say hi today! @ijurresearch.bsky.social "Technofeudal Fever Dreams: Silicon Fiefdoms, Doom Loop Dystopics, and the Emancipatory Posssibilities of Failure."

Palestinian activist Leqaa Kordia was released on bond Monday after more than a year in ICE detention.

Daily reminder that calling ai dead labor and stolen labor is literal.

Grammarly Offering Manuscript Reviews by AI Versions of Recently Deceased Professors

The Grammarly "Expert Review" feature uses AI to provide feedback on papers using the name and work of real professors, dead or alive.

futurism.com

This is a travesty. African and African Diaspora Studies at UT Austin has been one of the best programs in the country. And for historical context, this is explicitly about reversing the gains of student movements in the 60s and 70s. www.statesman.com/news/educati...

UT to consolidate gender and ethnic studies programs into one new department

Affected departments include those that focus on African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American Studies, Women and Gender Studies and American Studies.

statesman.com

ICE has now spent over half a BILLION dollars just on purchasing warehouses around the country to convert into detention camps. If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202...

ICE to begin detaining immigrants inside Social Circle warehouse in April

Homeland Security plans to build warehouse detention facilities in other cities being met with opposition.

ajc.com

📢Issue 11.3 out now! 2 Engagements, 2 ORAs + the Final Editorial of the 2020-25 ESTS Collective on the difference & promise of leading and running a diamond open access journal #ClimateChange #TransnationalSTS #Retooling #Openness #HousingJustice #OpenScience 👀https://bit.ly/3LoiLxT

Props to the developers behind ICE Map, cataloguing all known ICE incidents www.icemap.dev

New issue of ESTS out, including an interesting article by Luis Felipe R. Murillo and Erin McElroy @erinmcel.bsky.social on possibilities for creating “'political software' aligned with the goals of housing action research" estsjournal.org/index.php/es...

Journal of Engaging Science, Technology, and Society (ESTS)@estsjournal.bsky.social · 8mo ago

📢Issue 11.2 out now! 12 engagements from the thematic collection "Entangled Areas" on #STS & #SouthEastAsia in the #Anthropocene + the journal's editorial reflection on the collection ++ 1 ORA on the limits of standardization in police reporting 👀https://bit.ly/49RT8PW

Conflicting info about whether Pretti was murdered by ICE or CBP makes it clear that ICE is not single "rogue agency" ICE, CBP and ALL policing & borders must be abolished. This isn't just one agency; its an entire infrastructure of carceral control, illegalization & criminalization, and fascism.