I’ve been screening our documentary with organizing communities in the South. So far, the organizers mention data centers first at every single event. From racial justice orgs to old school activists who don’t usually think about tech policy. This has legs.

Ruth Wilson Gilmore said, “Researchers spend too much time either proving trivial things or beating back hostile critiques, and activists devote immense resources to fighting scandals rather than sources.”

Congratulations to everyone who worked their asses off for something that any semi-decent and ultimately self-interested government should have done in penance www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/b...

Education Dept. to Wipe Out Student Loans of 170,000 More Defrauded Borrowers (Gift Article)

The sprawling case, centered on students defrauded by for-profit schools, has now become the largest class-action settlement in American history.

nytimes.com

“The litigation has revealed a clear pattern: Uber’s lawyers scour women’s private communications, medical records, therapy notes …They grill the women about those issues, their sex lives and their behavior on the night of the incident.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/b...

Uber’s Strategy for Fighting Sexual Assault Suits: ‘What Were You Wearing?’

The ride-hailing giant promised to handle legal claims “in a way that is best for the survivor.” Its lawyers are pursuing a far more aggressive strategy.

nytimes.com

*taps sign*

Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD MA@arrianna-planey.bsky.social · 2mo ago

There's an animating principle that public health practice is keeping people alive who should not be allowed to exist.

The politics of desert = eugenics by another name

NPR@npr.org · yesterday

Conservatives who have long pushed for Medicaid work requirements often said vulnerable people would get a pass. But the federal government's list of exemptions left off homeless people. n.pr/4w4pkH0

During Reconstruction, “taxpayer” used against Black people. Toni Morrison said, “If you are only a taxpayer, you are worried about who’s got some money that you pay...You don’t want the government to, you know, distribute its own resources that are based on taxes to anybody. You’re sort of angry.”

USA TODAY Opinion@usatodayopinion.usatoday.com · 2d ago

Opinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.

Except for religious studies, the graduates of these "loan ineligible" majors are disproportionately women. Fans of this policy have probably never considered that social worker, cosmetician, teachers aide, etc might be low-paying jobs *because* women do them. newrepublic.com/post/213446/...

3/ Working with this administration is a value-laden activity (not a sort of neutral realism) that ignores the reality of the administration’s policies, their consequences, and intent. It says that the administration has a point when it undermines of science and pushes for segregation. 

This is the tragic yet logical result of a decades-long project—undertaken by rightwing politicians and “business-minded” administrators alike—to distort the meaning of higher education, to deny the intrinsic value of the pursuit of knowledge, to deprive us all of richer, more purposeful lives.

The New Republic@newrepublic.com · 2d ago

President Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v

I have been wanting this to exist for so long!!! now I’m mad I virtuously updated my dates early (because I was avoiding the other decisions)!!! but here is a gift to the rest of you

Le Cagle@lecagle.bsky.social · last yr.

...it's almost that time, folks wcaleb.rice.edu/syllabusmake...

this piece connects the AAU letter and the new loan limits on “low-paying” degrees. Our state institutions (and others) are out ahead of this, already terminating programs in part based on ostensible workforce studies of the return to degrees

David Kaye@davidakaye.bsky.social · 2d ago

the department of education today issued a 'national call to action' - which, in plain english, is a call for capitulation to trump administration's assault on higher ed. www.ed.gov/media/docume... note how this doc deploys recent yale & vanderbilt reports

the department of education today issued a 'national call to action' - which, in plain english, is a call for capitulation to trump administration's assault on higher ed. www.ed.gov/media/docume... note how this doc deploys recent yale & vanderbilt reports

So no I'm not surprised by: "the administration’s latest move was developed in partnership with university leaders, primarily the Association of American Universities, which represents dozens of top research institutions including all eight Ivy League colleges." 🎁 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

McMahon Asks US Colleges to Pledge Campus Reforms by End of 2026

Education Secretary Linda McMahon is sending a letter Monday to the leaders of US universities asking them to commit to a slate of campus reforms by the end of 2026 in the Trump administration’s lates...

bloomberg.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

Four university presidents, "Andrew Martin at Washington University in St. Louis, Michael Crow at Arizona State University, Douglas Girod at the University of Kansas, & Ronald Daniels at the Johns Hopkins University" collaborated in the latest attack on higher ed. www.chronicle.com/liveblog/her...

Trump Has Released a New ‘Call to Action’ for Universities. 4 College Presidents Helped Draft It.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent a letter Monday imploring colleges to adopt a series of familiar-sounding reforms — this time, in partnership with leaders in the Association of American Univers...

chronicle.com

First came framing loan caps as protecting students by pressuring universities to keep costs down, with the likely outcome of pushing low-income students out of school. Here’s another policy framed as “helping,” but again premised on exclusion-- protecting students from "low-return” jobs

The New Republic@newrepublic.com · 2d ago

President Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v

President Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v

Trump Moves to Cut Off Student Loans for Tons of Degrees

Under a new rule, if your degree doesn’t make enough money, you won’t be able to get a student loan.

trib.al

"Enrollment data posted on archives of Illinois Tech’s website show a loss of approximately 1,200 international graduate students between the fall of 2024 and 2025 — a significant decline for a school that enrolled 7,500 students overall last year."

Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · 4d ago

today in demolishing higher ed is economic sabotage, bonus racism 160 workers fired because regime hates international students www.wbez.org/education/20...

The endpoint of “too big to fail” is “we have to let it eat the whole world, or the whole world collapses”

The Irish Times@irishtimes.com · 7mo ago

AI boom could falter without wider adoption, Microsoft chief Satya Nadella warns

here is another response to “well AI is good at ___” —the race to make LLMs the omniscient multitool is diverting resources and attention from the bespoke models like this protein folder, because a) most people don’t know the difference and b) this is about selling a product.

Dan McQuillan@danmcquillan.bsky.social · 5d ago

AlphaFold was always bait-and-switch; now Google confirms it. A hyper-narrow bioinformatrics model with actual science bolted on whose guesses can be experimentally checked was never a licence for socially-applied slop at scale, but it's done its job. Effort transferred to LLMs.

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...

Bordeaux, France, has now recorded more days above 40°C in 2026 alone than during the entire 105-year period from 1920 (when observations began) to 2025. This is deeply shocking.

Ameaka Fatima Nkempu, a Johns Hopkins University researcher in public health, was detained by ICE while boarding a domestic flight. She says she is Cameroonian in a Medium article that she authored. As of Thursday morning, the ICE Online Detainee Locator did not list where she was being held.

Baltimore Banner@thebaltimorebanner.com · 6d ago

ICE detains Hopkins public health researcher as agency expands airport arrests

“To demand that the AAUP remain silent about the political attack on academia is ridiculous. To demand that the AAUP should do nothing to fight for academic freedom is wrong.” #academicsky

Critics of the AAUP and the Delusions of Neutrality

The AAUP is not and must not be neutral in defense of academic freedom.

insidehighered.com

quoted in this piece on how LA governor’s antidemocratic campaign against New Orleans mirrors practices in other states-- www.nola.com/news/politic...

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s tough stance on New Orleans mirrors other red-state governors

Landry joins other red-state governors in taking a tough approach to Democratic-controlled cities. Critics say it’s political point-scoring; Landry says it’s time the city was held responsible for mis...

nola.com

Y’all. They signed papers in early January and then decided not to come to school before classes started. There’s no world where the conditions under which they signed these papers, decided not to attend school, and get sued for a combined $1 million is anything other than straight up exploitation.

Mississippi Free Press@mississippifreepress.org · 5d ago

The lawsuits were filed against edge rusher Princewill Umanmielen and offensive lineman Devin Harper. The university seeks $550,000 from Umanmielen and $400,000 from Harper, according to the lawsuits filed Monday in Lafayette County Circuit Court in Oxford, Mississippi. buff.ly/PUrb8nE

There are a lot of important things going on. Maybe this isn’t a top twenty concern. But, this is actually workplace harassment, the kind that can get people killed.

@carmenlynn.bsky.social · 5d ago

The Koch Nazis are back “A shadowy network of conservative activist groups, backed by Koch-linked dark money, is deploying hidden cameras and mass public-records requests to hunt down and destroy the careers of college professors and administrators — and it's working.”

ca. 2018 I attended a planning consultant community presentation on their 200-p report on problems with Knoxville's zoning code, then the smaller presentation the next am, where the same presenter told attending “stakeholders” (developers) she had only read Knoxville’s code the previous day

Derek Gottlieb@derekgottliebphd.com · 5d ago

WE’RE not cutting things because we WANT to! The very sober deliberative experts at the CUTTING factory were kind enough to take our case, and to all of our disappointment, this is just what they think is best.

See my work on this topic: jbam.scholasticahq.com/article/1516...