“Integrity and grace are qualities we might cultivate in this season of peace, forgiveness, and education. The semester is young, and we have much to learn. Shana tova!” www.wesleyan.edu/about/news/2...

Suzanne Nossel “Whether it emanates from social justice warriors or right-wing influencers, the result of outsized consequences for speech is the same: a society deprived of open discourse and ruled by fear” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/o...

Leaders of these sectors are practicing appeasement and complicity under the guise of neutrality time.com/7272520/appe...

When educational leaders offer bromides about learning while ignoring the most serious assault on free speech and academic freedom in 100 years, are they being neutral or complicit? @theatlantic.com @lioneltrolling.bsky.social @aacu.org @aceducation.bsky.social @nytopinion.nytimes.com @chronicle.com

Robert Corn Revere of @thefireorg.bsky.social "The saddest irony is the exploitation of Kirk, who advocated for free speech and died practicing it, as a pretext for censorship. So, of course, Constitution Day was a fitting occasion for Carr to trash the First Amendment. wapo.st/4gsUn9k

Justin Driver: “it is precisely when universities are most under siege that they must safeguard their core commitments.” The siege is well underway, and one can only hope that university leaders, faculty members and students will consult this worthy book." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/b...

Read @jamellebouie.net We can mourn Kirk. We can send prayers to his friends and family. We can take stock of the gravity of this event. We can — and should — do all of this and more without pretending he was something, as a public figure, that he was not.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/13/o...

Judith Butler:"It is important to refuse the notion that this is just how things are..invoking a feckless realpolitik that justifies complicity with a brutal & rising authoritarianism. It is time to resist the injustice that now threatens to be normalized" www.chronicle.com/article/when...

My take “We don’t want the government thinking for us, telling us what the president’s priorities are so that we can imitate them. We want to learn to think for ourselves in the company of others, leaving behind a dependence on authority." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

My thoughts on this sad day: “Those who choose violence destroy the possibility of learning and meaning. Mr. Kirk’s murder on a college campus is an assault on all of us in education.” www.wesleyan.edu/about/news/2...

“What is a museum if it can’t stand up for artists and can’t stand up for political and cultural reflection? It feels core to what the museum should be able to do.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/a...

Tomorrow we start classes at @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social (I'm teaching Virtue and Vice). We'll continue "to practice freedom in the service of learning." players.brightcove.net/225767975400...

Read @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social “Donald Trump is corrupting the government — he is using it to hound his enemies, to line his pockets and to entrench his own power. He is corrupting it the way the Mafia would corrupt the industries it controlled.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/o...

"What is at stake in the recent conflicts between the current...administration &institutional efforts to protect the autonomy to shape their own curricula? In our case, nothing less than our nation’s most dearly held values, including religious freedom" www.americamagazine.org/faith-and-re...

Sophie Becker '16 is no dummy & just so @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social! “When I got Jerry home, I was afraid of him,” “But one night I got back from a party and decided to pick him up. I made his eyes move, and he came to life. I wasn’t afraid of him anymore.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/s...

“Hitler was supposed to continue as a ridiculous figure, and then he would somehow disappear from the scene…His father’s attitude began to change as their neighbor consolidated control over the country” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/w...

No question, @gmupres.bsky.social is a #highered hero “They are literally investigating me for what they call offenses I made back in 2020, 2021…It’s like changing the speed limit and charging you for speeding four years ago.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/u...

Read Kevin Sack “Trump aims to sand down..some of the more inglorious episodes of American history…involving racial & ethnic subjugation, to feed the ravenous maw of white grievance that fuels so much of today’s political discourse” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/o... @nytopinion.nytimes.com

Todd Shy's lovely essay:"Life seems far away when you’re young. What can you do? Thoreau’s answer is quiet and wise: You can take your time, and you can listen. Wait for the distant music that draws your attention. It’s going to take some work to be attentive. Do that work" slate.com/life/2025/09...

See: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/o... & judge’s ruling “difficult to conclude anything other than that defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/u...

In Vichy France, university leaders pointed our that the Nazi defeat of their country should be an opportunity to restore faith in education after a period of decadence. @lioneltrolling.bsky.social @aacu.org @aaup.org @aceducation.bsky.social @theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

9 CDC Directors going back to 1977 speak out. What RFK Jr has done to our nation’s public health system "should alarm every American." It "is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

The assault on civil society: “Trump did not invent this playbook,” said Thomas M. Countryman…”It depends on the squelching of all independent centers of thought, and that includes universities, law firms and scientists.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/s...

“I wonder if the general misery & disconnection all around is partly..When the culture encourages people to idolize the needs of the self —to focus on self-actualization, self-esteem, self-display —that doesn’t produce strong people but needy, touchy & insecure ones” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/o...

[email protected] “With so little to offer, I told them once again what Mr. Rogers’s mother told him: In the face of tragedy, look toward the helpers. That’s where we see goodness & sacrifice, and these give us hope. Let there be light, &let it begin with me.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/o...

“Based on what we earn, we see different ads, stand in different lines, eat different food, stay in different hotels, watch the parade from different sections, and on and on. What’s profitable today is not unification. It’s segmentation.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/o...

Enjoyed talking with Sam Harris about #highered & #freespeech but still surprised by how panic about wokeness remains so potent even when confronted with an authoritarian White House. samharris.substack.com/p/making-sen...

Read @danagoldstein.bsky.social ‬⁩ “The administration is using the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which was established to protect racial and ethnic minority groups, to try to end programs meant to help some of those same students.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/u...

“Nor should we accept arguments that because Hamas is the primary reason many Gazans are either starving or on the verge of starving, that the Jewish State is not also culpable in this human disaster.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/u...

Read @alanfeuer.bsky.social & ask when does governmental vindictiveness become authoritarianism…fascism?When is there still time to stop this process? @mollyjongfast.bsky.social @aaup.org @thefireorg.bsky.social @aacu.org @aceducation.bsky.social nytimes.com/2025/08/24/n... via @nytimes.com

Anthony Appiah relevant to so much: "This isn’t a matter of shirking your duties; it’s a matter of stewarding your capacity to assist." www.nytimes.com/2025/08/23/m...

The new fascist govt officials want George Mason’s president to say 2 + 2 = 5. #Orwell www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/u...

Beverly Gage quotes Hofstadter “It is rare for an American intellectual to confront candidly the unresolvable conflict between the elite character of his own class and his democratic aspirations,” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/b...

Leadership powerfully expressed ⁦‪Mayor David Holt “Sometimes this language is cloaked in patriotism, but it is really just repackaged bigotry, misogyny and racism. To cast equal opportunity as a threat rather than a goal is to move backward.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/o... @nytopinion.nytimes.com

Read @epress.bsky.social "all of this is being done under the pretext of protecting Jews, who alone are entitled to protections that other groups apparently don’t merit. It is hard to imagine a more effective way to breed anti-Jewish animus." @newyorker.com www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

"I would say the fact there is a public debate about the future of American higher education has no relationship whatsoever to what actions that the administration is taking." lol @chronicle.com www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

“while Ms. Halligan does not have experience in the museum sector…[she]has competed in the Miss Colorado USA pageant…[and]her confidence and discipline came from a background participating in pageants and sports like basketball.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/a... via @nytimes.com

Adam Sitze: “We’re also called upon to say why the university deserves its immunity from state power, and what kind of body the university is such that those freedoms are essential to it.” www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

All about the GLEICHSCHALTUNG “the review “aims to ensure alignment with the president’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/a...

Authoritarians need ‘neutral’ leaders “The “review “aims to ensure alignment with the president’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives &restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/a... via @NYTimes

Authoritarianism is not about academic personality conflicts. We can’t claim to value neutrality, freedom of inquiry & speech if we only pursue truths that don’t annoy the administration. Education should encourage practices of freedom—not tyranny. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Like #highered, it’s not about being “too woke” it’s about authoritarianism: “Industry leaders have been left with little choice but to grovel for a presidential reprieve with financial promises and gifts” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/t...

The “neutrality” leaders want for us nothing less than what Heidegger wanted for Germany in 1933: the self-assertion of the American University! www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

“the federal government is willing to not obey the laws& a lawless federal government is very frightening..If someone pays a ransom to get their kid back from a kidnapper, I don’t criticize the parents for making a deal…It’s the kidnappers that deserve our criticism.” www.cnn.com/2025/08/11/u...

“Trump has often taken a paradoxical approach to education, pushing to diminish the federal government’s role, even as he tries to wield its power….he has often used federal funding as a..tool to get schools &universities on board with his agenda” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/08/09/u...

Read Prof Igor Mazin www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

Read @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social “We’re creating a generation of public servants who can’t feel completely secure when they’re out in public, who wonder if they’re safe in their own homes and who fret constantly about their siblings, spouses and children.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/07/o...

My thoughts on Gaza and Jewish traditions in TIME magazine this morning. time.com/7307712/jewi...