Happy new year! One thing 2025 is making me realize is that it's important to say things and to keep saying them, loudly. Like that the idea that we overdid diversity and equity in education is crap. We still haven't done enough by far.

This might be too spicy for a teaching statement but I needed to get the words out before I could actually say what I wanted to say.

"We are all humanists now." With excellent analysis of edtech, public-private partnerships, honest assessment that this isn't just about one party, surveillance and monetization through LMSs, and plans to gamify them. We're all K-16 too now, as they say.

You know what holds up and is an excellent rewatch? Panic Room.

No woman I know in academia would be surprised by this, but its good to see it documented like this, I guess.

A narrative from a faculty member on the current escalation of ICE activity in Columbus. Please see the list of resources at the end for ways to get involved with orgs doing the work on the ground.

a lot of people are aware that you can factor 2025 = 45² i'm honored to announce the factorization 2026 = (45-i)(45+i)

The AAUP-Ohio State executive board condemns ICE escalation in our communities. We urge our members and all who love democracy to do what they can in this moment. Here’s a statement from the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. ohioimmigrant.org/blog/2025/12...

Teaching people, do you know a service for old-fashioned print course packets? Thinking about how to encourage students to read off-screen. How to do it for the short material you provide in PDF? I usually do a custom e-reader, but it works through an app that deliberately makes printing out hard.

This is one of the best political analyses I've seen in a long time. Great anthropological piece about "Cassandras" (and their pernicious foil, "anti-alarmists"). Also just really good writing.

Look at The Barbara Johnson Collective’s positively gorgeous TOC, folks! ✨

Quick list so you can, you know, resist and purchase them

"Universities have accepted overtures from this industry in a FOMO-driven frenzy w/o consulting their faculty, collecting empirical data on whether generative AI is pedagogically useful, or pausing to inquire about the long-term impact of AI on the students who have been entrusted to their care."

Nothing worse than signing an email "warm regards" and getting a reply with "warmest regards". Oh, now it's ON.

“There is much that is right about what we are doing in higher education—as teachers, researchers, community advocates, and mentors—and we should not lose sight of that when the discourse of the day would seem to put us permanently on the defensive.” ❤️

supreme court to decide whether part of constitution is part of constitution

It starts with knowing the truth. Don’t allow yourselves to be gaslit into believing this is a real question.

I had an interesting set of interactions w AI-generated content that I think is instructive. A very bright student made a claim in an essay that struck me as outlandish, so I searched the question on Google which turned up that phrasing the search a certain way makes the AI summary agree w the claim

I wrote an essay for @bostonreview.bsky.social about what I learned about close reading when I taught at West Virginia University www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

Honored to receive the 2026 American Physical Society Edward A. Bouchet Award! To see how the DEI ban in Ohio influences our university, please see the OSU announcement of the award (left) vs the actual APS citation for the award (right).

Standing room only on the Green Line in Washington, DC as protestors head to the “No Kings” protest. Person behind me: “The trains weren’t even this packed for the Beyoncé concert” The entire train is full as more people pack on. Follow this thread for updates!

A reminder that our digital panels will be the only good thing on the Lord's internet on Nov 7 & 8!

Very bad: OSU unilaterally cancelled the registration of grad students attending the joint conference of the National Society of Black Physicists and the National Society of Hispanic Physicists. And OSU won't fund recruiting at the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science.

My publisher’s been very patient. I’m not doing everything I said I’d do to promote this book (out in a few weeks) because I’m an organizer in a city under federal attack. My days are full and emotionally exhausting. Any help getting the word out means a lot. It's a book people need right now.

I wrote a little about some of the little details you might have missed in this video and why it hit me so hard as a trans person this morning: www.burnsnotice.com/you-have-to-...

IDK, man. School started 2 weeks ago for us, and once again students remind me that they’re so curious and interested in the world and anxious to ask big questions. We hear that these questions are no longer useful or relevant, but wherever that’s coming from, it’s not what students believe.

week 7, in a city under siege for 32 days and counting, and the students who are able to come to class despite the blitz are showing up like their lives depend on those 50 minutes of togetherness, poetry, and big questions

Anthropic has settled a $1.5B class-action lawsuit brought by authors for copyright infringement. The settlement relates to 500,000 titles. Affected authors are each entitled to $3K in payout. My book's on there. Here's where to check if yours is too. www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com

My latest in my fight against the Washington Post. I’ve filed a grievance against the Post through the WaPo Guild— and have sent a letter to Washington Post challenging my firing. Proud to have @normeisen.bsky.social + @katiephang.bsky.social in my corner. karenattiah.substack.com/p/the-washin...

An enormous legal victory for @aaup.org, MESA, and the Rutgers, NYU, and Harvard chapters of AAUP, in a case that Judge Young describes as "perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court."

Some news.

Our university’s president was forced to resign. Our student publication responded. thebatt.com/opinion/edit...

Yesterday, Apple made the decision to pull The Savant from its release schedule due to politically sensitive topics. Now the show’s star Jessica Chastain speaks out: ‘We’re not aligned on the decision to pause the release.’

can't wait!

I took Tylenol as needed throughout my pregnancy. I am a doctor. I order Tylenol for pregnant women regularly. Tylenol is safe in pregnancy. RFK Jr is ignoring a huge recent well-done study because he doesn't like the answer it gives. There is no causality between Tylenol and autism.

New from me: There's a lot of misinformation around the reasons I was fired from WaPo. Here's the official termination letter I got sent by Washington Post. Read and judge for yourself. open.substack.com/pub/karenatt...

It won't get better. OpenAI's more advanced models produce *more* hallucinations. The proposed solution: more human involvement (...hmm)

identifying themes is precisely what I tell undergraduates not to do

Y'all are simply unprepared for me.

blurb: "Along the way, she calls on us to resist colonial approaches to space exploration and instead imagine a better path forward in our pursuit of humanity’s undeniable connection with the stars."

‘It feels like a betrayal.’ Ohio college students experiencing effects of new higher education law ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/08/25/i...

One of the things that drives me up the wall is when people say students “need to learn how to use AI” to succeed in the workplace. It is EXTREMELY EASY to use a chatbot. That’s the whole point of it! You do not need training to type in the box! What are you even TALKING about?? +

So my employer's little team is playing my alma mater today, and I feel dead inside about it.

you really couldn't make many movies from 40-50 years ago today. this is due to the unavailability of certain discontinued film stocks and the deaths of many principal actors, directors, and other various crew members

sunday mid-august is just about the sundayest. balm for the sundays: this solidarity guide to back-to-school support against the AI assault against-a-i.com

Just in time to welcome students to campus… President Carter & OSU admin continue the assault on free speech by banning the time honored tradition of chalking on campus. Whether governments or administrators, once they start rolling back free speech, they don’t stop. fod.osu.edu/news/2025/08...

Periodic reminder that the Humanities are often financially in the black due to lower overhead. Also freshmen composition/communication courses are cash cows for universities and that $ is often “disappeared” from the discussions of English or Rhet Comp budgets and needs.

As an English prof gearing up for the semester, I’ve been thinking a lot about getting students not to use AI, what the constructive (not just miserable) path forward is, and why not using it is a good choice in the first place. Some thoughts below. I’d love to hear what others think.