Last chance to find something to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day 2025!

The College Board has run a massive campaign to disparage “grade inflation,” and it has won. While GPAs have increased in parallel for PoC, SAT scores typically favor rich, white/Asian, men over black/Latino, low-income, first-gen women (Hur. & Lee, “Grade Inflation…,” 2018, Figs. 3.9 & 3.10).

After years of advocacy and growing awareness of Columbus’s human rights abuses, some states and cities switched to celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day. Now, we are witnessing the backlash to that modicum of change. Full post on my substack now:

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day! 💖 If you’re in the Boston area today, check out MFA Boston for me — free admission, basket weaving lessons, and dancing.

Many of these are the aims for education outlined in Project 2025. Be aware.

A policy expert described Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s push in favor of private schools as a “great American heist,” funneling money from public schools: “It’s a strategic theft of the future of our country, our kids and our democracy.” By @megomatz.bsky.social & @jsmithrichards.bsky.social

Started the day right with Paul Tough’s THE YEARS THAT MATTER MOST / THE INEQUALITY MACHINE. #AcademicSky #BookSky

“Columbus Day” only became federally recognized in the early twentieth century to fix relations between the U.S. + Italy after lynch mobs killed Italian-Americans. As a Cherokee-Italian American, I’m so tired of this argumentum ad antiquitatem. Celebrate Enrico Fermi instead. Hell, Sinatra.

This case was stayed on July 10 but both parties were required to file a joint status report by this past Wednesday. Fingers are crossed that it’s set back in motion and justice is served soon.

BREAKING NEWS: MIT is the first college to formally reject Trump’s higher education compact, citing that they meet/exceed most of the expectations already set forth + that they are not interested in having their free speech/expression restricted. #AcademicSky #BreakingNews

TCU Chief Dull Knife College (on the Northern Cheyenne rez) & Blackfeet Community College have been denied TRIO funding, which helps first-gen, low-income, and/or disabled students. This funding pays for programs like Upward Bound and Veterans Upward Found. #AcademicSky #TribalCollege

They don’t want it perfect. They want it by Friday. #AcademicSky

Some things I saw recently that I think are cool (Native American jewelry edition): — Neil Zarama. New Ralph Lauren collab coming (IG whirlinglog_and_arrow) — Troy Oviedo (IG troyoviedo) 😮‍💨 — Falcon Trading Company (IG ftcjewelry) — Samuel Sumpter (IG nabaahii_bizhiil_creations)

Every time I see this gif, I think of @thehallucination.bsky.social’s “Sisters” (feat. Northern Voices). 🎧: open.spotify.com/track/6ZzHtu...

I must not be a people-pleaser. People-pleasing is the mind-killer. People-pleasing is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my people-pleasing. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

Hey, babes — what are you doing for Indigenous Peoples Day? With over 100 events, ICTNews might have some ideas. ⤵️ #NativeAmerican

After having a member of faculty yell at me on Thursday, #NorthOfNorth has been the escape that I *need.* What good indigenous shows, films, or books are you binging right now? I need more comfort. 😭

This blog post posits that higher education is becoming devalued because of “male flight” — men leaving industries as large numbers of women enter (similar to white flight). For every 1% increase in the proportion of women in the student body, 1.7 fewer men applied. #AcademicSky

Relatable #AcademicChatter #PoorlyDrawnLines

School is not a service to be consumed. School is meant to create democratic efficiency, yes, but it is also meant to inculcate self-actualization in our students + create solidarity by exposing them to different people. Private schools are typically homogenous and homeschooling, isolated. #EduSky

Yeah, The Life of a Showgirl is super good, innit? I especially loved the blue tiger.

“…the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” — Audre Lorde

Alaska vowed to resolve the murders of Indigenous people. But when one nonprofit asked state law enforcement officials for a fundamental piece of data — a list of Indigenous murders they’d investigated — the state said no. By @kylehopkinsak.bsky.social, w/ @adn.com

"Unprecedented." "This isn't us." Please read a book. Try Joanne Barker's 2021 "Red Scare: the State's Indigenous Terrorist," to start. On pages 28-29: "In 1703..the Massachusetts Bay Colony offered.. between 250 and 300 pounds for Indian scalps." (1/4)

Hey, babes, wake up. A new violation of the Hatch Act just dropped.

This past week was so much. We’ve gotta talk ribbon skirts, internship opportunities, issues with a faculty member, and continued federal-on-tribal college nonsense. This past week was too much. But for right now? Right now we start #NorthOfNorth.

The naturalist Jane Goodall died today at 91. Hope, she argued, is not merely “passive wishful thinking” but a “crucial survival trait.” Revisit a conversation with Goodall, from 2021: nyer.cm/F55JtsS

Spent all day at work, but I got halfway through my (long overdue) Culturally Sustaining pedagogies reading. My biggest annoyance? They rail against racism (yay!) while using unqualified slurs and/or argumentative fallacies (boo!). I know people aren’t perfect, but who is editing these articles?

@chronicle.com coming in hot this morning with a breakdown of what the federal government shutdown means for higher ed: - Student aid disbursements still ok. - Grant funding stops for now. - DoE staff furloughed. - Civil-rights investigations stalled. - Delays with visa eligibility. #AcademicSky

Attended @universityofri.bsky.social’s lecture “What’s Public about Public Education?” in their honors colloquium, “Education, Behind the Curtains.” Loved the idea that school is for efficiency (social mobility/democracy), for self-actualization, and for solidarity.

September Native News Roundup is out today. News from Palestine, repeating history, federal cuts hit tribal radio and Native students, plus resources for supporting Trans folks. Read and subscribe:

Hey, #AcademicSky, if you’re scrolling Bluesky, pause for a moment and add three sentences to your current writing project. ✨

Today is the National Day for Truth & Reconciliation, a day to remember the effect of the Canadian Indian residential schools on First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people. Don’t forget to wear orange!

Started the day off by finishing Caroline Fraser’s MURDERLAND: CRIME AND BLOODLUST IN THE TIME OF SERIAL KILLERS. A lyrical investigation into the connection between pollution and murder. #Reading #Books

Loving Mary Isabell’s SEARCHING FOR WONDER: TEACHING LITERATURE WITH STUDENT-SELECTED TEXTS open-source book. Spending the rest of today daydreaming how I can apply it to the interdisciplinary humanities course I’m helping teach now. #AcademicSky #EduSky Check it out yourself ⤵️

Congrats to Sacramento State’s brand new Wileety Native American College & best of luck to its inaugural cohort of 34. I love that Wileety is named after a Mohawk word meaning “to bloom, to shine, to be bright.” #AcademicSky

“They cannot outlaw our ability to gather, to build, to resist, and to love. Our legacy is not theirs to give or take.” Minoritized students are now shouldering the burden of providing focused programming and support, as state lawmakers pressure universities to strip away programs. #AcademicSky

It’s my favorite time of the week: Homework over mocktails and football! Glad to be done with the research for this week’s news for Current Issues in Higher Ed. Picking up my Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy readings again tomorrow. #StudySky #GradSky

Awarding scientific grants based on scientific merit? That pales in comparison to my strategy, giving grants based on political loyalty www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Halfway through Pueblo of Isleta v. Burgum. Students were being forced to work to keep food services running — w/o pay. A junior was emptying the feminine hygiene products bins. Financial aid hadn’t been disbursed by March, with the necessary offices shuttered + employees fired. What a mess.

In his new book, EQUITY LEARNING COMMUNITIES, Daniel L. Reinholz provides concrete strategies for making higher education instruction more equitable via professional learning groups. Find out more by watching this video clip: https://bit.ly/474aQyg

Hey, #StudySky slash #AcademySky, what’s your favorite subject or class?

Reading the legal complaint for Pueblo of Isleta v. Burgum is, in a word, infuriating. Haskell Univ + Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute each lost about a quarter of their staff. Power outages. Unsanitary cafeterias + bathrooms. No Resident Assistants or Student Success/academic advising.

Spending the rest of this afternoon reading some culturally sustaining pedagogy materials + the legal complaint for Pueblo of Isleta v. Burgum about Bureau of Indian Education-Run college staffing. #AcademicSky #StudySky

“‘You can’t stop a country from happening, Good Stab.’ ”‘But we were already a nation,’ he said up to me. ‘We didn’t ask you to come.’” — @sgj.bsky.social, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter #WoundedKnee #IndigenousHistory

[Heads up for racism/misogyny quoted below.] Claiming that the soldiers at Wounded Knee are American heroes is in keeping with the administration’s funding cuts for BIE postsecondary programs, the NPS removal of indigenous history, and DoJ interest in repealing the Snyder Act. They don’t like us.