Taking a knee to protest racial injustice is considered a serious offense, so it logically follows that raising a fist to salute insurrectionists is commendable. Got it.

“The Trump administration doesn’t appear to have the law on its side, but if universities start following the College Board’s lead, what the law says might not matter. The era of race-neutral diversity efforts could be over before it begins.” @rosehorowitch.bsky.social @theatlantic.com

Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland to feel brunt of Trump’s new $100K visa fee

I’m getting more of a “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.” ethos coming from the White House.

As federal funds wane, NPR ruefully clashes with CPB My story for NPR: www.npr.org/2025/09/27/n...

Jeremy Strong will star in Aaron Sorkin’s sequel to “The Social Network” and all I can picture is him wearing the “Dear Evan Hansen” movie wig…

"Despite the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on colleges and universities, American confidence in higher education is growing." @insidehighered.com #HigherEd

Over the next three years, Wesleyan University will lead “Renewing Democracy’s Promise,” an initiative to strengthen democratic culture at a moment when polarization is testing communities. We begin in Nov. with “Dialogue for Change: From Conflict to Action" led by Provost Nicole Stanton. #HigherEd

Me: forever mad about the FBI’s surveillance, propaganda, violent work to destroy everyone from Du Bois to BLM Also me: people need to understand what is happening to Comey is bad, big bad. It’s the both/and. Sometimes I think the hardest work for educators and media is to explain nuance/context

BREAKING Troy Edwards, James Comey’s son-in-law, has resigned from the Department of Justice. Edward’s as a prosecutor in the same office that just indicted his father-in-law.

Over the next three years, Wesleyan University will lead “Renewing Democracy’s Promise,” an initiative to strengthen democratic culture at a moment when polarization is testing communities. We begin in Nov. with “Dialogue for Change: From Conflict to Action" led by Provost Nicole Stanton. #HigherEd

Ready for a night of Chappell Roan. Escapism at its best! 🦄✨🪩

One thing we've learned in the last 12 hours: The Sinclair-Nexstar ban on Kimmel, in terms of his reach, means nothing in an era when late-night shows have an afterlife or simultaneous life on streaming. Kimmel's average audience is 1.6M. On YouTube, last night's monologue is already at 8.4M views.

The Trump administration "wants to pick and choose what the news is. I know that's not as interesting as muzzling a comedian, but it's so important to have a free press. And it is nuts that we aren't paying more attention to it." -- Jimmy Kimmel last night www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1tj... (15:35)

Another thing that comes through here is that Sunstein just absolutely refuses to take racists at their word. If someone espouses free markets and white supremacy than the free markets are foundational to their philosophy and the white supremacy must be incidental. www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

“Civility is a fantasy, because our political discourse never happens in a vacuum. It happens in the beautiful mess of the real world. It is naïve, at best, to believe civility is more important than who we are, what we stand for and how.” @roxanegay.bsky.social @nytimeses.nytimes.com

So great

For those that couldn’t watch Jimmy Kimmel tonight, the first half is up on YouTube. youtu.be/c1tjh_ZO_tY

Jimmy Kimmel: "A government threat to silence a comedian the government doesn't like is anti-American."

Not shocked, but certainly saddened. The Kennedy Center has turned into a national disgrace…

New William Hogarth exhibit opening at Wesleyan University. “Sex work, substance abuse, animal ethics, the corruptibility of elections, family politics, and the precarity of life within capitalism—the social issues and moral quandaries of Hogarth's time—cast their long shadows onto our own world.”

New William Hogarth exhibit opening at Wesleyan University. “Sex work, substance abuse, animal ethics, the corruptibility of elections, family politics, and the precarity of life within capitalism—the social issues and moral quandaries of Hogarth's time—cast their long shadows onto our own world.”

"Too many..Jewish organizations like the AJC & the ADL have cheered the Trump administration’s crackdown on higher ed in the name of “fighting antisemitism”, ignoring the way in which this crackdown is falling heavily on Jews deemed to have the wrong politics." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The closing line from this @nytimes.com is parody, yes? “The actor and director Ben Stiller celebrated the news with three raised hands emojis.”

"The turn toward conversation is a move to understand and perhaps learn from those with whom we have significant differences. It’s not always easy, but it can be done with integrity and grace…qualities we might cultivate in this season of peace, forgiveness, and education." @msroth.bsky.social

Keri Russell says she’s “honored” to depict a civil servant in “The Diplomat”: “I just feel like they’re this invisible army of our world right now, of our country especially.” #TAF25 bit.ly/3IkhDd9

Weeks after Harvard University won a lawsuit to free up federal research dollars the Trump administration had canceled, the Education Department is making it harder for Harvard to get federal student aid money.

Disney’s former CEO on Disney’s current CEO and other industry leaders.

“Texas A&M University’s president will step down after facing criticism over his handling of turmoil over a children’s literature course that recognized more than two genders, the university’s Board of Regents announced on Thursday.” #HigherEd

We’re searching for TWO tenure-track cognitive neuroscientists here in the Wesleyan University Psychology Department! Apply here wesleyan.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/careers

“We are aware of the danger inherent in an administration full of people comfortable using antisemitic tropes while using purported anti-antisemitism as a cudgel to attack free speech, the most sacrosanct of American values.” #HigherEd

NYC, if this makes you angry, come to the New Yorkers Against ICE rally on 9/25 at Foley Square!

Ah. Yes. That free speech thing MAGA cares so deeply about. “It is no surprise that the Trump administration continues to retaliate against me for my exercise of free speech. Their latest attempt, through a kangaroo immigration court, exposes their true colors once again.”

Have been thinking about continuing relevance of Dada artist George Grosz's political critiques. His scathing 1926 painting "Eclipse of the Sun" portrays alliance between feckless political & military leaders and capitalist financiers. Grosz, branded "degenerate" by the Nazis, fled to the US in 1933

The “owning the libs” strategy is fooling people into walking off the cliff of democracy. Once gone, it may take a generation to build back, if at all. But that sentiment didn’t sway voters. Lord knows what will…but will it matter, or will we have lost the American experiment?

The easiest explanation is that the people deciding to capitulate are doing it because they want to. It suits their worldview, the innate conservatism of those already rich and powerful.

Kimmel didn’t even really say anything negative about Kirk. He noted the cynical and almost giddy exploitation of the killing by right-wing propagandists, absolutely accurately, and in gentler terms than I would have used.

Seems like a good time for a history lesson: “The Reichstag Fire Decree permitted the regime to arrest and incarcerate political opponents without specific charge, dissolve political organizations, and to suppress publications…The decree was a key step in the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship.”

This was after Colbert was canceled. Which was two months ago.

Colbert. Kimmel. America has lost its way. Entertainment executives are cowering in fear. Spineless.

“Roughly 650,000 college students and high school seniors will lack vital access to academic advising, financial guidance and assistance with college applications if the freeze persists.”

“Forwarding names is a practice from the McCarthy era. This represents a breathtaking breach of trust, ethics, and justice.”

"Stop it, you're totally overreacting with the Weimar comparisons & the use of the words 'far right' & 'authoritarianism'” 🤔🧐🤷‍♂️

Watched Out of Africa again. What is fascinating about his performance is that he was both completely wrong and completely right for that part. The actual person was a slightly twee (OK, very twee) English aristocrat, and Redford couldn't do the accent. But his "genteel rogue" portrayal was perfect.

“My colleagues and I have spent more than a year studying the anti-press playbook used in places like Hungary, India, Brazil and Turkey. Today, we’re seeing these same tactics deployed in the United States, a country long synonymous with press freedom.”

“Authoritarians use fear to stifle dissent; they make a spectacle of punishing some to ensure the obedience of all. Yet, as Driver writes, ‘it is precisely when universities are most under siege that they must safeguard their core commitments.’” @msroth.bsky.social on The Fall of Affirmative Action

Simply the best. May his memory be a blessing.

The right is projecting once again. www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...

“…the money will come from a mix of grants that support teachers, early-childhood education and colleges that educate large numbers of minority students.” #HigherEd