Correct. We must fight antisemitism. And we cannot fight it by restricting free speech. Listen to @aclu.org, @splcenter.org @truahrabbis.bsky.social @ncjw.bsky.social, and Hannah Rosenthal — former CEO of Milwaukee Jewish Federations, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, & US envoy on antisemitism.

The biggest risk in this moment is something sociologists call “symbolic compliance.” That’s when an institution that is violating civil rights gives the public just enough symbolic victories that accountability efforts lose steam before there has been any meaningful change.

Reminder that, as of the latest reports, Liam Ramos is still in prison in Texas - now for 5 days. His parents are legal asylum seekers with no criminal record.

The world seems so dreary, but this is such a bright spot. Ethiopian food has been #1 on my “please bring to Champaign-Urbana” since moving here. And now to learn that alllll their injera will be 100% teff? It’s enough to melt this celiac girl’s heart!

If there's one empirical insight I'd want everyone to understand about American politics, it's this: America's problems are solved problems. Just not here. What would change if the US simply matched the average of 31 peer democracies? Not Denmark or Norway. Just the middle of the pack. 🧵

Academic journals are so ridiculous. - Request to re-review an R&R arrives in my inbox on Monday Dec 22 - Reminder to respond delivered (by Santa?) on Dec 25 - Today — Sunday Dec 28 — an email saying my services are no longer needed.

Just a reminder that at least 600 Americans were fired for failing to show sufficient respect after Charlie Kirk's murder.

The “canceled people” database listing victims of cancel culture, which includes oft-repeated cases such as Bret Weinstein (Evergreen State College) and James Damore (Google), has a little over 200 entries across 18 years. canceledpeople.org

ASREC Graduate Student Workshop 19-21 March 2026 Orange CA Join me, @avitallivny.bsky.social, Dan Hungerman, and Jonathan Schulz for one day of lectures overviewing the field followed by attending the ASREC conference Deadline: 14 November Apply here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

"A 2,000-household survey in Gaza... suggested that the official figures were likely to be undercounting the number of people killed in the war by roughly 39 percent... The majority of those killed — some 56 percent — were women, children and the elderly." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/o...

Having reviewed ~250 applications, I'm writing to share that fly-out candidates for the UIUC Behavior search were contacted yesterday. Thank you to those who applied and/or supported someone who did. This was a large, exceptionally talented pool -- we wish we had more than one job to offer!

Having reviewed ~250 applications, I'm writing to share that fly-out candidates for the UIUC Behavior search were contacted yesterday. Thank you to those who applied and/or supported someone who did. This was a large, exceptionally talented pool -- we wish we had more than one job to offer!

This is the main reason the ADL originally existed, and now they’re giving it up entirely because it made some right-wingers upset. They are no longer pretending to be anything other than a pro-Israel advocacy group. And they are prioritizing Israelis above American Jews.

The free speech activist who built a list of professors he worked to get fired for their speech must be celebrated for his support of free speech, and anyone who quotes his speech accurately in context will be fired and/or face state punishment by the champions of free speech, do I have that right?

It should be needless to say, but it is perhaps at this moment worth saying, that transgender individuals have the same right as anyone else to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Charlie Kirk was a person. He might not have cared if I died, but if I don’t care that he died then I’ve already lost. I believe in the dignity of all human beings and I want to live in a society that treats each of us as sacred and ensouled.

The MSNBC commentator saying that most political violence has historically come from the left just once again showed how we suffer from failing to learn history. Lynching, pogroms, race riots, the political violence that ended Reconstruction, and against the Civil Rights Movement. Come on.

I'll merely note that today, like all days, is a great day to stop posting on Twitter, a platform whose owner force feeds this slop into people's brains with an algorithm designed to boost his views and trample yours.

Political violence is bad. It usually begets more political violence. Celebrating political violence is bad. It usually encourages more political violence, against various targets. Campus shootings are bad. They make everyone on campus less safe. It's bad that what I wrote here is controversial.

Just over one week to go before the September 16 deadline. Excited to review the applications and engage with folks’ work!

The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn't a strongman, he's a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.

If you hear about a Mexican Independence Day celebration in your area, go. There is strength in numbers and — especially if you’re white — you can protect your community just by being there and not flinching if ICE shows up. These goons are cowards. Don’t be one.

Perfect encapsulation of the Trump administration: The guy suing Harvard for alleged antisemitism is a straight-up Hitler-admiring Nazi. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/02/m...

Perhaps because so many of us have talked about Turkey's "authoritarian slide" for so long (rightly!), many will discount the gravity of the power grab currently taking place in Turkey. They shouldn't.

Israel committing genocide in Gaza, world’s top scholars on the crime say www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

“Intimidation and pressure have not succeeded in silencing [Middle East Studies] faculty or breaking the field. One [colleague] described himself as ‘determined, needed, and doing my job.’ As another put it, ‘our students need us – our expertise and our empathy – now more than ever.’” 🫡🫡🫡

This is exactly--and I mean exactly--how Holocaust deniers have long discredited the Final Solution being a concerted effort & high-level order. "The Jews in the camps all died of typhoid outbreaks"

Think about it this way: Tomorrow, the democratic leaders of Europe are coming to Washington, DC, where armed National Guard troops are on patrol, to convince a U.S. president, who called in those troops, that he should not hand Russia the sovereignty of Ukraine, which Russia illegally invaded.

It’s only a terrorist attack on the CDC and the murder of a state legislator. Did you think it was something of national importance, like a student calling something racist, the Harvard president writing a sentence years ago that’s similar to another sentence, or a trans kid wanting to play soccer?

What’s craaaazy to me is that a Minnesota state rep was ASSASSINATED and nothing even remotely close to this happened there

I cannot emphasize enough that the playbook being used against mRNA vaccines (and vaccines in general) is IDENTICAL to the playbook used to restrict voting rights after the 2020 election: actively sow public distrust, then cite the distrust you sowed as an independent reason for your desired policy

Just going to reiterate that in 2016 Trump inherited the lowest murder rate of any president in 50 years. He set reality aside, gave his “American Carnage” inaugural address, and was then the first president in 30 years to leave office with a higher murder rate than when he started.

Y'all it's official. WE ARE HIRING! Here is the ad with all the details: illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree... And here's the skinny: Political behavior, broadly defined @ the assistant level. Comparative behavior/psych + REP especially encouraged. Come join a great department at a great institution!

I have studied the targeting of journalists for many years, but the scale and public display of these killings is truly shocking: “Israel admits deliberate attack on the journalist, known for frontline coverage, in a strike on a tent outside al-Shifa hospital“ www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen has confirmed that the entire Al Jazeera team in Gaza City has been killed.

OK, a few things on this absurdity: 1. The 2020 Census was conducted by the Trump administration. 2. The only systematic results of undercounts that the Census has acknowledged were undercounting communities of color in almost all states.

I should have been clearer: Both sides (implicitly) agree not to write down any deal. They understand Trump will fill the silence with outlandish claims, delivering him a political win. And our trading partners are obliged to deliver nothing, giving them the economic win.

Great jobs at Illinois! I loved my time as a grad student there. It was a nurturing, collegial, theoretically-oriented department & I'm sure it still is. I am what I am as a scholar because of my decision to go there. Great department.

Y'all it's official. WE ARE HIRING! Here is the ad with all the details: illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree... And here's the skinny: Political behavior, broadly defined @ the assistant level. Comparative behavior/psych + REP especially encouraged. Come join a great department at a great institution!

That's why "well, they kinda have a point about _____" is harmful in this instance. For example, people who say that some pockets of academia are too intolerant of disagreement might have a point. People who use that point as cover for an ideological attack on academia do not. Know the difference.

The attack on US academia is ideological and destructive, yes. They’re not trying to improve higher ed, reform it, or do any of their flimsy excuses (uphold free speech on campus, combat antisemitism, etc). They’re trying to break it to satisfy a mix of cultural, political, and personal grievances.

Anyone who has spent any time in the far-right sections of the internet can see that we are getting a vocal anti-Israel faction of the US right coming up right now. And unlike someone like Mamdani, they are not going to make any effort at all to separate their hatred of Israel from American Jews.

And did I mention I am on the Behavior committee?? ‘Cause I am! I’ll be in touch with an official ad once we have it, but for now, happy to field questions. Both email and DMs are open!

Gifting this article! I loved my time in Champaign-Urbana and in the University of Illinois's Political Science Department. It transformed my life & made me into the scholar I am today. My life wouldn't be the same without that department. h/t: @avitallivny.bsky.social

It seems increasingly likely that we will be hiring (two positions — Political Behavior, broadly defined, and American Institutions!) at UIUC this year. I plan to add this link to all recruitment materials. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/d...

This is insane: do they really believe that being on Medicaid means being unemployed? Only 3% of those receiving Medicaid are in the category of able-bodied and long-term unemployed.

Jason Stanley, philosopher and expert on fascism said “You know you're living in a fascist society when you're constantly going over in your head the reasons why YOU are safe.”