Statement Re: OU Discrimination Investigation Today, my client, Mel Curth, submitted her appeal of the University's Institutional Equity Office finding that she engaged in arbitrary and capricious grading of a student's assignment in violation of that student's religious liberty.

During one interview, the student admitted that she merely looked at the topic and then rushed together a response based on her personal feelings regarding a tangential issue that was the main thesis of the assigned article, because she was in a hurry to go see a play that evening with her friend.

If you’re wondering why your friends in academia are a little on edge right now, it’s because an eighteen-year-old who hasn’t done the reading, doesn’t look at the assignment, and has does no critical thinking skills more complex than “because I think it’s in the Bible” can literally end your career

really cannot be emphasized enough that bari weiss has literally never done journalism. i don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. i mean that in the “has never performed the job she was hired to do” sense

CBS paid the president of the United States millions in bribe money and now they censor news reports so it does not annoy him. I don’t know how much plainer we can put this.

For me the final death nail in the coffin was indeed the fact that GenAI has no compunction to be accurate or truthful and *is* prone to simply make shit up about what you ask it about. At that point it might as well just be a random word generator that makes climate change worse

Got this answer from Google AI today.

so much winning

Four years after her double lung transplant, 21-year-old Hannah’s body was at war with itself. “Hurry,” she wrote, unable to speak. The generic drug she took to prevent organ rejection should have been working. She didn't know the FDA doesn’t always ensure that’s the case. 🧵

On this day in 1986, white teens brutally beat two young Black men looking for assistance in Queens, New York. One of the Black men was struck and killed by a car while attempting to flee.

100%

“There’s beauty everywhere. There are amazing things happening everywhere, you just have to be able to open your eyes and witness it.” Photo is my own, unedited.

As of this morning 4,500 Starbucks workers are on strike. Don’t cross their picket line. No Starbucks. NO Starbucks gift cards!

Noem is using the Brown University shooter to end an entire visa program, but it should be noted that Pete Hegseth, just today, murdered more than twice as many people

All the centers they’re cutting add up to less than $7 million in spending. UNC athletics budget is $185.4 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

In 1993, Trump signed a mortgage for a Florida home, pledging it would be his principal residence. Seven weeks later, he attested a neighboring property would also be his principal residence. In reality, he does not seem to have lived in either home.

Page One in Indy: #redistrict 🇺🇸

NEW: Federally funded community health centers receive grants in exchange for serving patients regardless of their ability to pay. But ProPublica found at least five across the country filing lawsuits and garnishing paychecks to collect unpaid bills.

The university bought Claude AI for students to use. Here it is at work, denying that the East Wing of the White House has been demolished. Great stuff, academia.

Every legal story now is either Ancient Circuit Judge Delivers Crystal Clear 100 Page Rebuke To Trumpist Overreach or In Unsigned Shadow Docket Decision, 6-3 Majority Declares Trump Can Hunt People For Sport

How and when exactly did a president acquire the authority to rule in all matters great and small by diktat?

It's the antithesis of failed Bush-Obama education reform that mandated top-down, heavy-handed governance and privatization schemes. And recent research studies found evidence of impressive positive results. Please read and share. progressive.org/public-schoo...

The approach, known as community school, uses an evidenced-based strategy to improve student outcomes by drawing from the resources and voices of the surrounding community to support the full range of needs and interests of students and families.

My new responds to prominent pundits who've been pining for the days of bipartisan education reform instead of noticing a quiet revolution in edu policy that is transforming schools and changing student outcomes for the better. progressive.org/public-schoo...

There’s a growing movement for public schools: Community-school initiatives are showing big impacts with up to a 30% drop in chronic absenteeism, fewer suspensions, and improved academic achievement especially amongst Black, low-income, and English-learner students. bsky.app/profile/jeff...

The constitution is colorblind unless you want to discriminate against nonwhites. Then it’s fine apnews.com/article/supr...

Today, we had the honor of presenting Samantha with a Citation of Recognition for her semi-literate prose, anemic argumentation, and complete inability to follow instructions. She is shining a light on the serious concerns we have about university instructors expecting their students to "learn"

HAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAAHHAAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Had students take a whole class period to annotate an article (chosen by them) & answer questions on it, and I am very pleased with the results. This is a larger, lower-level class, so research papers never worked that well anyway. They were v. thoughtful & I learned so much about how they read.

I would call Pete Hegseth a war criminal, but we aren’t at war. He’s just a mass murderer.

Every single congressional Democrat needs to be out there, right now, insisting that Pete Hegseth resign right now and announcing that he will be held accountable for committing war crimes. If you do not demand accountability here and now, they will only become more emboldened.

NEW: A Harvard study found that the children of women who contracted COVID-19 while pregnant may be at an increased risk for autism and other neurodevelopmental diagnoses, raising new concerns about the CDC’s decision to stop recommending the vaccine to pregnant women.

Trump is “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” Let’s all put Rutger Bregman’s words out there, seeing as how the BBC will not … on advice of counsel. bsky.app/profile/rutg...

The BBC joins a long list of media companies now obeying in advance. I can't say I'm surprised or at this point even angry. It is a structural flaw in legacy media All I can do is promise that Democracy Docket will never bow down or bend a knee. It will remain unapologetically pro-democracy.

Public land grant universities with a mission to serve the residents of their respective states are the great economic equalizers. So of course Republicans and billionaires want to destroy them. 😖

I also found out about this recently: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-e...

Greenlandic families fight to get children back after parenting tests banned

This colonial horror is happening now in Denmark.

He is not challenging scientific orthodoxy. He is trying to destroy public health in the United States by lying about decades of data on the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

They misidentified the intern. The judge told them they had misidentified the intern. But instead of double checking, they took that as an affront to their authority. So they surrounded the judge's car and threatened to smash the windows to get to the intern. They had misidentified the intern.

I'm really sorry to all the CDC employees pushing for good public health despite all obstacles. Hang on and go down with the ship, hoping to mitigate harm and continue to produce some good content below the radar, or jump ship? It's an impossible choice.

This week, I withdrew from a speaking engagement at a public university because they sent me a list of prohibited “words & concepts.” I will not humor this censorship. It does a disservice to the stories I’m discussing & the audience, who deserve unfettered access to information & conversation.

Today's issue of Pasts Imperfect, the newsletter for all things ancient that bring a global perspective to the Classical world, is out: pasts-imperfect.ghost.io/pasts-imperf.... As always, thanks to @sarahebond.bsky.social and her amazing set of editors. Today's main essay: Egyptomania!

From my perspective? I’d rather universities simply not address the crisis at all unless they are fully committed to removing structural organizational stressors. I’m exhausted by exhortations to self care and wellness from the same folks who are knowingly amplifying my grinding anxiety.

Any university programming intended to address the massive faculty mental health crisis that does not include investments to remove organizational stressors is bullshit. Faculty are not weak, they’re underwater for structural reasons ffs.

Check it out! A blurb about a Classics/Asia symposium I hosted earlier this month. @bauerle.bsky.social @youngrichardkim.bsky.social @toriflee.bsky.social @dominicmachado.bsky.social @aaacc.bsky.social

I am not being hyperbolic when I say that how Harvard and the economics profession respond to Larry Summers will determine who makes up the next generation of economists. #econsky #news #harvard

I hope Larry Summers being exposed as lacking discernment and judgement —as a liar, an abuser of his mentees, and the buddy of a child trafficker — will lay to rest the myth that skill on the math section of the SAT is the highest and most advanced form of human cognition.