Academics: I'm serving as an external letter writer for a tenure case for the first time. Any tips on serving in this role? Any thoughts on roughly how much time I should set aside?

🚨 1/ SCOOP We all know Pamela Paul is not a good journalist. But in her (poorly argued) WSJ screed on the alleged "growing divide" in LGBTQ circles abt trans rights, she reports ESPECIALLY badly—including abt Jose Arango & his boyfriend who dumped him. Paul didn't talk to the boyfriend. I did.

the adl is no longer, by its own definition, america’s preeminent jewish civil rights organization — because it’s no longer a civil rights organization at all

Great work, @lauramauldin.bsky.social . So needed.

Here is the proposed agreement the Trump admin sent to UCLA, which administrators fought tooth and claw to keep secret ucop.edu/communicatio...

Yet again, we can't afford to let LLMs become a source of epistemic grounding for society.

Every once in a while during the 2024 campaign, I'd meet parents of disabled kids who were part of Moms for Liberty or people who taught autistic kids. @slooterman.bsky.social writes how they are afraid right now as Trump targets special education staff. 19thnews.org/2025/10/spec...

It is not so long ago that disability policy was bipartisan. I taught at the Bush School, and George H.W. Bush would talk about his pride in signing the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Montpelier

Here’s a block list: bsky.app/profile/did:...

The official White House account has been blocked by over 5,000 accounts since it was created less than two hours ago: clearsky.app/whitehouse-4...

A Prelude to Violence

The end of federal enforcement of special ed laws. Some states - including MN - will likely be ok. But a lot of disabled kids in a lot of states are going to lose the education that federal law and decades of jurisprudence say they are owed.

I strongly urge everyone to not just read this warning from @marcwatkins.bsky.social, but heed it, and be vocal and forceful pushing back against using AI to grade student writing. This must be anathema if we're going to have a world where learning means something. substack.com/inbox/post/1...

Most of this laundry list of "overwhelming evidence" is tendentious. Let's go through them. 1) A big driver of high costs at public universities has been a decrease in state appropriations. Many public schools have been forced to act on a public/private model as a result..../1

Friends @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social is doing well— she’s at home, released last night. I’ll let her speak on the ordeal when she’s ready but for now wanted to share this update.

ICE just blatantly violated the law and arrested sitting Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes while seeking to illegally arrest a patient in a hospital. Fuck these fascists.

Over 2 million people across Italy have rallied in more than 100 cities for a one-day general strike.

State police assisted ICE in the performative brutalization and arrest of protesters today. @govpritzker.illinois.gov must answer for this.

This is who @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social is. Brilliant. Fearless. I fucking hate typing this shit out: Free Eman. Amplify amplify amplify please.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers has issued an executive order to ensure COVID vaccines are accessible to everyone and insurers continue to cover them.

“Failed to live up to the hype” is a lesson with tech that we will never learn

The professor has been fired and senior administrators removed from their post. No mention of this in the New York Times, The Free Press, The Atlantic or other outlets who drove the campus speech moral panic.

I gave my students an anti-AI spiel on the first day of our class today, and a student asked if all of us had been to a training, because all of her professors spent about 15 minutes doing the same thing this year. I told her no, but it seems like maybe the tide is turning!

We expanded who reaches 12th grade. That’s the educational miracle of the last 35 years. Today’s 12th graders aren’t 1992’s 12th graders. Beyond cohort change, this is not only a school story; adult PIAAC scores in the bottom half of the distribution have tanked, too, and that’s not about schools.

Anyone have teaching tips for a *very* small undergrad class? My junior/senior seminar may just have 4-5 students in it. Last year I had 12 students and ran it like a grad seminar, and that worked well. But this is going to be so small!

"This guide is for anyone studying or working in universities, or in research environments within healthcare, local government, NGOs, charities, or other health and social care organisations. It is designed to help you calm, focus, connect in order to prioritise your safety, rights and wellbeing."

📢 #EdWorkingPapers: Are Black students under-referred to special education? @rachelefish.bsky.social, Kenneth Shores & @jmsoutomaior.bsky.social challenge recent claims of under-representation. 📄 Full paper here: edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1227

Yet another 100% fossil-fuelled data centre site popping up - 1.4 gigawatts. This was definitely all very predictable!!! www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

WARZEL: What if Gen AI is “just good enough, useful to many without being revolutionary? .. “.. Good enough .. would likely mean that not enough people recognize what’s really being built—and what’s being sacrificed—until it’s too late.” @cwarzel.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

“the productivity gains following the introduction of LLMs in the workplace were quite small: they found only a 2.8% increase in time-savings. On the flip side, the introduction of AI tools created new work for 8.4% of these workers, including people who do not use the tools directly”

The Trump administration effectively created a de facto bathroom ban at Brown University and none of the major media is covering it, and if they do, they character it as about sports. This is how the trans visa ban was enacted and characterized. www.advocate.com/news/transge...

...oh wow

I wish this piece was on the front page and not the opinion section, because it's more fact-based than the majority of the reporting I've seen on the state of boys and men.

New paper with Ken Shores and João Souto Maior, with important implications for current/potential policy changes: doi.org/10.1177/0014.... We argue that current research concluding that Black kids are "under-represented" in special education has fundamental limitations in data and methods.

Whoops… “Meta’s AI climate tool raised false hope of CO₂ removal, scientists say” archive.is/8sYNv

Beginning to have my doubts about whatever this America party will be

Part of a very informative thread. I can’t fathom the losses in Texas, especially of the young kids at camp.

There is no ceiling on how bad things can get until we make the ceiling. No institution will make it for us. As someone I used to organize with loved to say, “No one is coming to save us, but us” And yeah, it’s scary as fuck

Weighing Risks: How Families of Disabled Children Made School Choices During COVID-19 journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

New paper with @alexfreidus.bsky.social and @ericaoturner.bsky.social ! Our interview data show how disability and ableism—intersecting with racism and SES inequality—complicate and stratify school choice for families of disabled students. doi.org/10.1177/2332...

On why Harvard shouldn't "negotiate" with Trump (by @ryanenos.bsky.social & Levitsky) - www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

This kind of shit is, in its own way, Holocaust trivialization. It's hard not to find it morally revolting.

Surprise, surprise: Meta's Manhattan-sized data center is going to be powered by three new gas power plants. Residents of the nearby town have no idea how much their bill will increase: "It’s like building the power impact of a large city overnight” www.404media.co/a-black-hole...

Popping in here quickly to say that the courts do not have first or final say. Ever. Trans people [of all ages] deserve every single thing that everyone else does. The illegitimate court is illegitimate.

Vermonters! Call 802-828-2228 TODAY to get a message delivered to your senators about H.454. The bill: - lowers taxes for the rich and cuts investments in kids - doesn't address real drivers of costs (health insurance ⬆️) - drastically consolidates schools - may expand vouchers - rushes major change