🗣️Texas AAUP-AFT on new policies at Angelo State University: “If administrators at ASU or elsewhere want to avoid liability, then now is the time to honor their responsibilities… by standing firm against this governmental overreach by state lawmakers.” www.texasaft.org/membership/h...

Part of the Texas Tech system.

genuinely crazy to me how unitary executive advocates read the vesting clause as granting a huge scope of essentially royal "inherent" powers. one would think that if the framers intended to give the president royal authority, they would have just said so.

Part of the Texas Tech system.

I'm teaching a grad seminar on early modern British history for the first time in 7 years in the spring. I usually do a mix of "classics" and newer stuff. What new-ish books would you recommend? 🗃️

Alan Barenberg on Michael David-Fox's latest book, "Crucibles of Power: Smolensk Under Stalinist and Nazi Rule" in @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social. A timely take on life under authoritarian rule. lareviewofbooks.org/article/micr... 🗃️

Alan Barenberg on Michael David-Fox's latest book, "Crucibles of Power: Smolensk Under Stalinist and Nazi Rule" in @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social. A timely take on life under authoritarian rule. lareviewofbooks.org/article/micr...

Alan Barenberg on Michael David-Fox's latest book, "Crucibles of Power: Smolensk Under Stalinist and Nazi Rule" in @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social. A timely take on life under authoritarian rule. lareviewofbooks.org/article/micr...

That's why it was crazy he capitulated. He was getting fired anyway.

Anyway in other news today is Constitution Day

I hope you keep writing and researching and publishing, even if it’s about distant and abstruse topics. It’s not stupid, it’s beautiful, because it’s a testament to the curiosity and care they’re trying to eradicate.

idk if you've seen this south korean editorial that ran a few days ago. google translate version scorched my eyebrows www.hani.co.kr/arti/opinion...

Police assaulted as far-right rally led by Tommy Robinson sparks clashes

It's "great" to see my employer releasing names and information about *alleged* behavior to the Trump admin, without even telling the people who've been accused what it is that they're accused of. Utterly reprehensible. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Fired A&M instructor is exploring legal options: www.texastribune.org/2025/09/10/t...

Heck of a day to be teaching about Socrates in my Western Civ class.

Texas A&M’s President just removed a dean and department head from their positions after they supported a professor whose lesson on gender was challenged by a student. www.kbtx.com/2025/09/09/a...

GOP greatly overestimates the number of fucks GenX and younger give about Bill Clinton.

FYI: Had no trouble getting a COVID shot yesterday at a CVS in Lubbock, TX. 💉

This takes a lot of twists and turns.. Fascinating.

I asked my students to answer a question from something I had failed to assign them 😃🤓😬😑🤪

I filled out this survey.

He Neutered Faculty Senates. Now He’s Set to Be a Chancellor.

University of Chicago announced $100m in budget cuts, blames the federal funding situation. Of course it's not just that: chicagomaroon.com/48358/news/u...

About this Florida vaccine story: When they were little - 1 yr and 3 1/2 - my two older boys, who’d had all their shots, got whooping cough. We asked their pediatrician what would’ve happened if they hadn’t been vaccinated. “Oh, they’d have died.”

The conclusion reached by Judge Burroughs:

I can

*Entangled Alliances* is available for PRE-ORDER from @cornellupress.bsky.social 📚 www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

I've always said the best thing about living in West Texas is its proximity to New Mexico.

The Shins on Gilmore Girls spring break episode.

A day late to bluesky, but yesterday was the official pub day for 'Roads to Power, Roads to Crisis' with @pennpress.bsky.social Interested in infrastructure, war, revolution and the rise (and fall) of the British Empire in North America? Get your own copy from www.pennpress.org/978151282828...

Arguably anyone in a classroom with lots of children/students has an underlying condition.

If you think that @rweingarten.bsky.social & the @aft.org should NOT be partnering with murderous companies like OpenAI, please call the AFT, ask for the president's office, and tell them to STOP PUSHING "A.I." INTO SCHOOLS. (Pls be nice to the person answering the phone.) 202-879-4400

one sign that the “unitary executive” is less the restoration of an older constitutional order and more the imposition of a radical new one is that allowing the president to act untethered from most legal or congressional limits has largely just served to plunge the country into disorder

Me teaching my British history survey then: I think I should focus less on monarchs vs. Parliaments. Me teaching it in 2025: all monarchs vs. Parliaments all the time.

Great thread on U Chicago and the terrible financial mess of its own making. It captures the complicated feelings I also share for this institution.

The university where I did my PhD is destroying itself. I’m not sure its forner reputation will ever recover. www.insidehighered.com/news/admissi...

Turns out studying philosophy is actually valuable. Philosophy majors don’t just argue well, they actually become better thinkers and do better on tests. Data from 600k students shows they outscore every other major on reasoning, curiosity and open-mindedness.

At Texas Tech our Faculty Senate managed to get a proposal out to keep functioning, at least. This is a disaster for UT.

While UChicago is going to make massive cuts to its Arts & Humanities division, I would predict it will do everything it can to avoid any major changes to the instructional delivery of its famed undergrad Humanities Core. It will just rely more heavily on contingent labor & cuts to research.

🚨🚨So excited that the Barnard Center for Research on Women is hosting the virtual launch for *Sweet Taste of Empire,* published by ‪@pennpress.bsky.social‬. We have an incredible lineup!!!!!! #RaceB4Race #ShakeRace 10.30.2025 | 6:30pm EST| register here! bcrw.barnard.edu/event/the-sw...

Ten (1 0 !) years ago today, at @texasmonthly.bsky.social, @dansolomon.com and I wrote a piece titled "Silence at Baylor," that looked at sexual assault in the Baylor football program: www.texasmonthly.com/arts-enterta...

US pediatric group recommends COVID-19 vaccines for young children, contrasting federal policy reut.rs/46YMZjr

I am not sure how many people realize the huge array of field affected by these cut to science agencies. For example, the NSF quietly stopped hosting the public available USAP photo library last month, a resource of thousands of historic United States Antarctic photos dating to the 1940s. #histsci

A great read on UChicago, arguing we’re seeing the result of decades of mismanagement: “The university’s trustees and leaders view it preeminently as a tax-free technology incubator, and its debt load is so great that it is abandoning ideals it once held dear in order to sustain that goal.”

This my Lawsuit Era: me joining class actions because of terrible things people/institutions are doing with my work.

Taking advantage of a bad financial situation (of their own making) to get rid of programs they've long seen as a drain on resources. Funny thing is, they actually subsidize much of the rest of the college. But as I've said before, U of C's gonna U of C. (History is a Social Science at Chicago).

Someone should have taken a few more humanities classes. It's usually the case with ding dongs.