#HigherEducation #Academia

Want to stop some vandals? Sign this petition. c.org/qpWLqNByRB

“For too long, the university has ignored the wisdom of the donor class and hired based on academic excellence. Regrettably, this has led to the underrepresentation of discredited viewpoints in elite higher education.” www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/wer...

Trans people have a right to the same healthcare we all need goodlawproject.org/s/ec0359

When the worst person in the world puts the second worst person in the world in charge of budgets, cheered on by others of near equal worth.

The High Court has just confirmed what many of us knew. The Office for Students fine of the University of Sussex for supposed ‘free speech’ infringements was a biased piece of right wing culture war politics and had nothing whatsoever to do with free speech. Sussex vindicated and the OfS exposed.

It's great to know that the thing we all said at the time was the case (they were using this as a test case to bully universities into removing any stated internal policies defending trans students and faculty from bigoted comments by anti-trans academics in the classroom) was in fact the case

Judgment now available online. The OfS does not come out of it well at all. Final line: “The Final Decision was vitiated by bias because the OfS approached the decision with a closed mind and had therefore unlawfully predetermined the decision.” www.judiciary.uk/judgments/th...

Some good news: www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Discworld QOTD, from The Shepherd’s Crown

There is a very real possibility that this turns into my dog's PR account.

Absolute dereliction of duty by an MP: a major employer and driving force of local and national economy is not their ‘industrial focus’. Apparently the educating and training of doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers, scientists, engineers, researchers…IS. NOT. THEIR. INUDSTRIAL. FOCUS.

'Better for more young trans people to die than us admit our policy choices are killing them": this now seems to be Labour's position. I'm sorry we have to write about this stuff. But unless we do, nothing will change. CW: suicide.

"And would you say, Mr McSweeney, that you had any experience of working with something that gives the impression of independent thought but in reality is only capable of agreeing with your inputs and reinforcing your prejudices?"

Yes, Swiss scientist Fritz Zwicky coined the term “dark matter” which is impressive, but he also coined the term “spherical bastard” to describe people who are bastards no matter which way you look at them, and I think that should be celebrated more.

Notable that the salaries of senior management in universities, vice chancellors and the various cronies, are absolutely astronomical. The people who actually do the work (especially professional services!) meanwhile get less and less every year.

Pope Leo has lost the Protestants, I repeat Pope Leo has lost the Protestants, this is unpreced— <wait my producer is just whispering something in my ear> Apparently this is precedented

I feel very silly for having forgotten the lengthy history of Joyous and peaceful Catholic-Protestant friendship. Characterised of course, by understanding, agreement, and the complete absence of conflict of any kind.

Reposting without the embarrassing mathematical error. Applicants bear most of the cost of funding applications. Probably best to go to the original source: f1000research.com/articles/15-...

All my solidarity to colleagues. Another university 'management team' with zero sense of accountability. All too easy to blame the government. And enough with the rhetoric of 'improved curricula'. Impoverished curricula and skills that will not longer be transmitted - that's the reality.

www.smbc-comics.com/comic/dial "Have you been reading Derek Parfit again?"

Just watched higher ed in the US turn into a sad farce, as the right destroys academic freedom for all save bigotry, moving to bankrupt any uni that still allows their staff and students to demand racial justice, protest war crimes or defend the trans community. Now Labour is on the same ugly track.

Yet more evidence of the truism that, where the far right are concerned, free speech is when fascists tell us to shut up, and cancel culture is where we tell fascists to shut up. The left must always listen obediently, and the right must always have an (compelled if necessary) audience.

Revisiting Amia Srinivasan on Arif Ahmed's appointment as ‘Free Speech Tsar’ at the Office for Students:

In some exciting news, I just received the author copies of my book, Justice, Solidarity, and Global Health. Which is pretty cool. Published by Rutledge, and available here: www.routledge.com/Justice-Soli...

Very excited that we brought this wonderful girl home from RSPCA Brighton this week. Her name is Pika, and we are having a brilliant time introducing her to the world. #AdoptDontShop

I'm delighted that this paper, written with my brilliant former student, Melissa Rajalingam, is now out: mh.bmj.com/content/earl... We explore the impacts of structural racism on the health of minoritised people, with particular focus on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

babe, wake up, new form of mansplaining just dropped

Happy birthday to the Peak District National Park, designated #otd 13 April 1951. Originally 555 square miles of moor and valley, the 'great north roof of England.' It would never have happened but for one woman... 1/4

Tonight in the ai reading group i was reminded of something that happened in 2006 after I dropped out of college, when I was living in a run-down old house next to jb alberto's in rogers park with a bunch of dudes. it was, as you can imagine, not clean.

The thing about commuting by rail is that it is so incredibly unreliable and, typically overcrowded. But at least it is also dramatically overpriced.

New bioethics job at University of Colorado jobs.chronicle.com/job/37968079...

Terrible for trans women, terrible for cis women, terrible for intersex people. Transphobia makes the world a worse place for everyone, even transphobes.

A statement on the IOC's decision to reintroduce mandatory sex testing for women. Please share widely. Alt text follows in the following posts.

One of my brilliant students and I just published this article in Clinical Ethics, in which we explore the harms inflicted on migrants health care workers in their countries of residence: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Yep. In fact, the real failing of students was when we stopped requiring them to regularly search a library catalogue for their reading and instead produced lists with hyperlinks that students simply had to click. As soon as they have to go off list, they’re lost.

Yesterday, I had the great pleasure to participate in the launch event for this forthcoming book "Forced Migration and Health Justice", edited by @lisaaeck.bsky.social @veriwil.bsky.social @annagotlib.bsky.social @ryoa.bsky.social and Deborah Zion. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

"not very much money" "Comfortable work environment" "Job for life" "Not a very heavy workload" One out of four is... pretty terrible actually. The sheer contempt displayed here by the Nottingham VC is appalling

Nick Clegg looks sad. And he should.

A treatment successfully used for longer than the NHS has been in existence, casually and arbitrarily stripped away by the transphobes in charge even though hormone therapy works the same way for under 18s than it does for over 18s. Dereliction from the NHS; may these fuckers rot.

People should be REALLY scared by this, it's normalising refusing healthcare to a section of the community for entirely ideological reasons with absolutely no medical reason

This is the biggest act of cultural and political vandalism in the UK in recent history. It will lead to unprecedented damage. Unnecessarily but ideologically committed against one of the few sectors in which UK remained world leading. Labour have deliberately allowed this to happen.

"How do you do fellow kids? Would you like to steal the intellectual property of your peers and teachers? Have you fundamentally misunderstood what education is and how it works? Then we've got the product for you! Please pay no attention to the funnelling of money to an unaccountable tech bro...."

It never ceases to confound me just how many folks think the point of essays is to provide teachers with essays. That teachers just like, collect them, or need them for sustenance or something. Rather than the point of them being the *actual fucking act of learning how to think about shit*

Cis journos who fancy themselves our allies - one of the best things you could do right now is push some human interest stories about trans people like this into the mainstream.

🚨Job klaxon 🚨 Come and be my colleague at York! We're looking for an Associate Lecturer in Modern British History and Public History. Two year post - apply by 19 March. 🗃️ More details here www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQO971/a...

*looks directly into the camera Marxistly*

Times Higher with their finger on the pulse here.