Hi all, @jeffschuhrke.bsky.social is teaching a class on the history of general strikes in the United States. It's online, there's a free option, and it's obviously extremely topical to our current moment. Sign up here.

Big fan of the @queerliblib.bsky.social, which is running a fundraiser right now! givebutter.com/qqlls-pride-...

I wrote about the astounding indictment of 15 people in Minnesota now charged with an alleged criminal conspiracy against ICE, and what federal prosecutors’ wild “who posted what on Signal when,” “who said what on the ‘Anarchist Speaking Tour’” claims are meant to do:

They’re calling it the quote on British politics that ended the need for all other quotes

Oh man

This actually seemed to work? I mean, who knows, but

June is one of the roughest parts of the academic year for those of us on the quarter system, since most colleagues are done for the year and turning their attention to requesting reviews, edits, etc. But believe it or not, we’re not done! I’m still grading. 😭

"In the face of rising government surveillance and the suppression of left organizing, independent libraries are part of growing efforts to expand non-state alternatives including mutual aid networks, free stores, and free universities." @edrabinski.bsky.social truthout.org/articles/as-...

I guess one difference between Jim Crow then and Jim Crow now is that we have cool graphics to show how it's done.

@veenadubal.bsky.social AAUP legal update: "We have shown that when the government tries to turn fear into policy, AAUP will answer with law, with organizing, with solidarity, & with the oldest commitment we have: the defense of academic freedom for the common good" academeblog.org/2026/06/15/a...

My very favorite org @disabilitylab.bsky.social is looking for their next round of fellows! As an inaugural fellow I cannot say this loudly enough that THIS IS A GREAAAAT FELLOWSHIP! Apply! AMA! www.disabilityculturelab.org/disabilityri...

Are you a writer, author, or scholar based in NYC? New York City deserves the kind of writers and thinkers that only consistently well-funded public libraries can ensure. Help us call on the Mayor and City Council to fund our library systems with our open letter: forms.gle/SvQYwiyiHqXT...

Did you know that if a driver runs a red light and totals your car, it will make your insurance premium go up, even though everyone agrees you’re zero percent at fault? I know, I agree, it’s a really cool and awesome system.

ICE relies heavily on local infrastructure, including jails, county governments and municipal law enforcement agencies. This new MuckRock guide offers three areas of focus to start reporting on ICE: detentions and enforcement, collaborations with local law enforcement and courts.

Is anyone knowledgeable about pipes? I don’t have a spigot on my patio but I have…these. Do you know what they are? In an ideal world, I’d like to attach a hose to something.

If you’re wondering how bad things got, I tried to put as much of this as I could in one place. Please read: www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...

🚨New Pub Alert: “Grounding the Flock: Confronting Police Surveillance of Mobilities.”🚨 Drawing on the work of @404media.co, activists, & others, I highlight how #Flock's #ALPR #surveillance harmonizes local jurisdictions to far-right policing cultures. #deflock #openaccess tinyurl.com/58ud7x4e

It is a strange thing to feel the apprehension or even fear of expressing dissent in the air around you. There are so many little things where that manifests itself, implicitly or explicitly. Didn’t know that the space of potentialities, even the ones that may never materialise, is a palpable one.

1,954 active 287(g) agreements now deputize state and local police for immigration enforcement, up from 134 at the start of 2025. The profiling-prone task force model is back. See the data here: austinkocher.substack.com/p/this-week-...

@drnikko.bsky.social and I are putting together a special issue proposal for Big Data and Society on "Trans Data"! If you're an #STS nerd, or a #transstudies nerd, or ideally both, do submit ideas if you have them - docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Today, a coalition of groups are convening in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, to begin a caravan to the Adelanto ICE facility in Southern California, where detainees have been on hunger strike for weeks. Just as at Delaney Hall, detainees report abysmal conditions, rotten food, and retaliation

“If this kind of austerity can happen at The News School, it can happen everywhere. Faculty all over the country need to be on guard. We need strong labor unions.” — Jeremy Varon, New School AAUP President on @democracynow.org today. 👊🏾👊🏿👊🏼 @newschoolaaup.bsky.social @higheredlabor.bsky.social

Grading week! We hear so much about how everything is falling apart. Which it is, but in the midst of that, I’m still really proud of what happens in my classroom. For all the barriers the world places in the way, my students think hard and well and searchingly and I believe in what we do together.

“Startups like Axiom promise, ‘We stand at the threshold of a mathematical renaissance.’ The collective market capitalization of such ventures would suffice to fund 200 math PhDs—the number lost this year in the United States due to cuts to graduate programs—every year for the next 500 years.”

If I am ever so fortunate as to become a very senior academic, let me not become so addled by junior scholars’ failure to pay me obeisance that I am co-opted into signing my name to a report whose malevolent intentions are clear to literally everyone else. 🙏

The AI consciousness debate is a trap, argues Randima Fernando, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. The real question is not whether or not a model “feels” fear when its internal workings light up; it is who profits from blurring that line and who gets harmed.

I feel like that Vanderbilt/WashU report exists almost entirely to be forwarded to the iPhones of trustees, who will in their turn skim the first few sentences before forwarding it triumphantly to chancellors. “FW: FW: FW: Food for thought?”

The AAUP chapters at Vanderbilt & Wash U have issued a joint statement denouncing the “State of Scholarship” report commissioned by their chancellors. Please, let’s make this as widely read as the gaslighting to which it responds.

Really smart

Beginning of @tinkeringhuman.bsky.social & @miriamposner.com’s Ch 17, “Digital Humanities from Below: Speculating on Solidarity Infrastructure” in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 315 in print ed.) dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... @uminnpress.bsky.social

As a publisher I’m so deeply insulted by the State of Scholarship report. “Only politically acceptable work is published, taught, & valorized”—F U. Individual journals, presses, & series have distinct brands, strengths & yes, markets. It is not every editor or publisher’s JOB to publish everything.

My students often ask about this! Glad to have somewhere to send them.

How do you control unruly academics? Through their trustees, of course. This right-wing group has a national network to push their agendas on universities across the USA. @aaup.org www.aaup.org/sites/defaul...

Grocery stores are FASCINATING labor stories. Spoke to Ann Larson about her new book "Cleanup on Aisle Five," a firsthand account of working at a grocery store through the pandemic. www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/brutal-opp...

I know this is v boring, but I’ve been frustrated almost to tears by GEICO since I got hit by an uninsured motorist two months ago. Every imaginable delay and error, including requiring me to take a day off work to drive to a junkyard in Van Nuys to drop off a title, which they refused to accept.

Someone borrowed my regalia last year and I can’t remember who it was but if it was you…I should probably get it back?

NEW: Days after WIRED revealed that Meta had embedded an unreleased facial-recognition system in software distributed to more than 50 million users, the company appears to have removed it. www.wired.com/story/meta-r...

God this sucks ass

"This committee’s report would be terrible in the best of times, with its secret evidence and embarrassingly weak arguments compounded by a call for administrative repression. But to make these fantastical claims during the middle of a war against the humanities is a particularly dangerous delusion"

OK, simple teaching thing that my students universally love: if you have a blogging assignment or some other forum in which students share comments, raise the points particular students make during lecture. Positions students as your interlocutors and assures them you’re paying attention.

I've been running Follow the Crypto since 2024. Today I'm relaunching it as Tech Influence Watch, expanded to cover AI political spending alongside crypto. They’ve spent more than $400 million this election cycle, and now you can follow it in close to real time. influence.citationneeded.news

Huh. 35% of CS10 students flunked? www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...

I am begging people to realize that police do not use this technology is not a "jumping off point" or an "investigative lead"--the computer spits out a name and police arrest that person without follow up. How many people have to spend months in jail "by accident" before we consider the danger?

Amnesty is recruiting a Technologist in their team researching digital surveillance abuse, this is an amazing position in an amazing team. Location is limited to a few places and deadline is really soon careers.amnesty.org/jobs/vacancy...

An open letter to UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk from the UCLA Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Arab, & Anti-Muslim Racism. lareviewofbooks.org/article/sare...

Building Power to Win the Future of Higher Education and Democracy: new proposals from @aaup.org. We won’t survive the next few years unless we learn to fight. www.aaup.org/sites/defaul...

Spent a long time with East Bay Booksellers’ staff picks, which are really unexpected and varied and interesting. So many books in the world! ebbooksellers.com/staff-recomm...