Education is essential always, but especially in violent times. Students + faculty have a right to openly discuss the relevance of current events to classroom content across numerous fields-a right to use knowledge to question authority when appropriate. It’s the telos of enlightened education. 1/3

Education is essential always, but especially in violent times. Students + faculty have a right to openly discuss the relevance of current events to classroom content across numerous fields-a right to use knowledge to question authority when appropriate. It’s the telos of enlightened education. 1/3

If you only read the opinion journalism in elite media over the last decade, you would have been convinced that wokeness, and not fascism, were the greatest threats to American society. Now some of those authors are retconning by trying to relabel fascism as "the woke right."

Years from now, it'll be difficult to explain the things people in media were wailing about before all this. Sophomores writing underconsidered op-eds about cultural appropriation. Protests against demagogues on campus. YA drama. "Mobs" on Twitter. These were the threats to free society.

Alex Pretti was a US citizen, an ICU nurse at a VA hospital, and someone who had a license to carry a weapon Or, if you listen to the Trump admin and their boosters, he was a "terrorist", "lunatic" "illegal alien" who was going to "massacre law enforcement." www.wired.com/story/the-in...

“Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you." — Michael and Susan Pretti, whose son Alex died amid a barrage of gunfire from federal agents, and whose reputation is being smeared by top federal officials.

Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti. "Please get the truth out about our son."

Since July, I've tracked at least 2,300 cases in which federal judges have ruled ICE has illegally detained people without bond or due process. This is one that stands out: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

JUST IN: Lawyers file declaration in federal court from first-hand witness to immigration agents' shooting of a US citizen onlookers today. Minneapolis Mayor Frey said details would be used to bolster case for ousting ICE from city. Doc: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

This list of donation options to support the people of MSP came my way via the a well-places senior admonstator af the University of Minnesota - I trust it www.standwithminnesota.com

We’ve placed the available videos of the shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis today into the same synchronised timeline and are continuing to analyse further.

Thinking about those law professors who have done their part to normalize what we are seeing, either by approvingly amplifying extreme right wing sources (like the Daily Caller, Federalist, Dan McLaughlin), or by writing scholarship about Trumpism like it's a hypo and not reality.

Alex Pretti "used to tell people off when they made sexist comments to female physicians. He bought me coffee when I had a really bad day as an intern...I laughed alongside him daily. He made a point to teach medical residents without judgement, but with a smile on his face and a joke."

Federal law enforcement agents shot and killed a man in Minneapolis on Jan. 24 according to local police officials. DHS told Fox News that the man was “armed with a gun”. A video of the shooting appears to show that a gun was taken from the man before the first shot was fired. x.com/BillMelugin_...

Too obvious a point even to make, perhaps. But there was no “unrest” in Minneapolis before ICE and CBP showed up. ICE and CBP are the cause of the chaos…and the killings. Get them out of there.

More than 400 years of history and a decade of advocacy were torn down Thursday afternoon when National Park Service employees removed every single display at the President’s House. 🔗 What's next? We explain: www.inquirer.com/politics/nat...

I spoke with @inquirer.com about how the removal of the slavery exhibit at the President's House site fits in within a much longer history of Americans remembering, forgetting, and fighting over slavery's place in George Washington's legacy. www.inquirer.com/news/philade...

Newly unsealed evidence makes it even clearer that Rubio and Noem knew they were targeting students based solely on their political speech and that they knew this policy was unconstitutional. They just didn’t care. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/u...

A federal judge in Boston blocked the Trump administration from retaliating against two groups of scholars and students in a case that he said exposed an “unconstitutional conspiracy” to violate the First Amendment.

The Trump Administration tried to deport Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk & other foreign students for their speech. 🎁🔗 www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/u... I called this out in a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last April, and the Republicans mocked me for it (see next post)

Look at this: @inquirer.com has digitally preserved the interpretative signage removed by NPS, and used annotations to explain what specifically was flagged before removal. This keeps the content publicly accessible (for now) while doing newsworthy reporting www.inquirer.com/news/philade...

Universities should avoid investing in and extensively restructuring learning environments around a “bubble.”

A lot of prominent pundits and public intellectuals claimed—frequently and spuriously—that DEI measures in higher ed are anti-free speech. The standing federal ruling on this question, though says the opposite—only after their polemics helped fuel worse censorship than the McCarthy Era.

This is a very grim measure of how bad things are: Every year, some amazing federal public employees receive awards. This year's winners were not asked to speak. The organizers "wanted to protect them from being singled out by Trump administration cost-cutters." www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/...

Universities should avoid investing in and extensively restructuring learning environments around a “bubble.”

A lot of prominent pundits and public intellectuals claimed—frequently and spuriously—that DEI measures in higher ed are anti-free speech. The standing federal ruling on this question, though says the opposite—only after their polemics helped fuel worse censorship than the McCarthy Era.

Pretty much every article I read about "integrating" AI into the writing classroom brings me back to the conclusion I work through here: We should teach writing, not document production. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Spanberger’s actions do not further “politicize” Va higher ed boards. They aim to protect academic freedom, free expression, individual rights, and self-governance in state-funded universities after years of censorship, political interference, and specious investigations from the Youngkin admin.

Spanberger’s actions do not further “politicize” Va higher ed boards. They aim to protect academic freedom, free expression, individual rights, and self-governance in state-funded universities after years of censorship, political interference, and specious investigations from the Youngkin admin.

Spanberger has flipped the UVA BOV and she’s not even governor yet. We’ve got a new boss around here.

If Politico is truly interested in higher ed, then there’s good news: many universities are actually accredited, actually graduate large classes of students, have coherent and established governing structures, and offer well-developed curriculums. Would be great to see balanced coverage of them.

The scale and speed of state censorship of campus really is amazing. More than half of America's college students attend institutions in states that have passed laws censoring higher education since 2021. From @penamerica.bsky.social pen.org/report/ameri...

Even students who stay at home from school in Minneapolis are not safe. A hybrid class stopped while a virtual student's apartment building was raided by immigration agents. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/dispatch-f...

Students and staff at public schools in America are being terrorized by paramilitary forces. This is an entirely factual description of what is happening. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/dispatch-f...

If Politico is truly interested in higher ed, then there’s good news: many universities are actually accredited, actually graduate large classes of students, have coherent and established governing structures, and offer well-developed curriculums. Would be great to see balanced coverage of them.

Judge skewers Trump, Noem, Rubio over deportations of pro-Palestinian activists. Judge William Young (Reagan) denounces 'breathtaking' conspiracy against free speech, Trump an 'authoritarian' & says he appears to fear freedom. w/@kyledcheney @hassankanu www.politico.com/news/2026/01...

Texas A&M Cancels Graduate Ethics Class in Ongoing Course Review Administrators say the professor teaching the course did not specify when and how race, gender and sexuality might come up in class. The professor says that would be impossible. https://bit.ly/49n6zqm

The University of Arkansas's law school just withdrew the appointment of its new dean six days after hiring her because conservative politicians complained that she filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of transgender students

People who aren't in Minnesota might not know that if you drive or walk past pretty much any school, there's going to be a group of people, parents and childless, standing guard to make sure the kids are safe from feds. It's pretty remarkable. And very disturbing. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

Texas A&M University System serves 175,000 students annually across 12 institutions. Across all of them, core courses will no longer mention race, gender or LGBTQ content starting this semester. www.statesman.com/news/educati...

Mississippi’s largest synagogue was set on fire before dawn Saturday. Fire department ruled it arson, and a suspect has been arrested. It is the same synagogue that the Ku Klux Klan bombed in 1967 because the rabbi supported civil rights. mississippitoday.org/2026/01/10/f...

Looking forward to reading 👇👇👇

“Faculty at Texas A&M Univ were told..that roughly 200 courses…could be affected by a new system policy restricting classroom discussions of race & gender, the implementation of which has.. led administrators to direct a philosophy prof to remove Plato readings” www.texastribune.org/2026/01/07/t...

a huge victory for universities, worth billions of dollars: Trump can’t cap indirect-cost rates on NIH grants, appeals court rules www.chronicle.com/blogs/the-tr... via @andyandy.bsky.social

A good reference point: Finnish schools are teaching media literacy skills to combat misinformation/propaganda starting in preschool. In the U.S., political pressure for “viewpoint diversity” and “institutional neutrality” makes students *more* susceptible to falsehoods. apnews.com/article/fake...

A good reference point: Finnish schools are teaching media literacy skills to combat misinformation/propaganda starting in preschool. In the U.S., political pressure for “viewpoint diversity” and “institutional neutrality” makes students *more* susceptible to falsehoods. apnews.com/article/fake...

Orban's "...governmental actors have gained control of universities, galleries and popular media outlets. The national cultural fund, chaired by the culture and innovation minister, has redirected money from independent unions and periodicals to pro-government journalists and writers."