Shaping for Mediocrity reviewed in the Morning Star. It's particularly timely since workers at University of Leicester are right now in the midst of yet another struggle against restructuring and redundancies. @ucu.org.uk morningstaronline.co.uk/article/orga...

"For action and for Palestine."

This is tonight! ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Number of job cuts that have been made in UK higher education could be much higher than previously thought, with more than 20,000 roles potentially affected, say @beccaeharrison.bsky.social @davidharvie.bsky.social www.timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-univ... via @julietterowsell.bsky.social

The Oasis reunion wasn't the only newsworthy event happening in Manchester the past two weekends, not that you'd know it from the mainstream media – & even most of the alternatives. Here's a report from the July 12 @defendourjuries.bsky.social action opposing genocide in Gaza.

Clapton CFC has donated the full profit of £7,944.34 from sales of our limited edition trans solidarity keeper shirt to the Trans Legal Clinic. Here's the breakdown >> www.claptoncfc.co.uk/2025/07/18/c...

This happened in Leeds earlier. One person was arrested for sitting on some steps holding a placard saying I OPPOSE GENOCIDE I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION Police searched his house and, I believe, he's still being held in custody. @defendourjuries.bsky.social @palaction.bsky.social

Solidarity with the people from @defendourjuries.bsky.social, risking their liberty in Manchester, Cardiff and London today – in opposition to genocide in Palestine and the UK government's complicity in that and in support of @palaction.bsky.social – taking direct action to stop genocide. 🇵🇸 🍉

*This* was the spirit of Gleneagles – 20 years ago this weekend – embodied in the millions of people across the planet who believed another world was (is) possible. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

If we're to restore our rights to the land, & to the commons more generally, it's vital we remember the stories of how we lost these rights in the first place – the stories of enclosure. At the July 24 screening, the amazing @beccaeharrison.bsky.social will discuss the film & its revelance today.

SCREENING: “To Kill A War Machine”, a documentary about @palaction.bsky.social by ‪@rainbow-collective.bsky.social‬ ⏰2 July, 18;30-21:00, 📍BLOC Cinema, ArtsOne 🎟 free, but register for access: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/to-kill-a-... 🤝 @cclas1.bsky.social

Really unfair question to ask, tbh. No reason at all it can't be both.

If you've been fucked around by one of the malicious, ignorant, corrupt, greedy, vindictive, arrogant, grasping, spiteful, self-important, smug, censorious & deceitful bullies who run UK universities ... ... check out the demolition of ex-Vice Chancellor Gillespie at Holyrood Enjoy

I'm pleased that even though the 'grown ups' are ignoring the massive ecological and financial scandal that is the ongoing subsidies to Drax, these kids aren't. Good on them.

Imagine the banality of a university where the only ratified areas of study are ‘complex analysis’ and ‘critical thinking’. Thinking about what? We have already seen what happens when we unleash a cadre of overrated, narrowly-educated adolescents whose only thought is of their own exceptionalism.

"Your micro-credentials in ‘leadership’, decision-making and ‘commercial awareness’ are not going to impinge on the threats from climate change or global health hazards." oh man, this is SO spot on about #UKHE, its value, and and why we have to defend it from blandness.

Now published! Universities Degraded, by @beccaeharrison.bsky.social & me, reveals the scale of job losses in UK universities, exposes employer practices & shares testimonies of those made redundant & their colleagues. Warning: some of the content is distressing. zenodo.org/records/1563...

How does it feel to be made redundant? How does it feel when your colleagues go through this process? This major new report, by @beccaeharrison.bsky.social & me, centres the experiences of people on the frontline of UK university job cuts – and exposes employers' behaviour. Out next week.

Tomorrow, June 4, at 3.30pm, at Lancaster University (and online), Simon Lilley and I will be discussing our struggle against redundancies at the University of Leicester in 2021 – our struggle FOR the university. More details here: www.lancaster.ac.uk/lums/researc...

Keir Starmer is a climate-change denier.

📣 Join us for an event on the multiple crises that are currently affecting UK Higher Education,at QMUL hosted by AARG and the Mile End Institute (MEI). More info here: www.tickettailor.com/events/queen... @mileendinstitute.bsky.social

Shame on UCU managers for this brazen attempt to cover up bad employment practices. Whatever you call them - non-disparagement clauses, confidentiality agreements - these are NDAs. We all know conditions are stacked in the employer’s favour. Enforced silence is *always* violence.

Hands up who thinks trade unions should be model employers? ✋🏽 ✋🏾 ✋🏻 ✋🏿 ✋🏼 #ThriveNotSurvive

I'm ashamed of and embarrassed by UCU – specifically its leadership, by which I mean the general secretary and her senior management team.

A key question for universities is whether they are spaces of curiosity, creativity, and learning that enables people to think and act in new ways… or whether they only exist to serve job markets by churning out compliant workers.

Over the past year there have been whispers about 'protected conversations' being used to make job cuts by the backdoor in HE (it's closed to submissions but the our branch survey included them: shorturl.at/leLpn). Looking at interim survey results, it seems like we should all know about them.

Next Wednesday afternoon, I'll be discussing Shaping for Mediocrity: The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at Our Universities – and its many lesson for today's university struggles – in central London.

This is what @ronaldhartz.bsky.social, Simon Lilley and I had to say about Shaping for Mediority: The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at Our Universities (as part of a COVER research seminar on March 7). Thanks to @minorcompositions.bsky.social.

Wed 5 Mar, 12.00–1.30 pm, Online Hosted by the Centre for Commons Organising Values Equalities and Resilience, @davidharvie.bsky.social, Simon Lilley and I will discuss our book about the purge of Critical Management Studies at Leicester. #CriticalManagementStudies www.essex.ac.uk/events/2025/...

I have resigned as honorary treasurer of UCU. I have spent the past 21 months trying to make UCU more transparent, its senior officers and officials more accountable, its practices more ethical and imaginative; I have tried to democratise its financial decision-making. [1/2]

Someone's always telling you how to behave.

Next Wednesday * 12.00–1.30pm * Online * RESISTING MEDIOCRITY/REMAKING THE UNIVERSITY * (Hosted by the Centre for Commons Organising Values Equalities and Resilience.) essex-university.zoom.us/j/95569740080

This Monday in Falmouth, I and others will be discussing the book Shaping for Mediocrity: The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at Our Universities. We'll be exploringe the contours of the present crisis in the sector and asking how we can remake the university. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/resisting-...

Wednesday 5 March – 12noon–1.30pm – online @ronaldhartz.bsky.social, Simon Lilley and I will be discussing our book and exploring the possibilities for resisting mediocrity and remaking the university.

I'm blushing. "To older readers, the book will evoke memories of 1970s classics in industrial relations and industrial sociology like Working for Ford, Strike at Pilkington’s and Grunwick. ... Like its predecessors, this book deserves to become a classic."

Following awful encounters with corporate and policing powers last week, I spent some time mapping the Davos high street at the World Economic Forum. This local geography of capital reveals a lot about the worrying relationships between AI and authoritarianism www.writingonreels.uk/blog/little-...

✈️ Open letter to MPs: airport expansion is not ‘sustainable’ growth Rachel Reeves' backing of airport expansion ignores climate warnings—jeopardizing net zero goals and undermining green commitments From Nick Hodgkinson @galba.uk

No growth on a dead planet!

Not the most pleasant way to end a holiday, but it felt necessary to be there...

Four years ago today, University of Leicester bosses put 145 workers at risk of redundancy, leading to an eventual exodus of 200+. In the next 2 months we’ll be doing 3 more events on our collective resistance & our struggle to remake the university. www.collectiveinkbooks.com/zer0-books/o...

A lovely review of Shaping for Mediocrity: The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at Our Universities: "[Our] remarkably candid book provides a compelling, cantankerous, and above all contrite account of how [we] tried, but ultimately failed, not to lose [our] jobs." [Behind a paywall, alas.]

Leicester launch of Shaping for Mediocrity, our book about University of Leicester bosses' 2021 attack on workplace organisation & academic freedom – & the possibilities for remaking the university. Thurs 24 Oct – 7pm www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/resisting-...

Here is the recording of 'Academic Freedom Under Attack: The Leicester Case'. Thanks a lot to our speakers @davidharvie.bsky.social, Deborah Toner and Gibson Burrell! academicfreedomunderattack.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-2O...