John Ioannidis recently blasted us as SBM for criticizing supposedly "serious scientists." But were MAHA/MAGA doctors serious scientists or political propagandists using science as a shield to stave off criticism? Don't trust my answer. Just watch their videos. My latest.

The only catch is, you need to know how to pronounce "Peabody."

I made a 2-page Take Action Flyer for anyone to download and use! We need all hands on deck! drive.google.com/file/d/1ppq4...

Scott Atlas, the champion of herd immunity as an Fox News commenter and the Trump Advisor during COVID, weighs in with a DEEPLY MININFORMED op-ed in the WaPo. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202... 1/7

Data suggest that it's not a lack of trust in science so much as polarization + a general lack of trust in institutions. When we consider counterfactuals, scientists are actually quite highly trusted. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

This is the NIH grant screening disfavored words list published by Nature: media.nature.com/original/mag...

I hope my UNC AAUP colleagues and those around the nation join us in submitting comments on the OMB proposal regarding Federal funding--share widely @unc-ch-aaup.bsky.social @stanfordaaup.bsky.social @utaustinaaup.bsky.social @aaup-penn.bsky.social @texasaaup.bsky.social @wesleyanaaup.bsky.social

This is more terrible news for New College and the adult learners and working people of Sarasota and Manatee Counties. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Making noise (and organizing!) works

Last week, one of New York's most iconic universities, The New School, laid off 19 full-time faculty and 68 staff members. Along with coerced "voluntary" separations and early retirements since December 2025, these mass firings constitute a major gutting of The New School's full-time faculty.

“As authoritarians attempt to tear it down, we must fight for a fully funded education system in service of a robust democracy. And that’s what we will do. Full stop.” — Todd Wolfson, AAUP President #AAUP2026

SB37 in Texas infringes on faculty rights & control of core curricula in universities. "Faculty are completely in the dark on the process...That’s a concern because faculty are no longer in control of the core curriculum at a research university." —Daniel Morales, University of Houston AAUP

ICYMI: John Oliver’s hilarious & thorough takedown of the dysfunctional “complete shit show” hostile takeover of New College of Florida that led to the most corrupt, financially inefficient public university in the state. 👀 ➡️ @newcollegeoffl.bsky.social youtu.be/jFMc07F1UUU?...

The pattern among MAGA/MAHA dudes running federal health agencies: they’re checked out, & rarely turn up, & agency staff say they’re disinterested Dr Prasad was reportedly rarely at FDA My NIH colleagues tell me they call Dr Bhattacharya “Podcast Jay”—he spends his time making right wing podcasts

Today, the AAUP released the Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2025–26. It is sobering. Full-time faculty salaries are down about 0.4% in real, inflation-adjusted terms. Average full-time faculty salaries remain 9.5% below fall 2019 & about 5.8% below fall 2008. 1/

More resources on responding to proposed OMB changes.

Today in the war on science and good government: New EO reclassifies the job categories of “epidemiologist,” “health scientist” and “toxicologist” into at-will positions, stripping them of job protections meant to shield against political interference. www.scientificamerican.com/article/whit...

The criticism of Trump, Kennedy, and Bhattacharya that was so subversive that the ADA had to eject the Editor-in-Chief of their flagship journal from their annual meeting for sharing it? Prior today it had fewer than 1000 views. Do your thing.

Research should not be a pawn of politics. stanforddaily.com/2026/06/04/r...

“The OMB’s proposed rules paint a bleak future for American science and society…Supplanting peer review with political review will not “improve” American science but imperil it.” New commentary from our AAUP colleagues on the disastrous proposed OMB regulations. Pls leave a comment before July 13!

This new proposal is a major threat to the conduct of science in this country. Pls consider joining this call or making a comment during the public comment period.

Want more breakthroughs like this? Fight like mad to keep the changes to OMB's Federal Financial Assistance Rule from being enacted! www.federalregister.gov/public-inspe...

many of the faculty that have been fired were critics of the administration - a chilling and shameful episode we should be following, especially those of us in higher ed

Want more successes like this? Protect American Science from the administration's attempt to hobble one of the greatest partnerships of human history (between the Federal government and university researchers). mRNA vaccines were literally decades in the making and were not part of a plan.

Want more breakthroughs like this? Fight like mad to keep the changes to OMB's Federal Financial Assistance Rule from being enacted! www.federalregister.gov/public-inspe...

President of MIT not mincing words today in @statnews.com www.statnews.com/2026/05/27/s...

Good to see that the Trump administration's attempt to destroy American Science, cripple innovation, and hamstring the economy is starting to get headline attention. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/u...

🧵

This new proposal is a major threat to the conduct of science in this country. Pls consider joining this call or making a comment during the public comment period.

This is a very helpful resource from the former EiC of Science: a template for commenting on the proposed changes to OMB regulations that threaten the continued existence of US Science.

The campaign to impose narrow political loyalty on universities continues… “These are hugely sweeping changes that are just going to completely undermine the accountability system as we know it in higher education.”

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule. Russell Vought is going destroy American Science. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

NEW: A lot of bad has happened to American science over the last year but nothing comes even close to what’s about to happen if we don’t speak out in opposition to the OMB rule changes and I hope @aaas-socsci.bsky.social @apsphysics.bsky.social and others will launch public campaigns about this. 🧪🔭⚛️

Of all the harm this administration has done to US science, today's proposed changes to the way federal grants are awarded and administered is the most damaging yet. The text of the federal register document is impenetrably tedious by design, so here's an excellent summary of what it says.

“What we’re highlighting is that there’s a broad number of faculty who have significant, significant concerns about their ability to teach, research, do public-facing work without punishment or restraint.” —Daniel Martinez HoSang, Yale AAUP President @yaleaaup.bsky.social @aftct.bsky.social

NSF restricting funds to Duke, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale for no apparent reason. ~85% of the stalled proposals are in mathematics, physical sciences and engineering, and several of them are about quantum information science. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A response on @yaleaaup.bsky.social's recent faculty survey on academic freedom: Read the full report here: aaupyale.org/report/

Don't let California bankroll attacks on higher ed! Send a letter urging California’s public pension & university investment leaders to make no new commitments to Apollo Global Management whose CEO, Marc Rowan, helped develop the Trump’s "loyalty oath" compact ⬇️ @aft.org @cfaunited.bsky.social

I will keep mentioning the segregationist goals of the feds and many other higher ed stakeholders in these interviews and one day a reporter will print it

MIT is doing less research and enrolling fewer graduate students as a result of federal actions, the university president warned. Federally funded research on campus is down more than 20 percent compared to this time last year, she said.

Anything to avoid giving money to research universities.

Women and minorities bore the brunt of NIH grant cancelations last year. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Acting CDC director, Jay Bhattacharya, ridicules epidemiological research designs for assessing vaccine efficacy, a causal-inference problem complicated by both ethics and logistics. www.science.org/content/arti...

"For example, biological sex chromosomes determine not only the sexual and reproductive organs an individual is born with, but also how females and males behave." "Determine" is an awfully strong word there 😳

Absolutely unhinged.

The Department of Education continues its march toward re-segregation, now by investigating Stanford for having a teacher education program for people of color, arguing it is discriminatory on the basis of race. The university has chosen to terminate the program.

Stanford discontinues BIPOC teacher training program under pressure from US Dept of Ed: stanforddaily.com/2026/04/29/b...

Also 5pm:

“This chilling effect created by unregulated 24/7 Flock mass surveillance on campus is absolutely anathema to the free and open exchange of ideas and participation in events and assemblies.” — Stanford AAUP