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Lauren Rivera

@larivera.bsky.social

1.6K followers 400 following 38 posts

Sociologist at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management studying gatekeeping and inequalities in organizations. Author of Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs. https://www.laurenarivera.com/

www.laurenarivera.com

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Feb 27

Many Medicaid recipients do not know they receive it because Medicaid is called different things in different states. The public narrative of Medicaid focuses on a distant other, but 40% of US children and 60% of nursing home residents receive Medicaid. Just SOME of the names by state are below:

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · May 22

Thank you for the shoutout, Jen!

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Reposted by Lauren Rivera

Jen Jennings @jenjennings.bsky.social · May 21

If you haven't read Estela Diaz and Lauren Rivera's excellent paper on how private schools manage kids with disabilities, you're missing out.

Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · May 21

100 percent. And they explicitly exclude children they believe are neurodivergent or have any type of disability.
urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

urldefense.com

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Reposted by Lauren Rivera

Jen Jennings @jenjennings.bsky.social · May 21

LMM framing is that parents will choose schools for their children. That is absolutely false. Private schools will choose their kids, based on criteria that would mangle your brain.

Trust me, I've read hundreds of private school applications. Mind blowing stuff.

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · May 21

100 percent. And they explicitly exclude children they believe are neurodivergent or have any type of disability.
urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

urldefense.com

Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · May 19

Congratulations!!

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · May 13

The monitor or the espresso? ;-)

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · May 5

And private schools can (and do) refuse to educated disabled or neurodivergent children

Reposted by Lauren Rivera

Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · Apr 28

Deaths from heart disease down 75%, that’s NIH.

Deaths from stroke down 75%, that’s NIH.

HIV/AIDS no longer a death sentence, that’s NIH.

99% of FDA approved drugs in the last decade, that’s NIH.

Please show this video to anyone who doesn’t understand why the NIH is so important.

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Reposted by Lauren Rivera

C.H. Romatowski @chromatowski.bsky.social · Apr 21

This is incredibly cool: if you search for a condition that’s affected your family, the site returns stats on how much NIH has done for that disease, *and* a contact form for reaching out to tell your Members of Congress why you want to see them defend NIH.

Pass it on!

Nihil Dev @nihildev.bsky.social · Apr 21

Ever wonder how many lives have been saved by NIH-funded research - including your own? Enter any medical condition and instantly see how your tax dollars transformed science into survival.

www.ourhealthroi.com

Our Health ROI

Explore how your tax dollars fund life‑saving medical research.

www.ourhealthroi.com

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Reposted by Lauren Rivera

Ridley @rid-ley.bsky.social · Apr 17

Guys, I love all of you, but the answer to RFK, Jr. is not that autistic adults hold jobs, pay taxes, and get laid, it's that everyone deserves to live even if they can't work, pay taxes, or get laid.

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Reposted by Lauren Rivera

Andrea Junker @strandjunker.com · Apr 10

Number of people who go bankrupt every year because of medical bills or illness-related work loss:

Australia 0
Canada 0
Denmark 0
Finland 0
France 0
Germany 0
Iceland 0
Ireland 0
Italy 0
Japan 0
Netherlands 0
Norway 0
Portugal 0
Spain 0
Sweden 0
UK 0
United States 530,000

There’s a lesson there.

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Apr 8

Sharing an ungated version of a paper I recently published on private school early childhood admissions urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

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urldefense.com

Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Apr 7

Thank you so much for the shoutout @katemcnamara.bsky.social!

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Mar 29

Congratulations! Looking forward to reading!!

Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Mar 25

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Mar 25

While elite private schools do not (yet) require biomedical specimens as part of their assessments, their early childhood admissions practices—which essentialize merit and present some children’s bodies and minds as more or less intrinsically wired for success—share some concerning similarities.

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Mar 25

13 years ago @npr.org ran a satire for April Fools announcing that an elite NYC preschool had begun to require prenatal DNA samples as part of its application process. Instead of backlash, the piece inspired affluent parents to inquire from their obstetricians where they could obtain such samples.

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Mar 25

We argue that these schools' admissions practices represent a case of essentializing merit, in which gatekeepers construct merit as an intrinsic rather than achieved property of individuals, an approach that is gaining traction in other elite contexts, but has troubling implications for disability.

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Mar 25

Prior work has discussed how in every era, elite private schools maintain high status by identifying an outgroup against which they define themselves; our research suggests that, at least in the context of early childhood programs, disabled children are that contemporary outgroup.

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Mar 25

Seeking metrics they believed could not be “gamed” by affluent parents, they turned inward, looking for markers they believed were intrinsic markers of children’s underlying worth. But in doing so, they espoused evaluative logics that bear a striking resemblance to ideas from the eugenics movement.

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Mar 25

Why did they do this? In a highly competitive admissions process, they believed screening on disability status was a fair and legitimate way of evaluating children who were too young to have established academic or extracurricular records to evaluate.

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Mar 25

How do the most elite US private schools, which serve as Ivy League feeders, select their youngest members? In a new ASR article w/ @estelabdiaz.bsky.social, we show that schools explicitly design their early childhood admissions practices to identify—and exclude—disabled or neurodivergent children🧵

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Mar 21

Thank you for writing this important piece!

Reposted by Lauren Rivera

Ron Lieber @ronlieber.bsky.social · Mar 21

I will never stop trying to get people to care about Medicaid. And if you're on it -- or are close to someone who is (and LOTS of more affluent people do) -- please help. My column for the weekend. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/y...

Medicaid Is a Middle-Class Benefit. Here’s What to Know.

If you have a parent short on savings, a disabled adult child or a minor with special needs, Medicaid may be your backstop. Plenty of people are unaware.

www.nytimes.com

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Lauren Rivera @larivera.bsky.social · Mar 5

For everyone following this thread, check out this great piece by @jannaherron.bsky.social
finance.yahoo.com/news/medicai...

Medicaid goes by many names. Will Americans realize if it gets cut?

States, which administer federal Medicaid funds, often change the name of the program to get more people to sign up. Studies find this causes confusion about who benefits from the program.

finance.yahoo.com

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