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Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst

@profirmf.bsky.social

2.3K followers 1.5K following 620 posts

tired Islam, South Asia, race, & religion professor. podcaster. parent. enthusiastic killjoy. drama & drag & bad movie fan. adoptee. occasional TikTokker. she/her. (specifics @ profirmf.com)

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Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst @profirmf.bsky.social · Jul 3

our book is about systems of power—& especially religion

we say repeatedly that religion is what people do

the good & bad & everything

enough white Christian Americans are doing fascism that that is the whole game now

so study up

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757650...

Religion Is Not Done with You by Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, Megan Goodwin: 9780807012758 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

A smart, irreverent, and accessible guide to thinking more deeply about how religion permeates and shapes the world around us –and why you need to understand the work it's doing Religion lurks...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

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Bonnie Honig @bonniehonig.bsky.social · 5h

“need not accept federal funding” is Orwell-speak for we will not give federal funding. But this means government and the public will have no share of research advances. I hope someone soon lists the biggest ones that came out of partnership abt to be destroyed by these latest “tariffs”..conditions

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 13h

If your university will not remake itself in Marc Rowan & May Mailman's preferred image, it can expect a complete shutoff of "federal funds."

To emphasize the point Rowan says it again: "THEY NEED NOT ACCEPT FEDERAL FUNDING"

I hope this will put to rest the credulous "carrot not stick" narrative.

No school will be forced to adhere to the compact’s principles of fairness, civility, neutrality and transparency. If schools do not want to be accountable to these requirements, they need not accept federal funding.

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🎃 a frightful hoxgoblin 🎃 @kellenhoxworth.bsky.social · 1d

Higher Ed in 2025 is opening your mailbox to see that your institution has sent you:

1. A Center for Teaching and Learning call to integrate AI into your classroom; and

2. An Office of Academic Integrity email encouraging you to crack down on students who use AI to cheat.

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Charles Louis Richter @richterscale.bsky.social · 1d

"Mark Bray was teaching courses on the early modern witch craze. Turning Point USA accused him of being a witch, which he denies."

Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 2d

you'd think a prominent news outlet like the New York Times might mention that "antifa" isn't an actual organization in a long story about antifa, but nope!

and the subhead helps props up a false claim this professor was up to something seedy as something up for debate

NYT headline: "Rutgers Expert on Antifa Tries to Flee to Spain After Death Threats"

subheadline: "Mark Bray was teaching courses on antifascism. Turning Point USA accused him of belonging to antifa, which he denies. His flight to Spain was canceled abruptly on Wednesday night."

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Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst @profirmf.bsky.social · 1d

oh thank goodness

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 1d

Our plane to Spain is in the air!

🙌🙌

Thank you so much to the countless people supporting us in every way and in particular all of the Rutgers students and faculty who have supported us every step of the way.

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Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 2d

Spoke with cnn while sitting on the floor of my hotel room hallway bc my family were asleep in the other room.

6a E Mark.mp4 - 6a E Mark - Frame.io

next.frame.io

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 1d

Are we great yet?

Mark Bray, a Rutgers University professor and expert on anti-fascist groups, is fleeing to Spain with his family due to death threats that stem from a campaign by Turning Point USA and other conservative groups to get him fired, falsely labeling him as an antifa member.

Antifa expert at Rutgers University says he is moving to Spain because of death threats

An expert on anti-fascist groups who teaches at New Jersey’s flagship state university is moving his family overseas.

apnews.com

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Ruth Zakarin @ruthz.bsky.social · 2d

For those who think this could never happen, I implore you to look up the MOVE bombing in Philly.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Schiff: "You begin to wonder -- do they believe they have the authority by putting some groups on a list, even domestic groups, to use lethal force against them, with no trial, no due process, no nothing? The reality is we can't rule that out."

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Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst @profirmf.bsky.social · 2d

👇

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 2d

“Someone” cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second.

We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst @profirmf.bsky.social · 2d

this is what unions are for

solidarity

RutgersAAUP-AFT @ruaaup-aft.bsky.social · 2d

This week, our colleague Dr. Mark Bray came under attack by Turning Point USA’s Rutgers chapter for his public scholarship. Rutgers AAUP-AFT and the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union condemn this campaign and stand in solidarity with our colleagues. Read our full statement here: https://loom.ly/BDXasRY

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst @profirmf.bsky.social · 2d

I forgot that happened and now I’m irate all over again

a little girl in a red and purple dress is making an angry face .

ALT: a little girl in a red and purple dress is making an angry face .

media.tenor.com

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 3d

It's easy to say white supremacy is guys burning crosses or going to college campuses and saying that Black gang members are the primary problem with gun violence in the United States

It's harder to admit that it's in all the small ways folks allow people to devalue Black life on a daily basis

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carwil.bsky.social @carwil.bsky.social · 4d

Vanderbilt AAUP: "The Compact is a threat. It aims to control nearly every aspect of university operations. Reject this Trump loyalty oath."

vanderbiltaaup.org/2025/10/06/s...

Statement by the Vanderbilt AAUP Executive Committee on the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education”

Vanderbilt’s AAUP chapter stands firmly against Trump’s “Compact,” which aims to control nearly every aspect of university operations. The compact contravenes federal law an…

vanderbiltaaup.org

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Anodyne @anodynesix.bsky.social · 5d

"If [Israel] is treating Greta Thunberg this way, imagine how they are treating [Palestinian] women and children."

Harms Committed @harmscommitted.com · 5d

"Turkish activist Ersin Çelik, who also participated in the Sumud flotilla, told Anadolu that Israeli authorities 'dragged little Greta by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag.'"
#Gaza #Palestine #Israel #California #USA #Turkey #Sweden #Incarceration #Genocide

Israel Condemned as Sumud Flotilla Organizers Report 'Harsh Treatment' in Detention | Common Dreams

US Congressman Ro Khanna demands the release of US citizen David Adler, mistreated in Israeli detention. Will Israel ensure his safety? Greta Thunberg subjected to harsh treatment. Protests worldwide…

www.commondreams.org

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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 4d

Counterpoint: they voted for exactly this.
They might be occasionally uncomfortable with the openly sadistic violent aesthetic of fascism this administration takes such glee in (only aesthetically, mind) but this is what they voted for/what they want.
Rogan especially can stfu forever.

Rolling Stone @rollingstone.com · 4d

“I voted for none of this."

Prominent influencers, including Theo Von, Joe Rogan, and Andrew Schulz, are starting to distance themselves from the president they helped propel to the White House.

Story: www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

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chip goines @chip.bsky.social · 5d

If you're as disgusted by ICE & US Border Patrol's brutality as I am, please remember that is why Sen. Elizabeth Warren & Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley pushed to abolish Qualified Immunity for police officers 5 years ago. It's time.

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Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst @profirmf.bsky.social · 5d

my semi regular reminder to all of us who love to cite Mr Roger’s “look for the helpers” in times of stress

like when folks are being abducted by secret police

that that was advice for children to feel safe in times of crisis or need or fear

YOU are not the looker now

YOU are the helper

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Jonathan W. Gray @elmcitytree.blacksky.app · 6d

James Baldwin to Angela Davis in 1970, discussing white Americans:

Or, to put it another way, as long as white Americans take refuge in their whiteness— for so long as they are unable to walk out of this most monstrous of traps-they will allow millions of people to be slaughtered in their name, and will be manipulated into and surrender themselves to what they will think of-and justify—as a racial war. They will never, so long as their whiteness puts so sinister a distance between themselves and their own experience and the experience of others, feel themselves sufficiently human, sufficiently worthwhile, to become responsible for themselves, their leaders, their country, their children, or their fate. They will perish (as we once put it in our black church) in their sins—that is, in their delusions. And this is happening, needless to say, already, all around us.

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 6d

The President of the United States is lying and/or delusional, and it seems like we should be talking about this and nothing else.

Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 6d

The protests are on one block. Nothing is burning down. His justification for sending in troops is all based on lies.

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Chantal James @chantalalive.blacksky.app · 6d

Black people who have been suicidal will tell you hanging themselves from a tree outside was always off the table.

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Athul K. Acharya @athul.acharya.cc · 6d

‘Thunberg was “wrapped in the Israeli flag and paraded like a trophy.”’

Paul T. Levin @paultlevin.bsky.social · 7d

““They dragged little Greta [Thunberg] by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others,” the Turkish activist ErsinÇelik, a participant in the Sumud flotilla, told Anadolu news agency.”+

Israel accused of detaining Greta Thunberg in infested cell and making her hold flags

Activist tells Swedish officials she has been subjected to harsh treatment, including insufficient food and water

www.theguardian.com

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Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 7d

This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will. It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.

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jenn m. jackson @jennmjacksonphd.bsky.social · 7d

The Vice President of the United States used his social media page to tell Joy Reid, a private citizen with no connection to the government, that she should express "gratitude" for how this country has treated her.

Black women remain the most consistent targets in all of this.

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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 7d

BREAKING: The First Circuit rejects Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. In the New Jersey-led multistate case, the appeals court, in a 100-page ruling, keeps the nationwide scope of the injunction blocking the EO in place. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

The Government now asks us to reverse the preliminary
injunctions in these cases. We see no reason to do so. The
Government is right that the Framers of the Citizenship Clause
sought to remove the stain of Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 119
How.) 393 (1857), which shamefully denied United States
citizenship to "descendants of Africans who were imported into
this country, and sold as slaves," even when the descendants were born here. Id. at 403. But the Framers chose to accomplish that
just purpose in broad terms, as both the supreme Court in United
States . Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), and Congress in
passing § 1401(a) have recognized. The Government is therefore
wrong to argue that the plaintiffs are not likely to succeed in
showing that the children that the EO covers are citizens of this
country at birth, just as the Government is wrong to argue that
various limits on our remedial power independently require us to
reverse the preliminary injunctions.?

The analysis that follows is necessarily lengthy, as we
must address the parties' numerous arguments in each of the cases
involved. But the length of our analysis should not be mistaken
for a sign that the fundamental question that these cases raise
about the scope of birthright citizenship is a difficult one.
•It
is not, which may explain why it has been more than a century since a branch of our government has made as concerted an effort as the
Executive Branch now makes to deny Americans their birthright.

Thus, it is no surprise that, when presented with even
more uncontroverted evidence by the State-Plaintiffs about the
need for an injunction of the current breadth, the District Court
again found that a narrower injunction would leave unremedied
"administrative and financial harms." We therefore decline to
conclude that the District Court has abused its discretion in
fashioning relief. See Philip Morris, Inc. v. Harshbarger, 159
F. 3d 670, 680 (1st Cir. 1998) (explaining that "[als a general
rule, a disappointed litigant cannot surface an objection to a preliminary injunction for the first time in an appellate venue"
because doing so deprives the district court of the opportunity to
"consider [the objection] and correct the injunction if necessary,
without the need for appeal" (quoting Zenon, 711 F.2d at 478)).

The "lessons of history" thus give us every reason to be
wary of now blessing this most recent effort to break with our
established tradition of recognizing birthright citizenship and to
make citizenship depend on the actions of one's parents rather
than -- in all but the rarest of circumstances -- the simple fact
of being born in the United States. United States v. Di Re, 332
U.S. 581, 595 (1948). Nor does the text of the Fourteenth
Amendment, which countermanded our most infamous attempt to break
with that tradition, permit us to bless this effort, any more than
does the Supreme Court's interpretation of that amendment in Wong
Kim Ark, the many related precedents that have followed it, or
Congress's 1952 statute writing that amendment's words in the U.S.
Code.
The District Court's order for entry of the preliminary
injunctions is affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for
further consideration consistent with this decision.

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David Corn @davidcorn.bsky.social · 8d

Remember when Hillary Clinton called some Trump supporters “deplorable“?

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Mél Hogan / The Data Fix @melhogan.bsky.social · 9d

“And in this respect, I’m coming to understand the AI hype machine as part and parcel of the fascistic project. That’s not an analogy. I’m not saying AI is similar to fascism, or parallel to it. I’m saying AI is fascism.”

Mél Hogan / The Data Fix @melhogan.bsky.social · 9d

www.halifaxexaminer.ca/morning-file...

AI is fascism - Halifax Examiner

Eventually, fascism runs its course, just as the AI hype machine will. It's just a question of how much damage will be done before it's over.

www.halifaxexaminer.ca

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