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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 15h

New from me at Cato: I go through the numerous and massive First Amendment and academic-freedom violations of Trump's proffered "compact" with universities and then talk about the mechanism by which it would be enforced, by way of what I describe as a "retroactive push-button guillotine."

Universities Must Defend Their Independence by Rejecting Trump's "Compact"

The Trump administration has proffered a “compact” to universities that would require them to surrender their independence and academic freedom. How many First Amendment violations can we identify in ...

www.cato.org

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Big Data Kane @cmwitko.bsky.social · 2h

Why doesn’t one of these tech billionaires who hates the best university system in the world just start their own university?🤔

Aubrey Gilleran @aubreygilleran.bsky.social · 5h

People will scoff at virtue signaling and then wonder why today’s billionaires don’t build museums, libraries, hospitals, and universities like Gilded Age ones did.

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Larry Glickman @larryglickman.bsky.social · 1d

Most of this laundry list of "overwhelming evidence" is tendentious. Let's go through them.
1) A big driver of high costs at public universities has been a decrease in state appropriations. Many public schools have been forced to act on a public/private model as a result..../1

The evidence is overwhelming: outrageous costs and prolonged indebtedness for students; poor outcomes, with too many students left unable to find meaningful work after graduating; some talented domestic students and scholars have been crowded out of enrollment and employment opportunities by international students; and a high degree of uniformity of thought among faculty members and administrators, which can result in a hostile environment for students with different ideas.

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Kim Weeden @weedenkim.bsky.social · 2d

An irony of GOP/MAGA's attacks on university sector is that, structurally, it's as close to a "free market" as you'll find in US.

There are 1000s of universities, mostly operating independently.

Unlike tech sector (or coal, oil/gas, eyeglasses, etc), market concentration is incredibly low.

1/4

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NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 19h

The Virginia Senate just told UVA it’s not getting state funding if it accepts the compact since UVA exists to serve Virginia, its residents, & their interests—not be a tool of the federal govt. Scoop from our student newspaper, who’ve been doing vital reporting www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 16h

UPDATE: Judge Perry issued an opinion explaining why she blocked the Texas National Guard deployment in Chicago.

She begins with Alexander Hamilton’s rejection of a “preposterous” idea that the Constitution lets a President deploy a State’s militia to a different State for political retribution. 🧵

OPINION AND ORDER
Since this country was founded, Americans have disagreed about the appropriate division
of power between the federal government and the fifty states that make up our Union. This
tension is a natural result of the system of federalism adopted by our Founders. And yet, not even
the Founding Father most ardently in favor of a strong federal government believed that one
state's militia could be sent to another state for the purposes of political retribution, calling such
a suggestion "inflammatory," and stating "it is impossible to believe that [a President] would employ such preposterous means to accomplish their designs." But Plaintiffs contend that such
an event has come to pass, and argue that National Guard troops from both Illinois and Texas
have been deployed to Illinois because the President of the United States wants to punish state elected officials whose policies are different from his own.

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James Breckwoldt @jamesbreckwoldt.bsky.social · 3d

What do the public actually think about economic growth, technological change and "abundance"? I’ve done an original survey looking at just this!

There actually is an “anti-growth coalition” and “pro-growth coalition” out there, but the make up of both of these creates some very strange bedfellows…

What Do The Public Actually Think About Economic Growth, Technological Change and "Abundance"?

There's an "anti-growth coalition" and a “pro-growth coalition” out there, it’s just not necessarily the people you think it is

jamesbreckwoldt.substack.com

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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 1d

Immigrants have been awarded 40% of the Nobel Prizes won by Americans in chemistry, medicine and physics since 2000. nfap.com/research/new...