Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Lisa Covert

Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 6h

We have the timidity of countless corporate and university GCs to thank for the fact DEI is treated as though it were illegal.

Anna Gifty @itsafronomics.bsky.social · 7h

lol gentle reminder that DEI is not illegal. Supporting marginalized groups is not illegal. Anyone reneging on support is making a CHOICE to do so.

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Preorder Read This When Things Fall Apart @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 7h

My publisher’s been very patient. I’m not doing everything I said I’d do to promote this book (out in a few weeks) because I’m an organizer in a city under federal attack. My days are full and emotionally exhausting. Any help getting the word out means a lot. It's a book people need right now.

Read This When Things Fall Apart by Kelly Hayes | Pilsen Community Books

A bundle of letters to activists and organizers on the frontlines in catastrophic times from Let This Radicalize You co-author Kelly Hayes In social movements, some heartbreaks are all but inevitable.

www.pilsencommunitybooks.com

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Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 1d

IDK, man. School started 2 weeks ago for us, and once again students remind me that they’re so curious and interested in the world and anxious to ask big questions. We hear that these questions are no longer useful or relevant, but wherever that’s coming from, it’s not what students believe.

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Karl Jacoby @karl-jacoby.bsky.social · 1d

Higher education has been one of the US's most dynamic economic sectors. People from all over the world have come here to get an American university degree (in the process, subsidizing US students). Trump is destroying American academia along so many vectors that it is hard to keep up.

The Upshot @upshot.nytimes.com · 5d

The decline is occurring as the Trump administration has delayed visa processing, instituted travel bans or restrictions for 19 countries, threatened to deport international students for pro-Palestinian speech, and heightened the vetting of student visa applicants.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Nearly 20 Percent Fewer International Students Traveled to the U.S. in August

The data shows the steepest decline in August international student arrivals since the pandemic.

www.nytimes.com

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AAUP chapter @UT Austin @utaustinaaup.bsky.social · 1d

“There is no place in American higher education for death threats against professors,” Todd Wolfson, the president of the AAUP, said in a statement. “We stand with Professor Bray against this gross assault on academic freedom and freedom of speech.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/n...

Rutgers Expert on Antifa Flees to Spain After Death Threats

www.nytimes.com

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Cora Dean @c-anemone-d.bsky.social · 2d

"There just isn't enough time. There's only what we manage to make of it-what we build, what we protect, what we remember to carry to the car. The gas mask. The snacks. The question we forgot to ask. The name of the person taken.
I don't want to get used to any of this. I don't want to lose the part of myself that still startles, still aches, still sounds the alarm. But I also want to keep my body. I want to keep my mind. I want to keep my people. I want to make it through.
So I will find a way to keep burning without burning out. I will find moments to breathe, to soften, to hold what's unbearable without letting it hollow me out. The goal is to feel without coming apart.
And to keep going-until we don't have to live like this anymore." - Kelly Hayes
ORGANIZING MY THOUGHTS

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Lisa Covert @covertprof.bsky.social · 2d

Literally bought her new album the day the other one came out because that is the kind of songwriting I want to support

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WIRED @wired.com · 2d

NEW: A professor at Rutgers University who wrote a book about “antifa” almost a decade ago is trying—and struggling—to flee the US for Europe after a weeks-long online campaign against him by far-right influencers was followed by death threats. www.wired.com/story/mark-b...

He Wrote a Book About Antifa. Death Threats Are Driving Him Out of the US

Rutgers historian Mark Bray is trying to flee to Spain after after an online campaign from far-right influencers was followed by death threats. He was turned back at the airport on his first attempt.

www.wired.com

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J Patrice McSherry @jpmcsherry.bsky.social · 4d

Venezuela denuncia un complot para atacar la embajada de Estados Unidos | Tensión en medio del despliegue militar en el Caribe - www.pagina12.com.ar/863632-venez...

Venezuela denuncia un complot para atacar la embajada de Estados Unidos | Tensión en medio del despliegue militar en el Caribe

El gobierno de Maduro alertó sobre un supuesto plan para colocar explosivos en la sede diplomática en Caracas. La amenaza fue atribuida a sectores opositores “extremistas” y comunicada a Washington po...

www.pagina12.com.ar

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Michael Evans @colombiadocs.bsky.social · 11d

Don't miss this riveting new piece from @katidoyle.bsky.social and @cldorfman.bsky.social on the DEA intercepts that contain critical information on the 2014 Ayotzinapa student disappearances @nsarchive.bsky.social nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-boo...

The DEA and Ayotzinapa

Washington, D.C., September 26, 2025 - The eleventh anniversary of the enforced disappearance of 43 Mexican students from the Ayotzinapa college brings a grim reckoning. To date, no one has been held ...

nsarchive.gwu.edu

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Jodi Cohen @jodiscohen.bsky.social · 5d

🚨Come work with me at @propublica.org!
We are hiring a reporter to cover higher education — the best beat there is. 🏫

job-boards.greenhouse.io/propublica/j...

Higher Education Reporter, National

New York City, United States

job-boards.greenhouse.io

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Matthew Boedy @matthewboedy.bsky.social · 5d

Tonight!

Matthew Boedy @matthewboedy.bsky.social · 9d

Still time to register for Monday's @aaup.org webinar on the state-backed threat to independent higher education accreditation www.aaup.org/event/politi...

Politicizing Accreditation in the South and Beyond

This webinar will explore the historic importance of independent accreditation systems for maintaining professional norms and standards for public higher education and examine the threats a politicize...

www.aaup.org

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Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 5d

Wrote a short post over on my substack on Mehdi’s recent interview of the Cuban deputy foreign minister

Interview was great but I wanted to add context which further solidifies Mehdi’s claims

open.substack.com/pub/pertierr...

On Cuban Elections and Dissidence

On the Mehdi Hasan interview of Cuban Vice Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío

open.substack.com

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T. Christian Miller @tchristianmiller.bsky.social · 11d

1/ In August 2020, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, made an extraordinary request to President Trump’s ambassador, Ronald Johnson. A previously undisclosed report tells what happened next, according to a new ProPublica investigation. 🧵 ⬇️

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Lisa Covert @covertprof.bsky.social · 6d

Important thread:

Michelle A. Rodrigues 🐒 @marspidermonkey.bsky.social · 9d

We can remember Goodall’s accomplishments and legacy while recognizing that National Geographic created a narrative that erased the local people who contributed to her research. Her African colleagues deserve to be credited, not erased (10/10).

Lisa Covert @covertprof.bsky.social · 7d

lol this is really wild. @markricehistory.bsky.social maybe the next edition of your book can have a new section about tourists navigating the Sacred Valley with AI

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 7d

“The elevation, the climatic changes and accessibility [of the] paths have to be planned. When you [use] a program [like ChatGPT], which combines pictures and names to create a fantasy, then you can find yourself at an altitude of 4,000m without oxygen and [phone] signal."

The perils of letting AI plan your next trip

An imagined town in Peru, an Eiffel tower in Beijing: travellers are increasingly using tools like ChatGPT for itinerary ideas – and being sent to destinations that don't exist.

www.bbc.com

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 9d

When faculty are silenced it's not just about what those individuals. The community is also degraded. A new project is documenting these injustices. academicfreedomontheline.substack.com/p/a-new-proj...

A New Project Exploring Attacks on Academic Freedom

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance

academicfreedomontheline.substack.com

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Christopher McKnight Nichols @cmcknichols.bsky.social · 9d

Tenure isn't "just" about academic freedom or free speech, it also about labor, and more - knowing the history helps understand the battles and challenges of the present🗃️ @TIME #madebyhistory time.com/7320703/acad...

The Real History of Tenure

If academics want to protect the idea of tenure, they need to understand how and why it became the norm.

time.com

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Dr. Amanda Wyatt Visconti @literaturegeek.bsky.social · 9d

+ "Cowardice in the name of pragmatism" doesn't build a broad coalition; "principles+resolve" do—"if what we actually want is a big tent and not just to avoid being impolite about atrocities to people who some of us identify w/more closely than those the atrocities are being inflicted upon"

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 10d

People think they’re taking down a rich intellectual sinecure but they’re mostly terrorizing committed public servants who make $58,000 a year after 15 years of experience at a school that has to budget creatively so students can access textbooks.

Emily Farris @emayfarris.bsky.social · 10d

This new column by @tressiemcphd.bsky.social makes me think about when I recently had to talk to the police for yet another safety plan, I tried to “lighten” the mood by saying that we all knew this wasn’t my first rodeo. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/o...

For at least the past 15 years, my colleagues in academia have grappled with angry letters to university officials for doing their jobs. They have weathered campaigns for their firing. They have contended with an internet army obsessed with doxxing them, their parents, their kids. I’ve been contacted by the F.B.I. more than once in my career. Not because I hold any important state secrets or know a biker gang but because one of my colleagues has lived with so much sustained harassment from right-wing “activists” that it has become a matter of federal concern. Watch lists (one of which was constructed by Kirk’s organization) do not distinguish between public intellectuals at wealthy enclaves and hoi polloi who teach popular classes at cash-strapped schools. In either case, an army of trained provocateurs stands ready to destroy their lives to prove their bona fides as conservative activists.

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Naomi Klein @naomiaklein.bsky.social · 10d

Israel has just arrested Greta Thunberg and many others.

Statement from the Global Sumud Flotilla:

“People of conscience have been abducted. The flotilla broke no laws. What is illegal is Israel’s genocide, Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza, and Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon.”
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Naomi Klein @naomiaklein.bsky.social · 10d

Close to 65k watching the livefeed from the Global Sumud Flotilla off the coast of Gaza.

Israel seems to be intercepting right now.

All eyes needed.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEN2...

24/7 LIVESTREAM OF GLOBAL SUMUD FLOTILLA

YouTube video by Global Sumud Flotilla

www.youtube.com

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Mexico News @mexiconews.bsky.social · 10d

Rising tides slowly destroy a fishing village in Mexico

yucatanmagazine.com/rising-tides...

Rising tides slowly destroy a fishing village in Mexico - Yucatán Magazine

A once-thriving fishing village in Mexico is being slowly eaten away by coastal erosion and residents are up in arms about failed promises to relocate them.

yucatanmagazine.com

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AAUP @aaup.org · 11d

This case … squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us.”

“The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally ‘yes, they do’.

— Judge William G. Young

#AAUPvRubio

Opinion

knightcolumbia.org

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Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 11d

the postcard cited in judge young's ruling isn't just at the top, it's a framing device. the whole opinion is a letter to the postcard writer. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Post card dated June 19, 2025
(On file in Chambers) TRUMP HAS PARDONS AND TANKS ... WHAT DO YOU HAVE?
Dear Mr. or Ms. Anonymous,
Alone, I have nothing but my
sense of duty.
Together, We the People of the
United States –- you and me --
have our magnificent Constitution.
Here’s how that works out in a
specific case –-
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

I hope you found this
helpful. Thanks for writing.
It shows you care. You
should.

Sincerely & respectfully,
Bill Young

P.S. The next time you’re in
Boston [the postmark on the card
is from the Philadelphia area]
stop in at the Courthouse and
watch your fellow citizens, sitting
as jurors, reach out for justice.
It is here, and in courthouses
just like this one, both state and
federal, spread throughout our land
that our Constitution is most vibrantly
alive, for it is well said that “Where a
jury sits, there burns the lamp of
liberty.”

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UChicago AAUP @uchicagoaaup.bsky.social · 11d

Huge victory for @aaup.org in AAUP v. Rubio:

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