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Maya Sen

@mayasen.bsky.social

20K followers 400 following 1.2K posts

Professor, Harvard Kennedy School | Speaking in a personal capacity | https://msen.scholars.harvard.edu/

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 1h

Consistent with billionaires’ involvement in politics as well - because they have money, they think they know better than anyone else

Reposted by Jan W. Mueller, Rosemary A. Joyce, Sanford F. Schram , and 4 more Jan W. Mueller, Rosemary A. Joyce, Sanford F. Schram, Maya Sen, Melanie C. Green, Ann Bartow, Charles T. Mathewes

Murshed Zaheed @murshedz.bsky.social · 4h

“More than three dozen federal judges have told The New York Times that the Supreme Court’s flurry of brief, opaque emergency orders in cases related to the Trump administration have left them confused about how to proceed in those matters and are hurting the judiciary’s image with the public.”

Federal Judges, Warning of ‘Judicial Crisis,’ Fault Supreme Court’s Emergency Orders

www.nytimes.com

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 4h

I think all this means is people who are are underpaid relative to their private sector market value

Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 7h

You can take issue with the subject matter, sure

But you should take issue with the fact that it’s a terribly written, uninsightful book

Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 7h

Re: Jake Tapper, his Biden book was objectively one of the worst books I have read in years - bullet points strung together loosely by generic sentences. Repetitive.

No profound insights or interesting analysis. Like they had AI generate a book from their reporters’ notes.

The Daily Beast @thedailybeast.bsky.social · 4d

Lawrence O’Donnell eviscerated the CNN star, dedicating nearly 10 minutes to trashing Jake Tapper and accusing him of giving Trump preferential treatment.

MSNBC Skewers CNN Host Over ‘Softball’ Trump Text Interview

Lawrence O’Donnell said his CNN counterpart would not have allowed Joe Biden to conduct an interview exclusively in writing.

trib.al

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 1d

wild, & good for him

Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 1d

Oh that is good!

Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 1d

I’d probably look for a different doctor

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Reposted by Chris Hanretty, Maya Sen

Ralph Scott @ralphscott.bsky.social · 1d

Oh to be working during the Islamic golden age

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic...

The Islamic Empire heavily patronized scholars. The money spent on the Translation Movement for some translations is estimated to be equivalent to about twice the annual research budget of the United Kingdom's Medical Research Council.[18] The best scholars and notable translators, such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq, had salaries that are estimated to be the equivalent of professional athletes today.[18] The House of Wisdom was a library established in Abbasid-era Baghdad, Iraq by Caliph al-Mansur[19] in 825 modeled after the academy of Jundishapur.

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 1d

I think in general policymakers understand the value high end academics bring to society

But they will tolerate spending for it only if there is political and economic stability - they will not incur political costs for it

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 1d

Oh yes. There’s that dimension, that will be bad as well. Without prestige, academics are sorely underpaid

I’m thinking about it from the perspective of policymakers and limited resources (both political and economic)

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 1d

Nah they’re all in the *other* littauer

Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 1d

I think this is why I worry for the future of academia

We are all, in the end, easily jettisoned luxury goods

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah my response to my spouse: “well, she’s French or something. And also why does MIT even have an economics department?”

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 1d

I’ve been asking myself just how much society views high-end academics as a luxury good - they cost a lot and the pay offs are vague and mostly prestige based (no offense to these two), and make sense politically mostly at times of high economic and political stability

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 1d

Congratulations to Zurich but I must say that reactions to this have been fascinating

Eveything from “Trump did this” to “economics is a dying field”

Department of Economics @Universität Zürich 🇨🇭 @econ.uzh.ch · 1d

We are thrilled to welcome Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee as the new Lemann Foundation Professors to our department, beginning in the summer of 2026.

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Reposted by Diane Coyle, Jonathan Portes, Sascha O. Becker , and 6 more Diane Coyle, Jonathan Portes, Sascha O. Becker, Stefanie Walter, Gernot Wagner, Maya Sen, Kai Gehring, Simon Wiederhold, Colm O’Cinneíde

Department of Economics @Universität Zürich 🇨🇭 @econ.uzh.ch · 1d

We are thrilled to welcome Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee as the new Lemann Foundation Professors to our department, beginning in the summer of 2026.

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 2d

Genuinely a terrible book

Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 2d

Reforming higher ed via one-on-one business “deals” (🙄) is a bad way to do higher ed policy

nothing about this represents reasoned policy making, nothing incorporates concerns of stakeholders, and any agreement would be the result of unconstitutional coercion and retaliation

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 2d

Not feeling good about a random private equity billionaire with no academic experience apparently negotiating on behalf of university affiliates!

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 3d

SCOTUS “eliminating Section 2, a provision that prohibits racial gerrymandering when it dilutes minority voting power, would let Republicans redraw up to 19 House seats to favor the party and crush minority representation in Congress”

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

Republicans could draw 19 more House seats after an upcoming Supreme Court ruling

Many experts are forecasting the end of a key provision of election law — enabling Republicans to shore up their advantage in the House, according to a new report.

www.politico.com

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Reposted by Robert Black, Maya Sen

Dave Weigel @daveweigel.bsky.social · 4d

The View segment where Whoopi asked how ordinary people could read SCOTUS opinions was revealing.

They're free. They're online. They're much easier to read than legislation. Conquer your imposter's syndrome, you are smart enough to read a decision and know if it's bullshit.

Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · 4d

It's not just that they're going to strike down a law against conversion therapy, it's that they're going to do it on behalf of made-up claims from a straw plaintiff who can't honestly show the law affected her at all

Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · 4d

One thing about American's widespread distrust and disapproval of the Supreme Court is that mainstream news coverage mostly doesn't dwell on stuff like standing, so people don't even begin to grasp how rigged the Court truly is www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...

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Reposted by Maya Sen

The Daily Beast @thedailybeast.bsky.social · 4d

Lawrence O’Donnell eviscerated the CNN star, dedicating nearly 10 minutes to trashing Jake Tapper and accusing him of giving Trump preferential treatment.

MSNBC Skewers CNN Host Over ‘Softball’ Trump Text Interview

Lawrence O’Donnell said his CNN counterpart would not have allowed Joe Biden to conduct an interview exclusively in writing.

trib.al

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 4d

The courts are not going to help us

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

Trump open to invoking the Insurrection Act

The comments came a day after a federal judge blocked the president from sending National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon.

www.politico.com

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 5d

She’s doing a lot of work throughout the piece to give the administration the benefit of the doubt

Ignores similar ideological attacks on law firms, private businessss, and political adversaries that together paint a very different picture l

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 5d

Universities should at some point step in to articulate a positive vision of higher ed & scientific research to our fellow countrymen

But that cannot be done under coercion

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Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 5d

She says this version should be rejected as executive overreach in favor of negotiations with Congress along similar lines

Which assumes universities will be taken seriously as negotiators by a benevolent Congress on a basis free from coercion

Not sure how you realistically get there from here?

Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 5d

It’s immediately pragmatic and so good for someone in university leadership?

Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 5d

Has the old post-World War II compact between universities and the government collapsed? Yes

Do we need a new one? Yes

Is this that moment? I don’t think so

Neither the executive nor Congress have a coherent theory for promoting scientific research or higher ed reforms beyond ideological ones

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Reposted by David Darmofal

Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 5d

Agree with @profmarylewis.bsky.social - very puzzling piece that assumes a good faith operations by the executive and eventually by Congress, and also assumes that higher education and research are seen as societally good by these relevant players

Also ignores the issue of govt coercion

Mary Lewis @profmarylewis.bsky.social · 5d

Danielle Allen has proposed many good things for Harvard, so I’m puzzled by her reading of the word “compact” here, as if this would be an agreement freely entered into. She rightly says that, as written, this shouldn’t be agreed to. Maybe leave it there? therenovator.substack.com/p/why-im-exc...

Why I’m Excited About the White House’s Proposal for a Higher Ed Compact

Now we have a chance for collective action

therenovator.substack.com

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