Brendan Cantwell
LightNews LightNews
banner
cantb.bsky.social
Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social
4K followers 1.4K following 880 posts
Views and speech are mine alone. Might delete.
Posts Replies Media Videos
cantb.bsky.social
Is this a normal record for someone for someone hired for meritocracy?
Screenshot Luke Perez’s google scholar page showing three publications including his dissertation with a total of one citation
February 12, 2026 at 2:00 PM
cantb.bsky.social
Who would want to be a department chair under these conditions?

www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
According to the policy, administrators may, with the provost and general counsel’s written permission, record classes or access existing recordings without telling faculty in order to “gather evidence in connection with an investigation into alleged violations of university policy” and “for any other lawful purpose, when authorized in writing by the provost and the office of university counsel, who will consult with the chair of the faculty.”
February 11, 2026 at 11:43 AM
cantb.bsky.social
Stanford is doing this because it wants to
Stanford University discontinued. It’s enhancing diversity and graduate education. Dr. old Fellowship, a graduate program aimed at diversifying at student body. The Stanford daily report reported. The university also will no longer offer housing and dining support for students from outside the Bay Area who participate in summer undergraduate research fellowship. The Fellowship House in Sanford school of engineering offered an immersive research and graduate school preparation experience for first generation students and student students from historically underrepresented communities.”
February 11, 2026 at 12:31 AM
cantb.bsky.social
A community group that was started by person who was pepper sprayed's mother put up this billboard on the border of Lansing and East Lansing.

www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/l...
billboard showing the quite from EL police chief
February 10, 2026 at 8:28 PM
cantb.bsky.social
😐
Error East Lansing, MSU East Lansing, the recent active violence incident message was sent in error. Please disregard that alert. We regret any undue stress or inconvenience caused and steps are being taken to prevent such hours in the future.
February 10, 2026 at 3:54 PM
cantb.bsky.social
who needs an algorithm
Screenshot of four people saying they hated the Dunkin’ Donuts ad
February 9, 2026 at 1:05 AM
cantb.bsky.social
We don’t really watch much football in the house but every Super Bowl Sundaythe kids and I make bar food.
Photograph of freshly baked, soft pretzels, salted, and still sitting on the baking tray
February 8, 2026 at 9:29 PM
cantb.bsky.social
Kathryn Palmer at Inside Higher Education provides context that is critical to understanding contemporary program closures in gender and sexuality studies. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
Attacks on scholarship about women, gender and sexuality are nothing new. In 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler ascended to power in Germany, the Nazis looted and burned the entire contents of the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. In the 21st century, numerous other countries, including Russia, Brazil and Hungary, have taken up the anti-gender studies torch. For instance, in 2018 the Hungarian government withdrew accreditation from gender studies programs, with one official remarking that it “has no business [being taught] in universities,” because it is “an ideology not a science.”
February 6, 2026 at 8:17 PM
cantb.bsky.social
It’s the bureaucratic food pyramid.
Multicolored triangular sticker that starts with the executive leader team, and then the data governance council and then data officers and then stewards and then data users
February 5, 2026 at 4:30 PM
cantb.bsky.social
This passage is, IMO, one of the most important in the essay.

www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-no...
If moderation isn’t short to live victory and popular ism leads to paralysis what should Democrats do? The honest answer is that nobody knows for certain. Our issue with popularism it’s air of certainty. there is reasonable room for debate about the virtues of a particular kinds of moderation in particular context. But political elite should not interpret the results of biased statistical analysis as a form of scientific justification for any political strategy, something we see frequently in recent discourse.
February 3, 2026 at 11:44 PM
cantb.bsky.social
This game is intense
Photograph of the Breslin Center floor (from the nosebleeds) where MSU and UM women are playing.
February 1, 2026 at 6:28 PM
cantb.bsky.social
Law and Justice
(Joesé Clemente Orozco)
Mural of cartoon plutocrats disrupting the scales of justice
January 30, 2026 at 6:49 PM
cantb.bsky.social
As FL and TX prepare to black all possibilities for universities to hire sponsor new H1-B petitions, I think it’s important to point out how this restricts academic freedom and institutional autonomy. It’s another example making higher ed a wing of the state. www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...
It’s also a restriction in academic freedom, because it’s telling departments, ‘Here’s a group of scholars who are off-limits to you, even if they’re doing research or if they’re able to teach in areas that you think are really important for your students,’” said Brendan Cantwell, a higher education professor at Michigan State University. “‘Even if you find someone who you think can make advances in this field and support the mission of your department in the university, you can’t hire them.’”
January 29, 2026 at 1:59 PM
cantb.bsky.social
Returning Border Patrol agents to the border is all well and good except the border zone is enormous and includes major cities like NY and LA and the entire state of MI.
Map of the us showing expansive border zone
January 27, 2026 at 1:55 PM
cantb.bsky.social
Institutional neutrality is a straight jacket the campus presidents and boards put themselves in in order to absolve them of any moral obligations to the to the world and community which they reside. Trump’s Compact attempted to codify this practice that many, many campuses adopted on their own.
Hundreds of students at the University of Minnesota or Alex pretty attended, joined a midday walk out calling for action from the university. “ we want ice out of Minneapolis said far is one of the walkout organizers “and we want our university to join us and making the call.” University leaders adopted a policy last year, barring the school from issuing statements about matters of public concern unless they directly affect the schools mission or operations.
January 26, 2026 at 8:02 PM
cantb.bsky.social
Why should I be jealous when I live in a world of plenty?
Picture of snow
January 25, 2026 at 6:53 PM
cantb.bsky.social
OMFG: what French really meant that he wasn’t gonna pay attention to actual events in higher education the entire year so that he could say something that was best extraordinarily outdated to make a lazy argument.
Speech codes and biased response teams have chilled speech of many campuses. Some universities have required job applicants to articulate their views on diversity, equity, and inclusion - in fact, creating formal ideological illness, test for hiring and promotion
January 25, 2026 at 12:19 PM
cantb.bsky.social
This David French editorial declining the dangers of group think an American universities was published … in 2017. … 2023? No today! Urgent. Just in time to meet the moment.
So much has happened over the past year that it’s easy to forget the persistent problems of the American Academy. For example, a majority of student students in the international survey reported feeling intimidated about voicing their true opinions on hot button topics.
January 25, 2026 at 12:16 PM
cantb.bsky.social
Capitalism sees a market
Screenshot of Amazon return returning relevant results for the search anti-ice whistle
January 24, 2026 at 8:15 PM
cantb.bsky.social
Doggo is desperate for a walk, but it’s too cold.
Shaggy black and white dog sulking on the floor
January 24, 2026 at 12:53 PM
cantb.bsky.social
Wheeee
Screenshot from Apple Weather saying that I have an extreme cold watch to look forward to
January 21, 2026 at 8:52 PM
cantb.bsky.social
2/2 Because merit - as assessed in US ed - is racialized any institution that that enrolls student students from more than one racial or ethnic group will likely show differences in scores by race (and gender). The only near-term way to eliminate the gaps would be to segregate the sector.
The problem is that disparities are not anomalies. Standardized test, scores and academic records routinely very by race and sex, making it difficult for almost any institution to avoid showing gaps.
January 19, 2026 at 3:03 PM
cantb.bsky.social
Sure, annexing Greenland is unpopular but 3 in 10 Americans think we should buy it (it’s not for sale), which is a good indicator that if you just keep on insisting something over and over again, you can normalize it and bring people around to your opinion. Democrats should try it one day!
Screenshot of a pole that shows that 14% of Americans approved of taking Greenland by military force and 30% approve of buying it
January 18, 2026 at 4:29 PM
cantb.bsky.social
May this Sunday morning be as rewarding for you as it is for Poppy.
January 18, 2026 at 1:00 PM
cantb.bsky.social
Remember these? I was still collecting baseball cards when I encountered them at the corner store and out of curiosity picked up a pack. I remember giggling about how silly “Stormin' Norman” looked.
Image of Tops desert storm trading cards. Yellow background with red lettering. Image of an M-16 wielding G.I. NF 15 and M1 A1 Abrams tank on a crest. “ coalition for peace” it says. You got eight cards and one sticker for $.50.
January 17, 2026 at 2:42 AM