Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Caroline Levine @carolinelevine.bsky.social · 20h

Cornell alums!
Cornell continues to be pressured by the current administration in DC to reach a deal to restore federal research funding.
Please consider signing this petition!
Please also share widely with any Cornell graduates you know!

Alumni in Support of Cornell’s Independence, Democracy, and Academic Freedom

Please add your name below if you agree to be a signatory of the following message to be delivered to the Cornell Board of Trustees: Dear Members of the Cornell Board of Trustees, Ongoing attacks on A...

docs.google.com

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Caroline Levine @carolinelevine.bsky.social · Aug 24

Very very smart analysis of what's happening at U of Chicago.

Reorg 101: The Past and Future of the Race to the Bottom

As the reorganization of the University’s Division of the Arts & Humanities commences, Clifford Ando warns that the fate of the humanities is up for grabs.

chicagomaroon.com

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Democracy Action Network @democracyactionnet.bsky.social · Aug 24

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Warren Shadespot @warrenwp.bsky.social · Aug 24

When i was still at the airplane factory, reporting ethics issues, i was constantly told “while everything you are saying is right, the way you are saying it is offputting”. When id ask the right way to say it, they would have no answers.
This is always a stall.

Wagatwe Wanjuki @wagatwe.com · Aug 24

the thing about Third Way's list is that people love to focus on language to distract from actually doing anything to address the problems the language aims to solve

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Caroline Levine @carolinelevine.bsky.social · Aug 23

I do think the comprehensives and commuter colleges in blue states (and maybe some red ones) may survive better because they don't depend on federal money and are still somewhat affordable. Most worried about the big ten and other research publics.

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Caroline Levine @carolinelevine.bsky.social · Aug 23

I couldn't possibly love this more. Thanks, Anna Kornbluh!

The Point of Politics Is to Convince People, Not Grandstand

Instead of trying to persuade the hundreds of millions of Americans to our right, sometimes we leftists seem to be competing to prove our radical bona fides to each other. That’s not politics — it’s j...

jacobin.com

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Kate Ross @kateross.bsky.social · Aug 21

White woman puts Mexican flag on her truck to waste ICE’s time.

Scooby
I am as white as a hotel towel, and the closest thing to Mexican I am was a single all inclusive resort stay in Cancun. I put a Mexican flag sticker on my old Tacoma abd was promptly pulled over by ICE in San Antonio. I'm happy to waste their time
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RookaTX
This is the way

Scooby • RookaTX
Their big question was like, "why the sticker" I told them it was on the truck when I bought it-and they suggested I remove it. Obnoxious creatures.
1d

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Mark Z. Jacobson @mzjacobson.bsky.social · Aug 19

Trump (and his entire administration) is shockingly dumb about (electric) power

@billmckibben.bsky.social

billmckibben.substack.com/p/trump-is-s...

Trump is shockingly dumb about (electric) power

It's not too soon to start working the politics of people's power bills

billmckibben.substack.com

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · Aug 20

There's a reason why sports teams don't chant "I believe that we will lose" before a game, a reason so obvious that I'm pretty sure it needs no explanation. Which is why it makes my head explode when people surrender in advance verbally, which they do all the time about politics.

On Not Surrendering in Advance, or During, or At Any Point Thereafter

There's a reason why sports teams don't chant "I believe that we will lose" before a game, a reason so obvious that I'm pretty sure it needs no explanation in that context. Words have power. They not ...

www.meditationsinanemergency.com

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Caroline Levine @carolinelevine.bsky.social · Aug 19

It sounds so interesting. I wonder what I argued in it?

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · Jun 11

"At its heart the Trump Administration is violently divisive, isolationist, and segregationist, and solidarity is our first duty and most profound rejection of that agenda."

for this insight, Solnit has been suspended from fb

www.meditationsinanemergency.com/some-notes-o...

Some Notes on the City of Angels and the Nature of Violence

I think maybe it's begun, the bigger fiercer backlash against the Trump Administration which is itself a violent backlash against every good thing that's happened over the past several decades – the a...

www.meditationsinanemergency.com

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Caroline Levine @carolinelevine.bsky.social · Apr 17

Cornell letter with 500 signatories is up!

Letter to Trustees (public).docx

April 17, 2025 Dear Members of the Cornell Board of Trustees, Ongoing attacks on American universities threaten bedrock principles of a democratic society, including rights of free expression, asso...

docs.google.com

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Daniel Laurison @daniellaurison.bsky.social · Apr 17

PROFESSORS ARE INSISTING THEIR CAMPUSES STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY AND HIGHER EDUCATION.

Today, we are releasing letters - most organized in under a week - with over 5000 signatures calling on campus leadership to stand up to Trump & fight for our values & our students.

bit.ly/CampusLettersTally

1. Condemn the attacks on higher education, even if your own institution has not yet been singled out.
2. Legally contest and refuse to comply with unlawful demands from the federal government.
3. Work with other universities to mount a coordinated opposition of administrators, faculty, and alumni to combat these anti-democratic attacks.

Harvard University - link to sign - 840 signatures so far
Stanford University - link to sign 1096 signatures so far
Yale University - link to sign - 970 signatures so far
Cornell University - link to sign - 505 signatures so far
Boston University - link to sign - 502 signatures so far
Northwestern University - link to sign - 329 signatures so far
Emory - link to sign - 276 signatures so far
Tufts - link to sign - 179 signatures so far
Brandeis - link to sign - 110 signatures so far
Suffolk University - link to sign - 91 signatures so far
UW Madison - link to sign - 84 signatures so far
University of North Carolina - link to sign - 70 signatures so far
Washington University in Saint Louis - link to sign - 33 signatures so far
SUNY Albany - link to sign - just started collecting

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TIAA-Divest! @tiaadivest.bsky.social · Apr 8

TIAA-Divest! members at #HandsOff this weekend across the country. The same systems that criminalize protest and target communities are driving environmental destruction. Our fights are connected—across campuses, borders, and movements. Where did you support from?

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We Are Higher Ed @wearehighered.bsky.social · Mar 30

Hello, Bluesky!! We are a collective of academics who are standing up for higher education. Join us: www.wearehighered.org

We Are Higher Ed

www.wearehighered.org

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Viktor Winetrout @viktorwinetrout.bsky.social · Mar 29

I bought Twitter for $44,000,000,000 and sold it back to myself for $33,000,000,000. I have 43 kids and no friends. Everything I make explodes

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Tracy O’Connell Novick @tracynovick.bsky.social · Mar 28

I know higher ed has a lot going on right now, but can I alert you to what Wellesley College is doing to students as a result of their non-tenured faculty strike?

thewellesleynews.com/21038/opinio...

Wellesley’s administration is forcing students to pay for their own mistakes

The college has willingly decided to threaten students with losing their financial aid or visa status if they do not attend scab lectures or replace their current lectures with completely unrelated co...

thewellesleynews.com

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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · Mar 27

Another reason it is cowardly to simply obey and let them take over your newsroom or university is that if you don’t they often will be like “well fuck, that was our main idea”

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · Mar 27

JUST IN: Kari Lake has withdrawn the cancelation of Radio Free Europe’s grant, seeking to end a legal standoff.

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Hakeem Jefferson @hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · Mar 27

Let’s be clear:

If the government can arrest, detain, and disappear peaceful protestors, none of us are free.

That’s not law and order. It’s fascism. And we should all be outraged that this is being done in our name.

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Caroline Levine @carolinelevine.bsky.social · Mar 26

There's nothing I agree with more passionately than this ^

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Caroline Levine @carolinelevine.bsky.social · Mar 26

Unbearable

Immigrant women describe 'hell on earth' in ICE detention

No shower for days, cameras trained on the toilet, women crammed into cells 'like sardines,' among the allegations.

www.usatoday.com

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Joyce White Vance @joycewhitevance.bsky.social · Mar 26

1/ He wasn’t kidding when he told people 2024 was the last election they’d ever have to vote in if he won www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose and

www.whitehouse.gov

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · Mar 25

good morning

Niko Bowie @nikobowie.bsky.social · Mar 25

Today, the AAUP–AFT is filing the lawsuits Columbia administrators were afraid to: one against Trump’s illegal funding cuts, the other his arrests of political opponents.

AAUP is also showing why faculty need to collectively organize to defend higher ed.

protectdemocracy.org/wp-content/u...

This action challenges the Trump administration's unlawful and unprecedented
effort to overpower a university's academic autonomy and control the thought, association,
scholarship, and expression of its faculty and students. The Trump administration is coercing Columbia University to do its bidding and regulate speech and expression on campus by holding
hostage billions of dollars in congressionally authorized federal funding-funding that is
responsible for positioning the American university system as a global leader in scientific, medical, and technological research and is crucial to ensuring it remains so. The Trump administration claims it is enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, but neither Title VI nor any other law
authorizes the Trump administration's coercive tactics, which are in plain violation of statutory
requirements.

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