Last week left me conflicted—disgust, grief, sympathy, and even irony. I don’t mourn Charlie Kirk, but I also refuse to abandon empathy, even for those who never showed it.

More of my reflections here:

During AFL-CIO President @lizshuler.bsky.social’s State of the Unions address, she made it clear: workers are under constant threat by the Trump admin’s threats to their jobs and unions. But, they trust the labor movement more than every institution to fight for them. aflcio.org/press/releas...

Special thanks to Dean Williams of @ucrchass.bsky.social and Dean Long of SPP for supporting the program. It’s an honor to serve both on the fellowship’s advisory and executive committees. It’s also a special privilege to have a number of my past and present students serve as fellows this summer.

Congratulations to 2025 Ronald O. Loveridge Public Service Fellows. I still fondly remember my time as a fellow in 2017, and I know it has certainly shaped my career since. Proud of my home department @ucrpolisci.bsky.social for keeping this program running.

I am grieving the barbarism that is going to unfurl from all this. People are going to die. Livelihoods gone. All to feed a corrupt kleptocracy.

I see every day up close how different it is from the first time around. There are no guardrails. A disaster. I’m sorry we have to live through this.

This is a such a great thread.

A lot of times people put me on lists of "actually good male role models" which always makes me a little uncomfortable because very little of what I do speaks to the insecurity and fear young men have and sometimes I feel pretty guilty about that.

The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed Senate Bill 307, ensuring that no student is forced to abandon their education simply because of shifting federal immigration policy. It mandates that the California State University system must include policies, (1/2)

A federal judge in Washington blocked President Trump from ending collective bargaining with unions representing federal workers.

This Easter I'm praying in particular for the Palestinian Christian community in Gaza who face anihilation at the hands of Israel and the Christian villages in Plateau State, Nigeria who were subjected to massacres earlier this Holy Week

🎉 Congratulations to Karina Alpayeva! 🎉

Karina, a second-year Ph.D. student in Political Science at UC Riverside, has received an Honorable Mention in this year’s Grad Slam competition!

👏 Please join us in celebrating Karina and all of this year’s winners! @ucrchass.bsky.social #polisky

Voting & Zoning

On the left is a map of Oakland election results so far.
Orange = Barbara Lee leading
Purple = Loren Taylor leading

On the right is a map of Oakland zoning
Blue = multifamily zones
Pink = single family zones

Some footage of Georgetown scholar Dr. Badar Khan Suri's ICE arrest has been released.

The ACLU says he's faced religious discrimination, harsh detention conditions and severe family trauma, despite his lawful U.S. status—raising urgent human rights concerns.

🚨If you:
—are a student whose visa (or status) has been revoked in recent days,
—know someone in this situation, or
—are a lawyer or advocate or education professional working around people in this situation

…Signal me @ premthakker.35

You can remain anonymous

Friends, please repost for awareness

New: Keffiyeh-wearing Columbia students were allegedly assaulted by other students, including ex-Israeli military officers, last year at a campus gala.

They say Columbia never responded, and even saw some of the alleged attackers being recognized for "good character" at graduation.

🚨UPDATE: Rümeysa Öztürk has now suffered three separate asthma attacks while in DHS custody.

She has not received her required asthma medications—a violation of her fundamental right to medical care.

This is cruelty, it is neglect, and it is a damning moral and legal failure.

Unreal

The Trump-Vance administration is arming Israel's genocide on Palestine while making everything worse in the US, and only 16 House Democrats so far are saying this should stop

‘Oops, I didn’t read that email. So many emails these days, easy to miss…’

"I would like to make a film to tell children 'it's good to be alive.'" — Hayao Miyazaki

The Israeli military has killed more than 18,000 children in the past 18 months

Chuck Schumer suggests it is antisemitic to say what Israel is doing in Gaza is a genocide. Yet some of Israel’s own top scholars of genocide and the Holocaust, all of them Jewish - Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg, Daniel Blatman - say it is a genocide in Gaza.

Does Schumer consider them antisemite too?

So no one is gonna talk about Trump saying he’s gonna use an anti bullying initiative to stifle free speech against him?

Respecting law enforcement… how about not sending a mob to the very building your standing in that resulted in hospitalizations and death of police officers? Oh and how about not pardoning them?

We just walked out of the state of the Union. My shirt showed Trump an important message: NO KINGS LIVE HERE.

In the spirit of student protestors from the Civil Rights Movement, I’m proud to have protested and walked out with many of my colleagues. This is NOT a normal time.

FACT: The Trump Administration is grossly incompetent.
 
Trump lied about finding millions spent on condoms for Gaza. He lied about cutting $8 billion in spending when it was only $8 million. Musk even admitted they accidentally cancelled Ebola prevention.