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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 3d

Statement from the Syracuse chapter of the AAUP on this incident, expressing similar concerns about academic freedom: dailyorange.com/2025/09/lett...

Letter to the Editor: AAUP condemns assault on free speech, suggests caution

After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, faculty and students nationwide have been punished for exercising free speech on social media. The Executive Committee of the SU Chapter of the AAUP condemns these ...

dailyorange.com

Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 4d

Don't sell your reputation for short-term financial gain.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 4d

If you sign an oath of allegiance to a preconceived agenda, you are moving away from being a university and toward being something like the "Creation Museum" that says dinosaur bones are less than 6000 years old. Why would any self-respecting scholar want to associate with you?

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 4d

@vanderbilt.edu, @upenn.edu, @dartmouthartsci.bsky.social, @usc.edu, @mit.edu, University of Texas, @uarizona.bsky.social, Brown, UVA -- do you want to have a shred of credibility left after this is over?

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 4d

Moreover, this compact seems like an attempt to set a precedent that the president can, by bribe or by force, coerce other institutions into ideological purity.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 4d

Any university that takes a bribe in exchange for swearing loyalty to any aspect of Trump's ideology is abandoning its legitimacy as an institution of higher education.
www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...

Trump asks 9 colleges to commit to his political agenda for better access to federal money

A document sent to the universities encourages them to adopt the White House’s vision for America’s campuses, with commitments to accept the government’s priorities on admissions, women’s sports, free...

www.pbs.org

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 8d

How can faculty at Texas Tech establish the credibility of new public research reports when their colleagues know that they might be compelled to lie? The best way to demonstrate credibility when someone has publicly attempted to coerce you into falsehood is to openly defy them.

Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 8d

It also raises questions about whether faculty are also being pressured to commit fraud when reporting research results featuring human participants. (It would be fraudulent to intentionally mislead readers about the gender composition of the sample.)

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 8d

The chancellor of Texas Tech has apparently ordered faculty to ignore the scientific research literature when teaching about the psychology of gender (at least in the classroom). This undermines the credibility of a psychology degree from Texas Tech.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...

Texas Tech Moves to Limit Academic Discussion to 2 Genders

www.nytimes.com

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 12d

"He died in a horrifying fashion under circumstances that our society should take every step possible to prevent. But he also made a career of using words to hurt people, and the people he hurt should freely share their feelings about him, even if those feelings are hard for some to hear."

Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 12d

"Kirk made a living advocating for the subjugation of marginalized people, especially transgender people and Black people. His unrestrained cruelty had wide influence, reaching even the president and other powerful politicians."

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 12d

So far, Syracuse University has left it ambiguous whether faculty who wrote irreverent social media posts about Kirk have been subject to administrative actions -- but there should be no ambiguity on this matter.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 12d

When it comes to a bigot as cruel, committed, and influential as Charlie Kirk, it is unreasonable to expect the people he openly hated to walk on eggshells.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 12d

Academic freedom should protect honest criticism of Charlie Kirk, even if the criticism is delivered with an irreverent tone.

My new opinion piece on Syracuse.com:
www.syracuse.com/opinion/2025...

Syracuse University must protect faculty who criticize Charlie Kirk (Your Letters)

To maintain the ethos of thorough inquiry at universities, "we must protect professors from institutional interference in the things they say and write," says the letter writer.

www.syracuse.com

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 18d

But I hope it can help build a more thorough picture of some of the relevant psychological processes to mitigate harm in the long run.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 18d

Extremist authoritarian politicians in the US are currently treating transgender and nonbinary people as political scapegoats, fanning the flames of bigotry and ruthlessly entrenching discriminatory policies and practices. My theoretical review paper cannot solve this urgent ongoing crisis.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 18d

Answering most of these sorts of questions will require carefully distinguishing between forms of miscategorization, and carefully distinguishing miscategorization from prejudice, even when they are highly correlated.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 18d

Unanswered questions abound in this literature. For example, what explanatory role is played by group identification processes, threat-related processes, religious beliefs, trust and distrust, essentialism, or preferences for simple cognitive structures?

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 18d

Many people hold false beliefs about transgender men's and women's membership in the categories "male" and "female." Separately, many view nonbinary gender identities themselves as illegitimate. These two forms of biased miscategorization are quite different conceptually.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 18d

Also, the miscategorization transgender women and men face is quite different from the kind nonbinary people face. This observation helps make sense of some past research and encourages future researchers to distinguish among kinds of bias and adopt more precise measures.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 18d

We review research about biases against transgender women and men and nonbinary people. Miscategorization by gender is central to these forms of bias: they cannot be summed up by talking about prejudice and stereotyping alone.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 18d

Coauthors: Alexandria Jaurique, Benjamin M. Valen (@benmvalen.bsky.social), Natalie M. Wittlin (@nataliemwittlin.bsky.social), Mackenzie L. McDonald, and Marianne LaFrance.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 18d

Forms of Psychological Bias Against Transgender Women and Men and People with Nonbinary Gender Identities -- now online at Personality and Social Psychology Review.

Main article: doi.org/10.1177/1088...
Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

#SocialPsychology #IntergroupBias #Transgender #Nonbinary

Forms of Psychological Bias Against Transgender Women and Men and People With Nonbinary Gender Identities - Sara Emily Burke, Alexandria Jaurique, Benjamin M. Valen, Natalie M. Wittlin, Mackenzie L. M...

Academic The present review examines bias against transgender women and men and bias against people with nonbinary gender identities. A central contention is th...

doi.org

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 20d

He fired shots during an altercation with some ambiguous details. His decision to be there in the first place was an act of armed political vigilantism connected to Trump's calls for political violence.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 20d

I could have been more precise. When Rittenhouse was a minor, he decided to patrol the streets with a semiautomatic rifle during an anti-racism protest, taking it upon himself to act as a vigilante against protesters that Trump had described as engaged in a "war."

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