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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 8d

From the @michigandaily.bsky.social Editorial Board: “We now see [the University of Michigan administration’s changes to the student code of conduct] as a catalyst, accelerating the construction of a disciplinary apparatus that the University can aim at whoever it deems threatening.”

UMich weaponizes the rules in new student code of conduct

The administration has created a space where rules only cut one way. For those that still doubt the severity of the situation on campus, Grasso and the regents stated their intentions clearly — discip...

www.michigandaily.com

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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 16d

Some public school teachers are courageously protecting kids rights to access all material, despite threats and retaliation. Thank you to @palan57.bsky.social at @forbes.com for shining a light on their remarkable stories. More than ever, we need heroes to be visible.

Book Shares Teacher Voices From The Culture Wars

Many of those stories have been covered by journalists, but the book Trouble In Censorville features educators who tell their own stories.

www.forbes.com

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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 25d

This Tuesday in Ann Arbor. A reading about attempts to intimidate and silence academics.

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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · Sep 2

University of Michigan faculty and staff speak up about what we want in our new president. (post-Ono)

@michigandaily.bsky.social
@silkyweineck.bsky.social
@sbagen.bsky.social
@basit-zafar.bsky.social
@yiliw.bsky.social
@drgigiawad.bsky.social

U-M faculty and staff on the next University president

On May 4, University President Santa Ono announced that he was departing from the University of Michigan. His controversial tenure — from his handling of pro-Palestine activism to his decision to cut ...

www.michigandaily.com

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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · Aug 29

Ohio State University has banned land acknowledgements.

But there's no ban on ceding the land and the institution to indigenous people. Even the Heritage Foundation recommends this. Buckeyes, this is your moment.

www.heritage.org/progressivis...

@ohiostatelaw.bsky.social @osuhistory.bsky.social

Native Land Whiners Should Match Words With Deeds

Over the last several years, an odd ritual known as a “land acknowledgment” has become the fashionable way to begin academic, arts and other elite events. Like a woke version of the “Pledge of Allegia...

www.heritage.org

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Soumya Rangarajan, MD, MPP @soumya-goblue.medsky.social · Aug 27

A lakh is 100,000, so ~300,000 (331,602 to be exact in 2024) students from #India study in US every year, paying $8 billion to US economy.
There were ~1300 #Indian students at UMich alone. I met one recently, and he's counting days to finish degree and leave US
Our campus will lose millions of $

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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · Aug 28

UM regents could have used their vast General Counsel resources to protect kids and doctors. This decision is legally and ethically appalling. The real “anguish” is what’s being felt by patients who are being denied healthcare, not politicians who cave to fascists.

UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · Jul 30

Why we need DEI

Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · Jul 30

Just watched Monica Coles' devastating testimony about being fired on her 3rd day teaching K-5 art—for wearing pants and short hair in a monoculture of teachers w/ long hair, heels and dresses—in a conservative public school district where the PTA funds the school.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Qm...

Censorville — Monica Coles - refinished 9May

YouTube video by Trouble In Censorville

www.youtube.com

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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · Jul 29

Guidepost Solutions' chairman is monitoring the extortion of Columbia by Trump. U. of Michigan regents, all on their own, hired "consultants" from Guidepost last year to comb through video tapes to harass and attempt to expel students who protested the war on Gaza.

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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · Jul 17

Regent Bernstein makes a mockery of First Amendment rights. According to the state charter, regents have no authority to meddle in hiring decisions, let alone to subject members of our campus to their petty whims and biases. Donating $$ to the Dems shouldn’t protect him.

Fired D.E.I. Administrator Sues the University of Michigan

www.nytimes.com

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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · Jul 16

U-Mich's Regent Bernstein overrides the assessment of UM administrators and tells the General Counsel to immediately terminate Rachel Dawson, our director of multicultural initiatives. Our regents have turned U-M's campus into a theater where they act on their biases and pettiness.

Former DEI administrator sues University of Michigan, alleges discrimination in firing

Rachel Dawson claims the University of Michigan deviated from its normal disciplinary process to fire her.

www.freep.com

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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · Jul 3

I love the Michigan Daily.

“the relative silence from the regents surrounding their efforts to commit acts of espionage against their own student body is alarming. Their response …shows that even despite the accusations, the regents have no interest in taking responsibility for their actions.”

From The Daily: The Regents must answer for the surveillance of students

It is crucial to explicitly condemn those responsible for this assault on students: the University’s Board of Regents. This Editorial Board believes regents who authorized the payments to Amerishield ...

www.michigandaily.com

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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · Jun 29

Bravo to the Mississippi educators seeking a restraining order to the law prohibiting educators from teaching students about issues "related to race, sex, color, gender identity, sexual orientation or national origin.” @insurgentprof.bsky.social

In April, Mississippi enacted a new anti-DEI law that would, among other things, prohibit public colleges, universities and K-12 schools from “engag[ing]” in “any formal or informal education . . . that focus[es] on increasing awareness or understanding of issues related to race, sex, color, gender identity, sexual orientation or national origin.”

So, we’re suing.

We had our first hearing in federal court on Tuesday, seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary junction.

We’re right, and we’re going to win.

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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · Jun 27

@cantb.bsky.social on the federal government forcing UVA's president to resign. (Inside Higher Ed)

Brendan Cantwell, a higher education professor at Michigan State University, said Ryan’s resignation is a “major blow” to the independence of American institutions.

“It is a sign that major public research universities are substantially controlled by a political party whose primary goal is to further its partisan agenda and will stop at nothing to bring the independence of higher education to heel,” he told Inside Higher Ed. “It undercuts both the integrity of academic communities as self-governing based on the judgment of expert professionals and the traditional accountability that public universities have to their states via formal and established governance mechanisms.”

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Shobita Parthasarathy @shobitap.org · Jun 21

Here's the problem: Universities' recent embrace of "institutional neutrality" policies are at odds with their goals to help students develop as thoughtful, moral citizens.

Gift link.

A White Nationalist Wrote a Law School Paper Promoting Racist Views. It Won Him an Award.

www.nytimes.com

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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · Jun 21

“Accordingly, the Trump administration has engaged in selective outrage about discrimination, focusing disproportionately on a supposed rampant anti-White racism problem in this country that is not supported by data, while remaining silent about prevalent discrimination against racial minorities.”

Fact vs. Fiction: The Trump Administration’s Dubious War on Reverse Discrimination

The Trump administration’s focus on “reverse discrimination” against White people is not backed by data and reflects a political narrative of White grievance.

theglobepost.com

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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · Jun 13

Just as real as Ono being a “mouse doctor” who has no views about vaccines.

UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · Jun 13

"At a moment when higher education is in the political crosshairs, Ono appeared to some like he was more interested in joining the snipers than fighting back alongside his academic brethren."

www.chronicle.com/article/he-w...

Time after time during his public interviews, both before the state board and UF’s trustees, Ono showed a willingness to embrace positions popular among conservatives or to renounce his past liberal stances. Questioned about mandating Covid vaccines, for example, Ono played down the real-world applicability of his hard-earned academic credentials, pronouncing himself a mere “mouse doctor,” and “a test-tube guy.” It was, for some who watched, a cringy and telling moment in which a well-educated person seemed willingly to shun the one thing academics value most: expertise.

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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · Jun 8

“Leadership requires moral clarity, not strategic evasion. Students were followed, harassed, and criminalized under your watch. History will remember.”
@professorjvh.bsky.social

May U-M Faculty report to regents re: excessive surveillance:
regents.umich.edu/files/meetin...

Exposed: University of Michigan Hired Undercover Spies to Target Students

As a second-generation alum of the University of Michigan, I’ve often reflected on how this institution shaped my life. The Diag, the center of campus with its steady hum of voices calling out inju…

cloakinginequity.com

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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · Jun 4

How did Santa Ono lose a one-man race?

Professor @silkyweineck.bsky.social writes: “Perhaps it was the instinctive bipartisan contempt most of us feel for blatant pandering: Ono’s assurances that he would follow orders had .. an eagerness to humiliate himself that does not signal leadership.”

Opinion | The Ruination of Santa Ono

When an accomplished man is reduced to pandering, it’s a sad spectacle.

www.chronicle.com

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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · May 29

The Chronicle is tracking higher ed’s dismantling of DEI efforts.

Tracking Higher Ed’s Dismantling of DEI

We’ve documented actions taken on hundreds of campuses to alter or eliminate jobs, offices, hiring practices, and programs amid mounting political pressure to end identity-conscious recruitment and re...

www.chronicle.com

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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · May 28

“In his opening remarks, Ono spent much of his time on the political defensive. He forswore DEI, pledged to combat antisemitism, beat back charges that he’s a climate-change fanatic, and assured the board that he’s no longer issuing land-acknowledgement statements to honor Indigenous people.”

For the College Presidency, It’s Officially Campaign Season

Santa Ono’s quest to lead the U. of Florida has looked an awful lot like a national political run.

www.chronicle.com

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Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · May 19

“By giving in, the capitulating firms and universities will learn a lesson from the streets that Mr. Trump knows better than they do: Borrowing money from a loan shark isn’t simply adding a new monthly expense; making that kind of deal is a way of life.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/o...

Opinion | Trump Has His Law Firms Right Where He Wants Them

www.nytimes.com

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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · May 13

My colleagues @scottlgreer.bsky.social and Julie Boland write that Ono “created a polarized mess that hurt the university, and his intransigence led to staff being fired with no warning just weeks ago. A new president should accept that Michigan is a socially engaged and active university.”

Opinion | U-M regents have another chance at choosing a leader. Will they take it? | Bridge Michigan

Michigan needs a wartime leader, a victor valiant who will stay and be a champion. Ono wasn't. The regents must make it clear that his replacement should be.

www.bridgemi.com

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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · May 9

Santa Ono, in 2023, was asked (not under duress) about his commitment to DEI.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=pXKo...

President Ono said, “I’m very pleased that DEI 1.0 has taken place…. It’s a very strong foundation upon which we must build… We have to be committed to continuous positive momentum. And if you don’t do that, then you’ll take one step forward, two steps back. So, it’s incredibly important to me, from these early days that I’m here to clearly show that I’m behind DEI 1.0, but also to making sure that, when we proceed and embark on DEI 2.0, that we do so with even more vigor and even more determination.”

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