Ansley Erickson

Economist Amartya Sen won a Nobel in part for asking: Why did India avoid the mass famines that killed tens of millions in China? His answer: a free press. Journalists could expose suffering and shame governments into action. Silence and avoidance, by contrast, can be deadly.

Mellon Foundation The Mellon Foundation makes grants to actively unlock the power in the arts and humanities that helps connect us all.

“American Academy of Arts&Sciences reports 96.3% of humanities grads age 23-32 fully employed. Earnings in humanitiess comparable to social/life sciences, job satisfaction levels too. A serious mismatch bw actual employment for hum grads +general perception."
www.mellon.org/voices/human...

#bluesky needs more baby goats... ☺️

Aug. 2, 1924: James Baldwin Born James Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York.

"We are living through a very dangerous time. . . The paradox of education is precisely this — that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated." — James Baldwin (born #tdih 1924) "A Talk to Teachers" ⬇️
www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/ja...

"But what universities are learning, that authoritarian scholars already know and have been saying, is that complying with illegitimate attacks does not make them stop—it makes them continue"

Super useful timeline of the attacks on GMU

And now for something completely different...

Where's your OMNY, kitty?
(Kidding aside... this is adorbs...)

For those who asked. The link tree for the Sameer Project is here: linktr.ee/thesameerpro...

Poster announcing "Public Survey: Black Public High Schools, 1870-1970" with images of a globe, a notebook, and a hand holding a pencil.

Are you connected to a Black public high school that operated between 1870 and 1970?
Please contribute to this survey that lets you help shape the preservation and commemoration of these important institutions.
And please share with networks and communities!

asalh.org/asalh-nps-co...

Among the Amistad Research Center's priceless holdings is Jacob Lawrence's remarkable 1938 Toussaint L'Ouverture series, group of 41 paintings depicting life of the Haitian revolutionary that Lawrence completed when he was only 21 years old, several years before his signature Migration series

Don’t let the war on higher ed distract you from the war on homeless people distract you from the war on vaccines distract you from the war on journalists distract you from the war on trans people distract you from the war on reproductive rights distract you from the war on Palestinians …

"I hope and trust all will come out right in the end, but the immediate future looks dark and troubled. I cannot shut my eyes to the ugly facts before me."
--Frederick Douglass, Lessons of the Hour, 1894

Every day this week and next I leave campus and go to a community space to work with teachers who want to learn about the past to push for justice today.

That is closer to the mission of the academy as I choose to know it than anything in the news.

Revealed: Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication As Harvard’s feud with Trump escalated, so did tensions over an ‘education and Palestine’ issue of a prestigious journal. Scholars blame the ‘Palestine exception’ to academic freedom

"If the universities – or in this case a university press – are not willing to stand up for what is core to their mission, I don’t know what they’re doing. What’s the point?”

This is why so many of us should have been listening to Black voices and learning far more about the history of racism in America.

All of that led us here. Fascism was already here for many others. And now it’s coming for the rest. If we had fought for others harder, we’d have prevented it.

An open letter from the presidents of Gaza universities Our campuses may have been razed, but our universities continue to exist.

www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

LFJ relaunches podcast to resist alterations of ‘hard history’ The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Learning for Justice (LFJ) program is relaunching the Teaching Hard History podcast series — with host Hasan Kwame Jeffries — to resist current efforts aimed at alter...

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Learning for Justice (LFJ) program is relaunching the Teaching Hard History podcast series — with host Hasan Kwame Jeffries — to resist current efforts aimed at altering our nation’s history. www.splcenter.org/resources/ho...

Gaza Health Ministry Says Israeli Military Killed 32 in Attack Near Aid Site

Again.

Gaza Health Ministry Says Israeli Military Killed 32 in Attack Near Aid Site www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/w...

#RadioFreeAmerica

Right now, thousands of public servants at the Departments of Health & Human Services and Education — and across the government — are receiving RIF notices that threaten not only their livelihoods, but also the ability of the federal government to serve the American people effectively and equitably.

Global AIDS funding to be pulled from Trump clawbacks request The White House is backing off $400 million in proposed PEPFAR cuts due to GOP objections.

Some really great news: funding for PEPFAR--about $400M for the global fight against HIV and AIDS--has been restored. Millions of lives will be saved.

www.politico.com/live-updates...

Monochrome photograph featuring a white woman with saddlebag on a black horse, facing forwards, in a rural environment

During the 1930s, the US "book women" of Kentucky, aka "packsaddle librarians," delivered books to remote and isolated communities in the Appalachian Mountains on horseback, riding in rain, snow or heat ...#WomensArt

As we watch the dismantling of the U.S. Dept of Ed, which will be felt somewhat in funding reductions to states and local districts, it will be felt even more so in a) oversight and enforcement of rights for vulnerable populations and b) access to high quality data & research.

@DHSgov on X: Remember your Homeland’s Heritage. New Life in a New Land - Morgan Weistling [Painting of a family]

Nazi propaganda: "The Nazi Party secures the national community" [Painting of a German family]

On the left is a post today from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. On the right is literal Nazi propaganda from the 1930s.

Academic summer ends the day the faculty and committee meeting schedule drops… 😬

July 14, 1970: Young Lords Occupy Lincoln Hospital The Young Lords occupied Lincoln Hospital’s major administrative building in response to deplorable treatment of people of color.

#tdih 1970 Young Lords occupied Lincoln Hospital’s major admin building in South Bronx in response to terrible conditions for African Americans & Latinos.

K-12 curriculum should include long, ongoing struggle for access & equity in healthcare.

Film & more⬇️
www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/yo...

Ever since the former commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics was dismissed by the Trump administration in February, I wanted to hear her story. Peggy Carr was among a string of Black senior officials fired in early 2025. (1/3)

Read this whole thing.

NYC Immigration Arrests Just Shot Through the Roof, New Data Shows Newly obtained federal records offer the clearest picture yet of how aggressively the Trump administration has pursued its mass deportation agenda — with a sixfold increase in arrests in early June.

ICE arrests in NYC this year: “The oldest is 73, while the youngest was just four, and was likely arrested along with a parent…”

Thank you to @thecity.nyc reporters for assembling and narrating this horrifying data.

woke up thinking abt Plyler v Doe ‘82: Texas in 1975 withheld state funds for children not legally admitted to the US and wanted to deny enrollment too. Supr Ct said policy violated 14th Am: illegal immigrant children are people "in any ordinary sense of the term" & protected from discrimination!

Two Shrecker bangers in a day; now a historical tour across the higher ed and its dynamic social compact: "Decimating research funding ... and shrinking or eliminating student grants and loans will make higher education both less productive and less accessible" www.bloomberg.com/news/article...