Andrew Selbst

*war on Christmas. Sigh.

It’s sickening. If you don’t care about the university enough to defend it, then resign. You don’t deserve the place of honor that it is to run these institutions that are some of humanity’s greatest achievements. We need leaders who can meet the threat head on, not light their torches for them.

Fast forward a year, and the result is empowering Trump to destroy universities. Given all this, it’s not that surprising that the UC Regents seem willing to participate in that destruction. They refused to get involved in the lawsuit and are reportedly *still* negotiating with Trump.

There is just no possible justification for UCLA to other universities to act as they have. To allow mobs to beat students and faculty and then arrest the victims is to fail in your core mission to defend the university itself.

Never mind that the whole plan was to violently shut down protests of Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza, protests that anyone purportedly concerned with human rights like speech should be joining, not blocking. The irony of the free-speech-on-campus fools always being on the wrong side is not new.

But the right has never been a friend to Jews, and the hardliner zionists don’t speak for us. It’s been absurd that they’ve been amplified in every corner, but it was catnip to the same “liberal” voices who were always concerned with campus “free speech”.

The last couple years of stories that Jews are scared on campuses around the country followed the same propaganda model as clearly ridiculous things like the last on Christmas” but because it was about antisemitism, mainstream outlets didn’t ignore it as another example of right wing rage bait.

Portrait of a Campus in Crisis UCLA capitulated to its own hardline pro-Israel activists long before President Trump came calling. As a result, its students have repeatedly become…

At UCLA + others:

“Long before President Trump adopted the allegation of antisemitism as the central tool in his crusade against higher education, university administrators…have elevated even the flimsiest reports of harm to Jewish students as justification to tamp down on pro-Palestine activism.”

Prosecutions should include the president. If bombing a fishing boat a thousand miles from our shores is a core presidential power, I want to hear John Roberts say it. I want him on the record so he can't say he didn't know.

Nice to see a Democratic Senator speak directly about Trump administration criminality without couching it in careful consultant-speak or trying to force it into an economic frame.

But Hegseth won’t be fired for war crimes. He was appointed *because* he advocates war crimes.

It’s up to Congress.

Here I am worried about looking unprofessional and all this says is that I gotta step up my swearing game.

Oh this oughta be good.

@profanity.accountant

Since administrators all over the country treat shared governance with faculty as a joke, they need to be reminded, it seems, much more clearly that faculty have a place in governance.

Faculty must unionize now.

This is just so one sided that it should be a wake up call to all university faculties that faculty governance is an easily discarded illusion and that we are just as capable of being sidelined and minimized by management as labor is in any other industry. There is one known solution to such things.

Will these universities never fucking learn? You do not make deals with Trump. Even if the deal weren’t fundamentally undermining your core mission and values, he won’t honor any deal. Aaaargh.

AI is ruining everything, Exhibit #45392

1) good, they should be prosecuted, they are responsible for countless deaths

2) always very funny when these people realize the extent to which their billionaire patrons could not possibly give less of a shit about them

😬

True. Sigh.

It’s also a major pet peeve of mine from all the people who talk about incentives without thinking about actual decision processes. Something that’s gonna be 347th on someone’s preference list isnt gonna move the needle, sorry.

I agree, although whenever anyone mentions Miss Cleo I remember my friend who worked as one of her telephone psychics and told me that part of the job was knowing when to tell people to hang up and dial 911.

This is also a desperately stupid comparison. If you’re basing a home purchase on the insurance discount you’d get for being 500ft from a hydrant, you’ve got seriously questionable judgment.

We need a public awareness campaign to start treating generative AI like Miss Cleo. “For entertainment purposes only.”

Yeah, seems bad

Badge of dishonor: “Among the universities recommended to remain in the program are Columbia University, MIT, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia and University of Texas at Austin.”

Larry Summers was legitimately one of the least surprising possible elites on the Dem side of the aisle (supposedly) who could have shown up in the Epstein emails.

Is there a single person surprised that 1) he was chummy with Epstein or 2) tried to fuck grad students?

Even before the Epstein emails, wasn’t it abundantly clear that any supposed liberal organization that works with Larry Summers is just instantly discredited based on his views alone?

This isn’t satire?

The Supreme Court made up the "major questions doctrine," under which the Court gets extra powers when things are a Big Deal and what's a Big Deal is up to the Justices.

Why not make up a new "signature policies" rule where a president can put things beyond the court's reach, like a franchise tag.

Do we all get to celebrate Biden’s erasure of student loan debt now that it’s been retroactively upheld?