Rachel Gabor

if you doubt the anger of scientists...read and circulate this piece.

eos.org/opinions/sen...

Far Right Federal Judge Rules Gay And Trans People Can Be Discriminated Against In Workplaces Judge Kacsmaryk, a federal judge in the Northern District of Texas, ruled on the EEOC's treatment of Title VIII employment discrimination claims on gay and trans people.

1. Far right federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk has just vacated all EEOC protections for gay and trans people in the work place.

He says protections from "being fired" do not mean they are protected from harassment by Title VII.

I cover this insane ruling here.

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What happens to science under autocracy? The rise of the National Socialist Party in 1930s Germany provides an (admittedly extreme) example. Prior to the early 1930s, scientists at German institutions won a third of Nobels. 10 years later, that number was 5%, and has never recovered.

Yep. There seems to be this desperate need to pretend everything is okay/will be normal soon and just...

"Imagine the auto industry without 3D printing. NSF funded that. Artificial intelligence? NSF. MRI machines that help doctors diagnose you? NSF. Doppler radar technology that makes aviation safer by conquering wind shear? NSF. Duolingo‘s underlying programming? NSF. The internet itself? NSF."

I am thinking a lot today about how heavy things feel in my world of faculty doing scientific research. There's the immediate chaos and panic about our ability to pay people and continue our research. But there's also a deeper grief at watching everything get bulldozed for no reason

Assessing What Reconciliation Means for Higher Ed House committees put the finishing touches on their sections of the reconciliation megabill early this week. Now, all the pieces of the puzzle are laid out, and higher ed experts say the picture is gr...

Nearly every higher ed-related provision in the House’s proposed reconciliation bill will make higher ed more expensive for students. www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

On a day when all research grants at Harvard were terminated, and in a context where Congress seems to broadly accept the notion that destroying science and health research in the US is fine, it’s worth noting that this is not what the public wants.

Map of local National Weather Service office "areas of responsibility" modified (using polygons with black outlines and red fill) to indicate where recent/expanding cuts to NOAA/NWS have resulting in understaffing so extreme that some offices can not longer operate on a 24/7 basis.

I just created a quick map depicting which portions of the United States are now (as of today) or will imminently be (by early June) without 24/7 local National Weather Service coverage (per Washington Post reporting). #CAwx #CAfire #CAwater #ORwx #AKwx #WYwx #KSwx

A graph showing National Cancer Institute Grant Funding Obligations, captioned, "Figure 1: Trump Has Slashed Cancer Research Funding by 31%; National Cancer Institute Grant Funding Obligations, January–March, Inflation-Adjusted (2015-2025)." Using a red line, it shows funding dropped from over $1.100M to under $800M.

This report from @sanders.senate.gov didn't get enough attention yesterday. It tracks how much funding from science Trump has killed.

www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/u...

EPA Moves to Weaken Biden-era PFAS Limits for Drinking Water (2) The EPA will rescind limits on several groups of PFAS in drinking water and extend the time for water systems to comply with limits for two other groups of “forever chemicals,” the agency said.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, two weeks ago: "I have long been concerned about PFAS. We are tackling PFAS from all of EPA's program offices, advancing research and testing, stopping PFAS from getting into drinking water systems, and holding polluters accountable."

EPA today:

When I assigned grades two weeks ago I was very generous in how I chose to round up.

(I also turned our last quiz into a team-based Kahoot quiz where everyone passed and the winners got bonus points. Because they survived this semester)

3. UPDATED: What types of awards are being terminated? Awards that are not aligned with program goals or agency priorities have been terminated, including but not limited to those on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), environmental justice, and misinformation/disinformation.

🧪 National Science Foundation update alert ⚠️⚠️

NSF just made a **lot** of updates to its "priorities" page.

It's mixed news. Some good. Some bad.

❌ Not welcome: NSF is now also terminating "environmental justice" awards.

The highlighted text here is new: www.nsf.gov/updates-on-p...

1/8... 🧵

BREAKING: Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced he has ordered the FDA to consider new nationwide restrictions on medication abortion — and that President Trump, not scientists or doctors, will make the final decision.

we have a secretary of
-transportation making it more dangerous to travel
-education making kids stupider
-defense making us more vulnerable to attacks
-homeland security making us feel less secure than ever
-health and human services trying to spread illness

everything’s fine.

Holy shiitake! Trump fired Shira Perlmutter, the Director of the US Copyrights Office apparently because she refused to let Elon Musk raid the place to steal author’s intellectual property rights

democrats-cha.house.gov/media/press-...

The cost of Grok: "I can't breathe at home, it smells like gas outside. How come I can't breathe at home and y'all get to breathe at home?"

Federal workers spoke to reporters after DOGE fired them. Now they face investigation. At least half a dozen USAID employees are facing threats of "disciplinary action" for speaking to reporters after they thought they had been fired.

Many of my federal scientist friends are unwilling to speak to journalists, even on background, because they fear the consequences of speaking out. We've got a nice constitution here. It would be amazing if someone actually followed it.

The NSF Is Being Dismantled — With Broad Implications For The American Economy The economic consequences of cuts to the National Science Foundation and restricting scientific inquiry on this scale could be far-reaching.

“The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas — hardly a partisan institution — finds that nondefense government R&D yields long-run economic returns of 150% to 300% …“Our findings therefore point to a misallocation of public capital, and substantial underinvestment in nondefense R&D.”

Listen to this segment. They *entrapped* Mayor Baraka and someone explicitly told ICE to arrest him, an American citizen standing on public ground, in front of sitting members of Congress who tried to stop it. This was already very bad and is now holy shit bad.

An Open Letter to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Who Thinks My Daughter Is a Tragedy Dear Mr. RFK Jr., (The “dear” is tradition. Don’t mistake it for affection.) You said autistic children are a burden. That they ruin families. That...

“She’s not yours to pity. She’s mine to marvel at.”

www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-...

Yep. But apparently we want them to be cogs in a machine, not independent, creative, critical thinkers.

Tinsel the calico glares at you with a furrowed brow

“I asked chatGPT-“ ok, and I asked Tinsel, and she said you’re an uninspired, vapid dork who needs a computer to think for them.

…

A victory for the federal scientific workforce! We could not stand by while this irreparable harm continues at NSF, NOAA and all our scientific agencies.

TODAY the judge granted our request to temporarily HALT the mass firings at federal agencies under Trump’s Executive Order.

NSF slashes number of ‘rotators’ and well-paid managers as part of restructuring Smaller future budgets will require fewer people, NSF official tells staff

1. After getting some further insight into changes at NSF (thanks to those who reached out), I deleted a previous post where I tried to make sense of Cheatham's memo as reported in the Science story below.

It really is impressive. And they've convinced the world to just believe everything they say.

Last month our university president asked us to imagine a world where our graduates speak 2 languages - English and AI - it was not inspiring.

It feels wild to me how much our leaders (government, university leaders, etc) are completely buying into this idea that AI can do things it has shown time and time again that it absolutely cannot do.