Jorge N. Leal, Ph.D.

UCLA research grants suspended after Trump administration faulted campus for antisemitism The Justice Department issued UCLA a notice of violation for not responding “adequately” to complaints about antisemitism.

I chased this all day:

UCLA research grants suspended after Trump administration faulted campus for antisemitism

calmatters.org/education/hi...

L.A. TACO is committed to staying on the front lines, exposing the truths they are trying to cover up and amplifying the voices of those who need it most. But we can’t do it alone—we still urgently need your help to keep covering this evolving crisis. givebutter.com/LA_TACO_TMC

“A piece of music can express defiance and joy; in dance, the body conveys what words cannot. Even the smallest aesthetic gesture can have outsize resonance in the context of protest.” by @cmonstah.bsky.social

The brutality and abject horror of these ICE operations are a completely radicalizing and traumatic experience for all involved—but also, crucially, folks are holding on to one another, and fucking fighting back.

Anyway, many emotions and thoughts as I walk back to my car, time to head home

A truly incredible level of organization and care has taken place here. Folks mobilized quickly, shared info, took care of one another, and at the end of the night, took a strategic retreat together. These community members are family members of the workers, are neighbors, are caring strangers

A Great Day in East LA: Celebrando the Eastside Sound | June 28, 2025-August 23, 2026 - LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes A Great Day in East L.A.: Celebrando the Eastside Sound is a multi-media exhibition that explores the dynamic musical influences of East L.A. artists who developed an eclectic musical identity and his...

CONGRATULATIONS to @jorgenleal.bsky.social and his co-curators on this brand-new exhibit in Downtown LA!

lapca.org/exhibition/a...

Thanks for sharing Nathan!

Ahem. www.latimes.com/delos/newsle...

DAILY MEMO: The 25th straight day of I.C.E.’s siege of L.A.

Topics:
- Weekend Taco Stand Raids
- Today’s Home Depot Raids
- Recommended reading, How to Spot misinformation
- Ventura Sheriff is “Glad” that ICE is there
- Montebello sets up relief program
- Border Patrol fueding?
- DOJ

Victoria! Thanks so much for attending and sharing these photos! @lahistory.bsky.social
Exhibit is now open and will be on view for the next 14 months.
lapca.org/la-plaza-de-...

Bar Chart that shows City of LA Estimated Costs Related to June ICE Protests: $11,463,435 (as of 6/13/2025 4:30pm) Police have the tallest bar of related City costs to the June protests with $9,016,706 Fire Department has very much shorter bar with $1,169,362 Then General Services with an even shorter bar with $593,000 Street Services $523,210 Public Works Board$85,713 Street Lighting $32,601 LADWP$20,000 Other Depts. $22,843

🧊 You all asked HOW MUCH the City of LA has spent so far related to the June protests against ICE 🧊

• $11,463,435 (estimated/preliminary costs thru Friday, June 13, 4:30pm)

• These mainly relate to the City's response (e.g. labor costs), followed by clean-up / damage costs

In the past week, a union leader has been arrested, a U.S. Rep charged with a crime, a U.S. Senator violently handcuffed, and reporters shot with rubber bullets and detained. There is no ambiguity. This is a regime operating as an authoritarian. Americans who believe in liberty must oppose it.

Being snatched off the street for your opinions. I'll say it again. We are deciding, right now, whether the aspirations we hold for this country are finished. Whether we're going to let these hoodlums and grifters throw what's left of the American idea into the garbage for their own profit and gain.

The staff at this public elementary school in DC showed far more courage than an Ivy with $15 billion endowment

Opinion | What Autocrats Want From Academics: Servility In 1931, Italian scholars were made to take loyalty oaths. Will that happen to us?

"On October 8, 1931, a law went into effect requiring every Italian university professor to sign an oath pledging their loyalty to the government of Benito Mussolini. Out of over 1,200 professors in the country, only 12 refused. All of them were immediately fired." www.chronicle.com/article/what...

Letter signed by members of the Columbia History Department urging resistance to the Trump Administration's efforts to dictate university policy.

"Should this control be realized, here or elsewhere, it would make any real historical scholarship, teaching, and intellectual community impossible."

White supremacists hiding the achievements of non-white people is a pretty good indication that they know white people aren’t supreme.

Historian here. Never in all my schooling or PhD training or in my first 30 years of college teaching did it ever once cross my mind that the worst of American history was yet to come. Now I’m consumed by this possibility.

the leap from disappearing the undocumented to disappearing visa holders to disappearing green card holders to disappearing naturalized citizens to disappearing natural born citizens is no leap at all, but a series of tiny steps

block the path

ICE Arrests Pro-Palestinian Activist at Columbia Mahmoud Khalil, who recently completed a graduate program at Columbia, has legal permanent residency, his lawyer said.

The United States government just disappeared a lawful US resident because it didn't like his speech. You should care about this because it shouldn't happen to anyone, but you should also care because it could happen to you. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/n...

Courage is contagious. As people offer examples of a willingness to publicly push back, more will stand up. For example, climate scientists and misinformation researchers have fought for years against efforts to silence them. CBS apparently changed its mind about settling a frivolous lawsuit with Trump, and now promises to fight back. Some politicians are courageous despite the vitriol they have always faced. For example, AOC mocked threats by homeland security czar Tom Holman to investigate her.

America is not Russia. It has stronger civic institutions. But those institutions do not defend themselves. People have to do so. Universities, philanthropies, corporations, nonprofits, and professional organizations need to remind each other of the power they have, and the principles they stand for

Real chilling effects A extraordinary pattern of government censorship and threats to speech

New, from me: you were told that the threats to free speech came from wokeness. Some compared it to Maoist China.

Now we are witnessing government power being used to silence dissent and censor ideas. Now we know what real society-wide chilling effects look like. 🧵
open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...

A movement is calling for an 'economic blackout' on Friday. Here's what to know The People's Union USA, a grassroots group, is calling on Americans to join a national boycott by not shopping for 24 hours on Friday.

The People's Union USA, a grassroots group, is calling on Americans to join a national boycott by not shopping for 24 hours on Friday.

"I recently told someone that being a journalist right now is like standing on the edge of a beach and watching a tsunami approaching.....
we start making calls and telling people this catastrophic wave is about to hit, but the people inland still can’t see it and don’t believe us."

The entire business model of American R1 universities is not viable without restoration of federal funding, & every individual institution pretending it can solve this problem alone is also not viable. University presidents need to be speaking out, collectively & loudly about this, in DC, right now.

This Is Not a Drill: How Universities Can Save DEI A roadmap for university faculty, staff, and administrators to support DEI through legal challenges, collective resistance, and institutional protections for faculty.

Universities that advertised their commitment to diversity in glossy brochures & fundraising campaigns now face a reckoning: was it real or just marketing? The admin bets they’ll stay silent to keep their funding. But the cost of inaction will be far greater.
greencarelab.ucdavis.edu/how-universi...

Opinion | Trump Wants to Destroy All Academia, Not Just the Woke Parts (Gift Article) The administration’s war on universities defies rational self-interest.

"Trump Wants to Destroy All Academia, Not Just the Woke Parts"
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/o...

You have questions. Mostly of the "What Can I Do to Resist This Coup?" variety. Choose Democracy has answers. Here's a really handy guide to the how/what/why of organizing... Share widely. Link here: choosedemocracy.us/what-can-i-do/

Labor for Higher Education

Higher Ed Labor United, AAUP, CWA, AFT, and the UAW—that’s who’s fighting; join or die www.labor4highered.org