Dustin Avent-Holt

Elite corporate networks and CEO compensation: the causes and consequences of CEO pay premiums Abstract. CEO compensation has expanded dramatically over the past half-century, with network processes playing a pivotal role. We advance research on thes

💼 Why do some CEOs earn way more than others?
Henriksen, Poulsen & Avent-Holt find:
– Elite network ties boost CEO pay
– Weak boards enable pay premiums
– Worker wages drop after CEO windfalls
Status drives inequality—from the top down.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/ser/...
#SER @daventholt.bsky.social

Trump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades The lag in funding extends far beyond D.E.I. initiatives, affecting almost every area of science: chemistry, computing, engineering, materials and more.

Funding awards are down in nearly every division, and total new awards approximate levels of new awards in the early 1990s. 🧪

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The four-day, thirty-two-hour week: analysing organisational success and failure https://osf.io/5mvcq The four-day week signals a shift in how work is organised, but what determines whether that shift takes hold across workplaces? While there is considerable evidence that a four-day week #sociology

As he finished lunch in the private dining room outside the Oval Office on April 1, President Trump floated an astounding proposal: What if the government simply canceled every dollar of the nearly $9 billion promised to Harvard University? The administration’s campaign to expunge “woke” ideology from college campuses had already forced Columbia University to strike a deal. Now, the White House was eyeing the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university. “What if we never pay them?” Mr. Trump casually asked, according to a person familiar with the conversation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussion. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”

As a reminder here: this is not Trump's money! He is impounding funds illegally based on the most obvious fig leafs to settle grievances. It is an extraordinary abuse of his public office.
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/u...

Where did U.S. humanities grants go? To projects from a baseball film to AI research From AI research to historical preservation, programs funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities reach every corner of the U.S. Now the government has terminated those grants.

Trump administration canceling National Endowment for the Humanities' grants

www.npr.org/2025/04/10/n...

Opinion | The manufactured nostalgia of Trump’s tariffs Those who credit manufacturing jobs for a glorious past America mistake correlation for causation.

"those who credit manufacturing jobs f/ a glorious past America mistake correlation f/ causation. . .In reality, their parents & grandparents had that life b/c of unions, pensions, high marginal tax rates & strong social policies"

🎯 @jessicacalarco.bsky.social

www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Universities’ current strategy—cower and capitulate—is failing spectacularly. They should go to court. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Wow!

Three scholars at Columbia, Michigan, & Maryland just introduced a measure of the partisan leanings of employers in the U.S.

The data is constructed by linking voter registrations to online worker profiles.

VRscores capture the political affiliations of 21.8M workers across 2.6M employers.

CDC’s top laboratory on sexually transmitted diseases is shut by Trump administration The Trump administration fired everyone in a CDC lab that is crucial to tracking drug-resistant gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases. "We are blind," an expert says.

“At a time when the world is down to a single drug that can reliably cure gonorrhea, the U.S. government has shuttered the country’s premier sexually transmitted diseases laboratory, leaving experts aghast and fearful about what lies ahead.”

www.statnews.com/2025/04/05/c...

Problem is tariffs seem to be what is most angering to broadest coalition. Should start there and then broaden protest out.

I’m a Free-Thinking Centrist with Only Right-Wing Ideas You’ve probably wondered about me, the independent thinker in your social network. I’m one part libertarian, one part populist, and one part common...

"I get my news from a broad variety of sources. I follow not only Elon Musk directly but also outlets that screenshot his posts without analysis."

Groups Are Told That Federal Humanities Grants Are Canceled Letters informed grant recipients that funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities would be redirected to furthering “the president’s agenda.”

The administration is hobbling the #NEH. State humanities councils are gutted. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/a...

The U.S. Department of Education is giving state education agencies 10 days to certify that their schools do not engage in any practices that the administration believes illegally promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. Those that do not sign a certification that they are in compliance with the administration’s controversial interpretations of civil rights law will not receive any federal funding, officials said. Federal funding represents about 10% of all K-12 funding nationwide but makes up a larger share of local budgets in high-poverty districts.

This is politics by extortion.

K-12 schools are being forced to choose between getting the federal funding they need and throwing their students under the bus.
www.chalkbeat.org/2025/04/03/t...

A man on his knees wearing a maga hat and the caption says "thank you president trump for defeating my WOKE retirement savings"

The Tumblr meme factory has kicked into gear

We Asked Colleges How They Would React to Demands From Trump. They Wouldn’t Say. The possibility became more real on Friday, when Columbia University agreed to make changes in response to a letter from the Trump administration.

If this is how universities reapond to a survey from the Chronicle of Higher Education… #highered www.chronicle.com/article/we-a...

Columbia University’s Concessions Strike at Core Principles of Academic Freedom and Self-Governance - PEN America Columbia University capitulates to federal government setting dangerous precedents striking at core academic freedoms

“Columbia’s concessions today strike at core principles of academic freedom and self-governance in the higher education sector,” says Kristen Shahverdian, PEN America's program director for Campus Free Speech.

Full statement: pen.org/press-releas...

Opinion | The View Inside Trump’s Assault on Universities (Gift Article) The Trump administration’s attacks on universities will lead to the permanent diminishment of vital American institutions.

“What is really happening here is an attack on the American faith in knowledge as a value and a public good that has served us well.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/o...

A lot of comments on the attempt to dismantle an academic department. Equally alarming is the demand to centralize power into the university president.

"Why Welcoming the Nazis is Better for the People of France" by Marshal Philippe Petain.

Chair of National Endowment for the Humanities Leaves at Trump’s ‘Direction’ Shelly C. Lowe, a scholar of higher education and the first Native American to lead the agency, was appointed by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Trump targeting the NEH.
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/a...

Johns Hopkins Plans Staff Layoffs After $800 Million Grant Cuts Local and international health research efforts are already winding down as the university braces for even more potential cuts.

The Trump administration has terminated $800 million in grants to Johns Hopkins University, spurring the nation’s top spender on research and development to plan layoffs and cancel health projects

Information produced by the state is a public good. This administration seems dead set on destroying basically all public goods, from public health to education to weather forecasting. It’s breathtaking in its simplicity and its harm.

Because the military is not a social institution I guess… 🧪

NIH to terminate or limit grants related to vaccine hesitancy and uptake The order covers more than 40 awards to researchers around the country seeking to understand why vaccine acceptance has declined.

“It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize research activities that focuses gaining scientific knowledge on why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest and commitment...Therefore, the award is terminated.”

Elysium.

Exclusive: NIH to terminate hundreds of active research grants Studies that touch on LGBT+ health, gender identity and DEI in the biomedical workforce could be terminated, according to documents obtained by Nature.

Pure scientific censorship. Welcome to the American Soviet Society …https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00703-1
@academicsky

A mission for a better country and economy Universal school meals are not just good social policy. They can help shape dynamic markets that are green and inclusive

School meals are more than just food—they're an investment in our future. My article for @newstatesman.com explains how a mission-oriented approach can tackle food insecurity while catalysing innovation across sectors for sustainable food systems and economic growth.

Read more ➡️ buff.ly/igLY61e

Cutting the Department of Education to save money is like cutting your fingernails to lose weight.

Exclusive: NIH to terminate hundreds of active research grants Studies that touch on LGBT+ health, gender identity and DEI in the biomedical workforce could be terminated, according to documents obtained by Nature.

The constant illegality is exhausting. And the extended nature of all this is going wear people down, as what was initially shocking becomes par for the course.

New escalation of direct censorship of fully vetted research that is well underway, at significant cost, & employing many highly-skilled people who will face immediate layoffs without warning

When you stop a research project in the middle, you don't get half of the information. You may waste it all