Leslie D. Gonzales, she/ella, Professsor of Higher Education

Awareness Protests Won’t Threaten the Richest, Most Well-Armed People on Earth “Making durable changes isn’t always about the raw numbers,” says Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò.

I talked with @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social about protest, why large “awareness-raising” events will not defeat Trump, and the kind of actions and formations we need in these times.

These are the senators who collaborated with the GOP.

Schumer
Fetterman
Cortez Masto
Durbin
King
Shaheen
Gillibrand
Schatz
Hassan
Peters

Don’t let them forget it. No peace for them.

For no particular reason certainly not one named Chuck Schumer and the his punk ass Senate colleagues I am again sharing this academic work showing that accommodation pushes politics to the right www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

KEEP CALLING. PEEL OFF ALL DEM SENATORS YOU CAN.

☎️: (202) 224-3121

Tell them to vote NO on Cloture and NO on CR. Vote is pushed to after 1:15ish for now. Situation is fluid.

The only public YES votes are Schumer and Fetterman. They need 7-8 total. KEEP CALLING.

Call retiring Senators too!

And if you can’t get anyone on the phone, send an email to your senators. 👇

CDC plans to study autism, vaccines Move comes despite strong evidence finding no link between them. By LENA H. SUN and LAUREN WEBER • The Washington Post

I got your waste, fraud, and abuse right here

Tomorrow, February 28, let’s disrupt the status quo by spending ONLY at businesses that uplift our communities.

That means:
🚫 No gas from corporate giants
🚫 No fast food chains
🚫 No big-box retailers (Target, Walmart, Amazon, etc.)

How is the Trump administration impacting higher ed, and how can academics best respond?

This Thursday the Future Trends Forum proudly hosts Ted Mitchell, ACE president, to discuss:
georgetown.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Thousands in Midwestern GOP Districts Attend Sanders' First Stops on Tour to Fight Oligarchy | Common Dreams Senator Bernie Sanders is on a mission to fight oligarchy and empower the people. With a powerful message against Trumpism and billionaire influence, he's rallying Americans to stand up for democracy....

This is really smart by @sanders.senate.gov Go to republican districts and push voters to pressure their republican reps.

www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-...

Grassroots college leader group resists anti-DEI legislation Education for All, a grassroots network of mostly community college leaders, is spreading strategies for how to resist anti-DEI bills and rhetoric.

An inspiring article on courageous community college leaders who are *publicly* organizing and standing up against DEI attacks.. www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

We just won a court order stopping DOGE and unauthorized, unelected, and unvetted individuals like Elon Musk from accessing people's private data and blocking federal funds.

We will keep fighting to protect all Americans from this administration’s destruction.

I want to salute the Governor of Maine Janet Mills who, in that room with a raging Trump and silent complicitors, stood her ground and said, “see you in court!”

Maine residents, show your support for your Gov for standing up for your independence.

I don't think we're talking enough about the fact that the pressure to remove DEI from science means women die.

Plaintiffs, who have easily established their standing to bring this case and irreparable harm, have shown they are likely to prove the Termination and Enforcement Threat Provisions are unconstitutionally vague on their face. But it is not just the vagueness of the Challenged Provisions that renders them unconstitutional. There is a label for government action that seeks to "deter ... principles," J21 Order § 4(b)(iii), that the government disagrees with: "restrictlion]" of "expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content." Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155, 163 (2015). And the most "blatant" and "egregious form of content discrimination" is viewpoint discrimination. Id. at 168-69. The Certification and Enforcement Threat Provisions squarely, unconstitutionally, "abridgel] the freedom of speech." U.S. Const. amend. I.

NEWS: Federal judge blocks parts of two of Trump’s anti-diversity executive orders, finding that some provisions violate the First Amendment and are unconstitutionally vague.

* preliminary injunction: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

* opinion: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

U.S. early-career researchers struggling amid chaos Uncertain funding, government firings, and distressed universities hit vulnerable groups especially hard

“What part of diversity, equity, and inclusion do you have a problem with?”
www.science.org/content/arti...

DON’T MEMORY HOLE ELON MUSK’S NAZI SALUTE

It’s been 4 weeks and 1 day since Elon Musk loudly vocalized his support for Nazi ideology

Everything that has happened since has happened with the guidance of an open Nazi

This should be repeated in articles, regularly

Hitting Pause on the ‘Dear Colleague’ Letter The Department of Education is overstepping its bounds and infringing on constitutional rights.

Here, I explain how the February 14 "Dear Colleague" letter is a widely expansive distortion of the court’s ruling in SFFA. Institutional responses should remain focused on areas that the Supreme Court addressed and not expand to those clearly outside its purview.

www.chronicle.com/article/hitt...

2 upcoming virtual book talks. I have a lot on my mind right now (as we all do) and I have some things to share. Please spread the word and sign up.

Mon 2/24, 4 p.m. PST lnkd.in/gBRpyGRP

Thur 3/13, 6 p.m. EST www.eventbrite.com/e/asian-amer...

survey to help Higher Education Labor United get information and mobilize public statements, press conferences, and other public actions to fight current funding freezes and support of biomedical research

(over an image of Tulsi Gabbard and the logo for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence) TULSI GABBARD Russian Propagandist

THIS MORNING: The Senate is voting on Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for Director of National Intelligence. Trump’s Putin apologist has no real experience to oversee our intelligence community. Contact your senators now!

Call: indivisible.org/resource/urg...

Email: act.indivisible.org/sign/oppose-...

Hegseth’s visit to U.S. base in Germany met with student walkout The civil disobedience by dozens of middle-schoolers — and some adults — was aimed at the Trump administration’s rollback of DEI initiatives.

hell yeah middle schoolers
www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

CFPB - closed
USAID - closed
Medicaid - under attack
NIH cancer funding - frozen
Department of Education - under attack

But do you know who just got a NEW government contract for $38,858,978 literally today?

SpaceX — owned by Elon Musk

Important read.

We agree

It goes without saying, but if you see the need to access any data about American education from the federal government, you should go download it now. Like stop reading this post and do it immediately.

AERA and COPAFS Statement on the New Administration’s Sudden Termination of National Center for Education Statistics Contracts AERA and COPAFS Statement on the New Administration’s Sudden Termination of National Center for Education Statistics Contracts

AERA and COPAFS have issued a statement on the sudden termination of 169 contracts within IES, including those that NCES holds for the collection and reporting of education statistics. Read the full statement: www.aera.net/Newsroom/AER...

Education Department slashes funding for research contracts, grants About 170 contracts for the Institute of Education Sciences were targeted.

www.politico.com/news/2025/02...

Just got the dreaded email. University of Iowa is halting all NIH grant submissions.

Losing a generation of scientists here will send the state backwards. What a travesty.

Get in Dorks, we are going protesting.

STAND UP FOR SCIENCE. MARCH 7th 12-4pm. DC AND YOUR STATE CAPITALS.

More information to come.

Revised and Extended: What's Happening Inside the NIH and NSF

This article--on the systematic dismantling of the NIH, NSF, and CDC--is a must-read not only for researchers and clinicians but for anyone who has ever gotten a vaccine, taken medication, read the results of a research study, or gotten tested for Covid, flu, or STIs.
www.science.org/content/blog...