Colleen

A Matter of Words | The Point Magazine Over the course of the past two years, university committees focused on the impact of artificial intelligence have assembled across the country.

thepointmag.com/examined-lif...

The Pentagon’s Culture Wars Strike West Point

The “culture war” frame is a weasly way to avoid saying that this segregationist administration is institutionalizing white male supremacy in the nation’s military academies.

“white supremacist purge strikes West Point” is more accurate.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/u...

Opinion | West Point Is Supposed to Educate, Not Indoctrinate

Academic freedom is dead at West Point. Philosophy professor resigns his tenured position because of admin interference in curriculum and research, which now must bow to Trump’s agenda. “I cannot tolerate these changes, which prevent me from doing my job responsibly.”

Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project.

“Massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate…Both in the literal sense and in the sense of being historically illiterate and having no knowledge of their own culture, much less anyone else’s.”

How the U.S. Naval Academy Is Bending the Knee to Trump (Gift Article) Even before the presidential election, the school began preparing for Donald Trump’s potential return to power. Now faculty members are resigning in protest.

“No matter what you have done before,” he wrote, “your legacy will be that of a careerist who banned Maya Angelou but retained Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf.’” www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/u...

Great piece that really dives into what I'm getting at. And it's only talking about Mars. H/T to @anita1270.bsky.social for pointing it out.

If you are actively culling your library to keep books like "The Bell Curve" while removing criticisms of the book, you are building a white supremacist library.

Hopkins trailblazer scrambles to protect cancer research as Trump cuts hit home The world-class pancreatic cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins University had so-called indirect funds slashed by the federal government.

www.thebaltimorebanner.com/economy/scie...

OK, since people are responding so strongly to this, here is the broader context. Go nuts.

These Are the 381 Books Removed From the Naval Academy Library (Gift Article) The office of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the college to adhere to an executive order from President Trump banning educational material related to diversity, equity and inclusion topics.

These Are the 381 Books Removed From the Naval Academy Library www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/u...

Air Force Academy superintendent proposes cutting civilian staff The Air Force Academy superintendent is proposing to cut civilian faculty positions without hiring uniformed instructors to replace them — a change that could eliminate some majors.

gazette.com/military/air...

he can't attend a dignified transfer *by definition*

New York Times: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged other governments to hold off on responding to the new tariffs. “One of the messages that I’d like to get out tonight is: Everybody, sit back, take a deep breath. Don’t immediately retaliate,” Bessent said on CNN. “Let’s see where this goes. Because if you retaliate, that’s how we get escalation.”

Yes, I've just punched you in the face. But if you retaliate, it will only escalate things.

Nothing - absolutely nothing - prevented news organizations from running this headline before the election, when it was equally true as now and could have made a difference.

it's important that today we put our differences aside to come together and say eat shit Strom Thurmond you desiccated corpse

Excerpt from Rutgers University Senate resolution calling for a Mutual Academic Defense Compact. The excerpt reads: "BE IT RESOLVED THAT, the Rutgers University Senate urges the President of Rutgers University to formally propose and help establish a Mutual Academic Defense Compact (MADC) among all members of the Big Ten Academic Alliance; BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT, under this compact, all participating institutions shall commit meaningful funding to a shared or distributed defense fund. This fund shall be used to provide immediate and strategic support to any member institution under direct political or legal infringement;"

This exciting resolution from Rutgers University Senate is exactly the kind of model I think higher ed needs: a mutual defense pact of, in this case, Big 10 schools. They call for member institutions to create a joint defense fund and make resources available to any member institution under attack.

Naval Academy Takes Steps to End Diversity Policies in Books and Admissions The defense secretary’s office has ordered that some books be removed from circulation in its library, and the academy has ended the use of affirmative action in admissions.

Hegseth's office ordered the U.S. Naval Academy to review all 590,000 books in its library for content at odds with an executive order banning “radical indoctrination” in K-12 schools, even though it is a college. MLK, Einstein books already identified for removal www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/u...

Madison Square Garden’s surveillance system banned this fan over his T-shirt design MSG uses tools like facial recognition on attendees.

That facial recognition system at Madison Square Garden sure has been REALLY great for proving that all the worst predictions and fears us researchers have had about facial recognition were accurate and valid:
www.theverge.com/news/637228/...

The Times has to issue a correction here. An Executive order can’t “require” any such thing. Calling it ‘an aggressive push to catch” fraud is bad editorial judgment. The first part is demonstrably false. Those who have any voice to the Times need to demand this. Might as well say pigs fly.

The first and most important thing to know about last night's Exec order is that it's intended to break current law and allow people throughout the federal gov look at yr tax returns. Beyond that it's intended to compel states to turn over all their data to the fed govt.

Possession of AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery may be protected by First Amendment in some cases, judge rules In February, a district judge tossed out a charge against a Wisconsin man of possession of the obscene material but allowed other charges to move forward.

Somehow people still balk when it’s pointed out that a primary use case for this tech is to poison and degrade everything.

I am begging blue state governors to have lunch this week with your adjutant general of the National Guard.

Cannot stress enough how important this relationship is going to be in the near future.

A few words on journalism, risk and what I actually said.

Marco Rubio # @marcorubio •46m We will be revoking the visas and / or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported

This development is a horrifying and further escalation of the very topic I wrote about yesterday evening: The Trump administration’s move from governmental changes to individual attacks focused on political opponents. www.lawdork.com/p/trump-test...

No, Democrats, these little auction signs aren't it. You're acting like Wes Anderson characters who don't understand that they're in a Tarantino movie.

The Army deleted my “Why I served” video where I talked about how I decided I wanted to attend West Point/join the Army after one of the cadets my family used to sponsor died in combat. Probably deleted because she was the first black woman to be CSM at West Point.

I ran out of characters in the last post but to be clear: FUCK THIS.

Spending some time considering the mettle of your average senator versus, say, Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford.

Read it slowly and understand it. 😳🥺

Repost 👇🏾 👇🏾