Sophia Woodman

The Last Columbia Protester in ICE Detention Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months.

Leqaa Kordia—not a Columbia student but “a simple Palestinian girl,” as she describes herself—is the last remaining campus protester still in detention from the Trump Administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the U.S.

In case you needed another reminder that bikes are bad-ass.

British.

Robin Williams' daughter, Zelda Williams, also recently slammed people who are making Al-generated videos of her late father, calling the clips "gross." She added, "To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to 'this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that's enough, just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop pup-peteering them is maddening. You're not making art, you're making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else's throat hoping they'll give you a little thumbs up and like it."

No notes

Large Language Muddle | The Editors The AI upheaval is unique in its ability to metabolize any number of dread-inducing transformations. The university is becoming more corporate, more politically oppressive, and all but hostile to the ...

A strong statement on refusing to resign to AI resignation www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

University of Derby proposes more than 200 redundancies The university says it is committed to supporting everyone affected.

Modern university ethos is invest in buildings, divest from people

Concrete has better job security than the staff

200 redundancies at University of Derby

Job cuts come weeks after opening of a new state-of-the-art £75m building for its Business School

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

AHA Sends Letter to Rutgers University Addressing Threats Made to History Faculty Members The American Historical Association (AHA) expresses deep concern about recent threats made against Professor Mark Bray that extended to his partner, Professor Yesenia Barragan, both faculty members in...

Statement of support for me from the American Historical Association (AHA)

EHRC withdraws interim guidance encouraging trans exclusion After six months of confusion and delay, the EHRC has taken down interim guidance rushed out in April. But the damage has already been done.

"The EHRC’s exclusionary interim guidance has had a devastating impact on trans people’s lives"

“Now the guidance has been withdrawn, so should the exclusionary policies that organisations rashly implemented in its aftermath. If not, they could find themselves in hot water.”

Some changes to immigration rules today, not just increasing English language requirements, mean migrants looking to live and work in UK will have to meet far far higher standards than British nationals, while paying vast sums to be allowed to do so. That isn't a system based on "fairness". 1/

ONLY migrants though, no one else is to study English because it's a rip off and a waste of time, am I getting this right.

‘It’s a road to destruction’: climate defenders facing surge in reprisals, says UN expert Mary Lawlor, UN special rapporteur for human rights defenders, accuses US, UK and other governments of paying lip service to climate goals while criminalizing activists

'The UK is leading by bad example, abusing the international standards to which it itself agreed by bringing in these draconian laws that are designed to stop protest against any of the issues that are uncomfortable for the UK government." www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Imagine thinking that your argument that you were unfairly passed over for a Nobel Peace Prize could be bolstered by anything a murderous dictator and war criminal like Putin might say.

The corruption, narcissism and complete idiocy all fuel each other.

💯

In the midst of massive UK wide HE crisis we have two sorts of institutions in local cri: those in genuine financial distress (like Dundee) and those not but making a nasty choice (Edinburgh). I think you can pressure the Edinburghs but it’s hard and shouldn’t be necessary.

The wage gap and far-right support for redistribution New study on beliefs and preferences about the wage gap (CEOs vs average worker). When the true gap is revealed, far right voters change their policy views most.

“In the case of the US, CEOs of publicly listed companies earn 269 times more than the average full-time worker. People thought CEOs only earned 18 times as much, and they would prefer it to be just 5 times”

– Christopher Hoy in our latest blog post #LSEInequalitiesBlog

🤮🤮🤮

UCEA announces Professor Nishan Canagarajah as new chair | News | University of Leicester

HAPPY WEEKEND 😭 #ucu #UKHE

le.ac.uk/news/2025/oc...

Moving quickly to a world where students use AI to complete work, profs use AI to grade it, no one learns anything and we will live in a world of mediocrity and incompetence where only the billionaires benefit.

Private equity gets its toothhold into firms through economic squeezing, devalues them, then breaks them into parts to sell off. This compact is the squeeze that will simultaneously advantage for-profit ed *and* make it easier to PE-ify non-profit ed. The ideological component is a means to an end.

Setting The Agenda for Change in Higher Education: Lessons from Australia A discussion paper by Mark Pendleton (UK-elected HE) [Featured photo: the Australian national flag flying beside the Aboriginal Flag of Australia] Preface UCU Commons has long argued for more delib…

UCU hasn't focused on university governance, but it should. Like their Australian counterparts, British universities are "profoundly undemocratic." @markpendleton.bsky.social is right we should learn from those in Australia who are taking the fight forward on this! ucucommons.org/2025/10/03/s...

Cutting Corners: a message to the next Vice Chancellor at Goldsmiths On 1 October 2025, a short announcement was put on Goldsmiths’ website to say that Vice Chancellor Frances Corner was stepping down with immediate effect. This came off the back of an announcement …

I wrote something on my time on returning to Goldsmiths as an associate lecturer, 17 years after graduating with my first degree. It’s a plea to Frances Corner’s successor to learn from mistakes made over the last 6 years and change course. #UCU #UKHE

ucucommons.org/2025/10/06/c...

Solidarity with Mark Bray

For anyone who still doubted, reactionaries never believed in free speech, they always believed in forcing their ideas into the mainstream and mainstream institutions were too ready to welcome them

And these are the consequences

For every €1 provided through a Basic Income For Artists pilot program in Ireland, the government got €1.46 back. So it’s being made permanent.

Over and over we see it. It saves public money to provide public housing. And it makes public money to provide basic income.

We can’t afford to NOT do it.

BBC Laura Kuenssberg Show Accused of Anti-Green Bias After Cancelling Zack Polanski Interview The new Green Party leader was the only major party leader not to have been granted a conference interview on the flagship BBC show

The Greens requested an interview on the Laura Kuenssberg Show with Zack Polanski when he was elected leader, but were denied, with a promise to interview him during Green conference instead.

This was then scrapped citing the Manchester synagogue attack. Polanski is both Jewish and from Manchester

Biggest arms exports ever to Israel from the UK in last 2 months.

A place, unlike the UK, where the right to strike actually means something.
Here, we're so hemmed in by employer-biased legislation, that we can't do anything like this...

wow Italy
www.reuters.com/world/europe...

Fascinating quote from the Labour spokesperson that shows how populist hype works

It both legitimises the far right by euphemising it and linking it to "the people" and delegitimises left alternatives by equating them to the far right

What we see though is that push back is possible

❤️❤️❤️ Edinburgh students✊

Our struggles are connected: from divestment to staff cuts — UCU Edinburgh ‘We stand with you because your fight for fair work is a fight for the soul of this University. We ask you to stand with us because our fight for ethical investment is a fight for its consci...

In the proud tradition of staff-student solidarity at Edinburgh, a moving call from EUJPS at our 8 Sept. strike rally to stand together against unaccountable and unethical management of University finance
#UCU #WeAreTheUniversity #DivestNow

www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/blog/ckdj6l6...