The incredible shrinking attack on U.S. universities continues.
Cornell has signed an agreement—but unlike the UVA agreement, instead of pledging to follow the gov't's highly questionable July "guidance" on discrimination, Cornell simply agrees to hand it out to faculty as a "training resource"!
Some UVA faculty urged that a “no confidence” vote in the Board of Visitors would spoil the chance of productive partnership moving forward.
But if the BOV won’t even respond to this polite (secret) letter FROM THE DEANS… the problems run so much deeper.
State Sen. Creigh Deeds asks the BOV: “What is your understanding of the importance of shared governance in a university? What is your understanding of the significance of having lost the confidence of the people who educate students in that university?” www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...
Columbia and Brown, by settling, have encouraged this tactic. Authoritarians are emboldened by capitulation, and they won't stop until the cost outweighs the benefits.
Statement from the largest economics association about the BLS firing
As context: AEA approximately never makes such public statements
This is a big deal
These are exactly the questions that need to be answered.
And, thank you @creighdeeds.bsky.social!
Cavalier Daily reports an important development that will certainly be on the mind of many BOV members on Monday. While I am not a lawyer, it appears to me that Deeds is establishing a legal basis for the GA to seek an injunction on the enactment of any Voluntary Settlement
bsky.app/profile/dem8...
Good meeting with @uvahealth.bsky.social and @creighdeeds.bsky.social to discuss how UVA and schools in our Research Diamond are paving the way for medical innovation and economic opportunity. Our UVA Manning Institute For Biotechnology will be a hub to turn science into medicine that heals.
If you care about #UVA, sign this letter to the BoV and share the link. win.newmode.net/wahoos4uva/u...
Seems clear that the Columbia capitulation crosses the red line of academic freedom, if what Rashid Khalidi says here is accurate (and I have no reason to think it is not)
“The focus on monetary damages paid by the university and restrictions on campus protests and diversity policies obscures the Trump administration’s imposition of the right to interfere directly in university admissions, hiring, and promotion decisions.”
—Aaron Nisenson, AAUP Senior Counsel
DOJ put out a memo stating that all recipients of federal funding must ban trans people from bathrooms.
www.justice.gov/ag/media/140...
A typical summer in Charlottesville where everything looks the same around the grounds. Mothers in loose linen dresses and fathers in khaki cargo shorts, their children—prospective UVA students—in tow, tour the grounds. Nothing is the same. Everything has changed. For me, dread is redolent.
For higher education to function, students and faculty must be free to think and speak their minds. Students, faculty, and all who care about higher education must stand up and fight back against this unprecedented continuing assault. We have no choice.
4/4
coming here next, UVA. trump's doj is negotiating with our trumpist board as represented by a pet trump law firm to sell us out the same way. up to all of us to show them they are not the university
it is absolutely critical that the first priority of the new Virginia state legislature that will sit next January is to drastically reform the UVA Board of Visitors in both membership and organization, or they will be dismantling UVA next.
UVA announces presidential search committee. Noticeably few faculty members are on the list.
view.mc.virginia.edu?qs=e828e5831...
Terrified that this is what's next for UVA.
Safe travels!
There are 28 members on the committee to select a new president at UVA. There's exactly one faculty member from Arts & Sciences, the biggest school and the heart of undergraduate education. There are 10 members from a discredited board news.virginia.edu/content/uva-...
The previous two presidential search committees looked MUCH different. The current Rector’s disrespect for shared governance is staggering.
We condemn this campaign to exert ideological & political control over higher ed in Virginia, including these attempts to attack & displace our campus leaders. We will fight for the independence of George Mason, UVa, & every public college & university in VA.
— Tim Gibson, AAUP Virginia President
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
it’s not even that the board is only giving lip service to the idea of working with anyone else in the community—everyone knows they’re lying about that—it’s that the lip service they’re giving is the rector pursing hers in sheer shock & disdain at the idea she ever might have to face a question
They're digging in and holding leaders to account. I've been impressed enough with their work that I just threw a donation their way. Some of the "pro" outfits out there could take a few lessons from these young journalists. 2/2
www.cavalierdaily.com/page/donate
As a student journalist during my UVa days (at the now-defunct rival to the CD) one thing that gives me hope through this whole debacle of federal bullying and institutional kowtowing is that the student journalists at the Cavalier Daily are knocking it out of the park. 1/2
