jenn m. jackson

RFK Jr. Says He Instructed CDC to Change Vaccines and Autism Language on Website In an interview, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited gaps in vaccine safety research. His critics say he is ignoring a larger point: Vaccines save lives.

Breaking News: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he personally instructed the CDC to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism. The move underscores his determination to challenge scientific orthodoxy — in this case, that vaccines save lives — and bend the health department to his will.

I've been thinking a lot about hope and what it does for us. So I wrote a quick reflection on hope over on Substack. Read, like, and subscribe!

🔗 Read the full piece at Jennmjacksonphd.substack.com.

⭐️ Subscribers get access to lecture notes, thought questions, and recommended readings each month.

Meet the veteran who chases ICE on a scooter Clifford “Buzz” Grambo patrols the streets of Baltimore to keep his neighbors safe—and make federal agents uncomfortable.

“I want their morale as low as possible because a team with low morale is ineffective.”

Meet the veteran who chases ICE on a scooter

Let's definitely talk.

In this moment, we need to cultivate and protect spaces like NWSA especially for younger scholars coming up behind us. I would've felt much more isolated and alone in graduate school if not for NWSA.

Me in a Black and white keffiyeh holding my conference badge

Me and Aishah Shahidah Simmons

Me and my panel team with Venus Evans-Winters, Brittney Cooper, Christen Smith, and Kellie Carter Jackson

Panel commemorating the Crunk Feminist Collective featuring Sheri Davis, Eesha Pandit, Robin Boylorn, Chanel Tanner, Brittney Cooper, and Susana Morris

My experience at the National Women’s Studies Association conference this past weekend was AMAZING. It was refreshing to be in community with scholars, and organizers who take seriously the lives of women, gender expansive ppl, disabled folks, and other multiply marginalized ppl.

#NWSA2025

Join me and my scholarly friends as we talk about the current political moment. Next Monday, at 11am CT/2pm ET, my Genforward Survey team will be thinking together about our political futures.

Register here: bit.ly/data4liberation2025

Thank you, comrade!

Absolutely cannot wait to bust down the doors for a drink made by a company whose unionized workers are on strike in a store that doesn’t want to hire minorities anymore.

This is a good companion piece to the NYT piece today on the attack on the DOJ, and a sign of what the lawyers who did not resign or get fired are willing to do.

I've been on medical leave for 4 months. Tomorrow is my first day back to advising students, writing letters of recommendation, and sitting on dissertation committees. I'm legit excited to be getting back to my students 💜

Alice Wong, disability rights advocate and wordsmith, dies at 51 Alice Wong, a transformational leader for disability rights and justice, who founded the Disability Visibility project to magnify disabled culture, died Nov. 14.

A nice obituary for Alice, who was going to be recognized as one of The Post 50.

I hate that we now have to live without this phenomenal woman.

#GiftLink

wapo.st/49WOdx1

Disability rights activist and author Alice Wong dies at 51 The MacArthur "Genius" Award-winner was best known as the founder of the Disability Visibility Project, which highlights disabled people and disability culture through storytelling projects, social me...

Here's @npr.org's Obituary of Alice Wong:
www.npr.org/2025/11/15/n...

Donate to Help finish Alice’s work, organized by yomi wrong Our comrade, friend, collaborator and fierce Tiger Mischief Maker, Alice Wong, needs us. As yo… yomi wrong needs your support for Help finish Alice’s work

www.gofundme.com/f/alice-wong...

here’s where to send funds to continue Alice’s legacy <3

Me holding my name badge while wearing a black and white keffiyeh.

I love conferences so much! #NWSA2025

The Human Toll of the Suspension of SNAP The food-assistance program serves around forty-two million Americans. In Texas, even people with decent jobs are feeling the pain.

Some states have stepped in to cover SNAP benefits. Texas, which has a multibillion-dollar rainy-day fund, has not. https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-human-toll-of-the-suspension-of-snap

Hey, a lot of people are talking about changing affiliation from Democratic to Independent.

Let me tell you why you shouldn’t do that in Colorado.

One of the main ways to get a primary challenge candidate on a ballot is to caucus for your party. You need to be registered as a Dem to caucus.

And I've been doing politics for long enough to know clearly that the entire Senate Democratic caucus agreed to this decision to fold. Open your eyes. The 8 who "broke" did so with the complete blessing of Schumer and their colleagues. You don't have to play along because this is not a game. The end

COMPLICITY NOT COWARDICE. COMPLICITY.

The only silver lining to last night’s cave.

“.. As the raids have continued, consumers have started to question whether the company’s silence makes it an accomplice to the sweeps rather than merely the backdrop. .. A backlash is coming for the company.”

@bloomberg.com $HD
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Once the government reopens, precedent has already been set, if Speaker Mike Johnson refuses to swear in Adelita Grijalva, the newly elected representative from Arizona’s 7th District, someone else will. In Powell v. McCormack (1969), the

Supreme Court ruled that a duly elected member cannot be denied their seat, meaning a judge could step in to administer the oath or order the House to allow it. In other words, once the government reopens, Johnson will no longer be able to act as the gatekeeper.

If they have their way, survival will be stratified by caste with the poorest folks starving and having no medical assistance. These are human rights violations. They are inhumane and despicable.

Don't stop talking about it.

This is the longest government shutdown in history. It continues due to the greed of the wealthiest Americans, people who care little about the most vulnerable among us. The social safety net they are actively dismantling has been in place for more than 90 years, since the Great Depression.

The Trump Administration has demanded that states halt any SNAP payments to beneficiaries. They have referred to these payments as "unauthorized." The USDA has threatened to end federal funding for any states who fail to comply.

Every new day feels like we are waking up in the Sunken Place.

Telling states NOT TO feed people is vile.

Keep talking about Sudan.

190. SNAP WTF? A very quick explainer on what (and why) Justice Jackson issued an "administrative stay" in the SNAP case late on Friday night, and on what's likely to happen next

Trying to figure out what #SCOTUS just did with #SNAP, and why Justice Jackson temporarily froze the district court's ruling?

Via "One First," me on what's going on—and why I think Jackson's move was savvy, notwithstanding the awful circumstances that forced it:

www.stevevladeck.com/p/190-snap-wtf