Chris Newfield

This is it. Freeze it in amber. Hang it in a museum. The ultimate expression of the NYT and the elite class behind it.

The utter moral failure of ceding power to Trump? Acceptable ... if it is done in a clever, savvy way!

Liner Note 35: How Will Faculty Ever Have Managerial Power? (Paxson, Tooze, Ganz, Campos, Khalidi) No Regrets Sunday Morning, Victoria Line    I’ve often broached this topic, most recently in relation to the new UC Irvine plan for hyper-au...

Much more faculty antagonism please! Here's why. utotherescue.blogspot.com/2025/08/line...

I wrote a new post at Remaking on the Brown U agreement--much worse than announced--and what it would take for faculty to block defeatist policy. I discuss 5 statements--Paxson at Brown, @adam_tooze vs. @lionel_trolling, Paul Campos, Rachid Khalili. The final 2 really help. An Athens sunset. /1

full frontal assault on the freedom to learn

NEH Announces $34.79 Million for 97 Humanities Projects

the highest single award ever granted by NEH. $10 million to a single project. Surely, there were other projects that could have benefited from part of this grant that fit their mold.

Humanities is messy and complex. This is no exception to that statement. (4/4)

www.neh.gov/news/neh-ann...

Palantir Is Extending Its Reach Even Further Into Government Palantir has become one of the few winners in the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts, offering other contractors a lifeline while consolidating its own reach and power.

The Trump admin has enacted massive contract terminations for consulting giants and contractors like Accenture and Booz Allen.

Now Palantir is partnering with those companies—giving them a lifeline while consolidating its own power with the federal gov't. From @makenakelly.bsky.social

It wasn’t the eggheads that did this. It was the managers, executives and trustees wholly ignoring the eggheads

It's actually not a joke at all.

ICE arrested these immigrants in San Francisco and sent them 2,400 miles away—to Hawaii One may be mentally impaired, said a judge who granted him a continuance prior to his arrest.

ICE doesn't even have a detention center in Hawaii. The men have been put in a federal prison there. Very far from home, and presumably their lawyers. Via @missionlocal.org

Proposed Rule: Reconsideration of 2009 Endangerment Finding and Greenhouse Gas Vehicle Standards | US EPA The proposed rule on the reconsideration of the greenhouse gas endangerment finding and motor vehicle rule

Is anybody (or any group of people) organizing a well-crafted review of the proposed rule change to reverse the EPA endangerment finding?

Were such a review available, it would greatly help individuals seeking to make public comments on the proposed rule change.

www.epa.gov/regulations-...

Liner Note 34: Derailing the Columbia Precedent Milos, Greece, on July 19, 2025    There’s a drift towards seeing the Penn and Columbia University deals with the Trump Administration   as ...

I've a post at Remaking that reads the Agreement between Columbia & the government. It's much worse than they say. The idea that Harvard is about to cave in too is truly horrifying. The post also outlines the framing that universities should be setting up utotherescue.blogspot.com/2025/07/line...

Some universities see government grants drop by more than half Leeds Trinity and Canterbury Christ Church among institutions hardest hit after slashing of Strategic Priorities Grant

I missed the part where Labour cut the Office for Students by £100 million, targeting courses like nursing, while also cutting visas for NHS nurses www.timeshighereducation.com/news/some-un...

Screenshot of Columbia's settlement with the White House

Columbia University has handed over its undergraduate admissions process to Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, who will now decide at their sole discretion whether the university has admitted enough white people. It's no longer an independent institution.

Nearly 100 arrested across UK at protests related to Palestine Action Police in London detain dozens of people and confiscate placards under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000

Surreal undemocracy: “The Metropolitan police said 55 people had been arrested in Parliament Square under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 for displaying placards in support of Palestine Action.” protests-uk-london-arrests?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

My new project! Funded by @isrfoundation.bsky.social, with lovely colleagues @katefoxwriter75.bsky.social and @autgeek.bsky.social First time I've ever had funding for research 🥳 #Neurodivergent #AcademicSky #LivedExperience #CreativeResearch

Maurene Comey warns her former colleagues: ‘Fear is the tool of the tyrant’ “If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain. Do not let that happen,” she wrote.

EXCLUSIVE: Fired DOJ prosecutor Maurene Comey sends message to former colleagues, warning that ‘Fear is the tool of the tyrant.’

cringe and disturbing the degree to which american politics is currently influenced by grown ass adults who are still resentful about their SAT scores or something

The Nation’s Wealthiest Small Colleges Just Won a Big Tax Exemption About 20 institutions banded together to lobby Congress on why their endowments should be left alone.

Small colleges got themselves a tax exemption that is a permanent incentive to stay super exclusive www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

Liner Note 33. Trouble at the Irvine Core (UC Irvine Part 2) UCI May 25, 2018    We saw in Part 1  that UCI Finance attributes losses to the Schools –the academic core—rather than to the non-core or me...

Cuts coming to UC Irvine. bigger than you've been led to think. my new post on trouble coming utotherescue.blogspot.com/2025/07/line...

Luke Roberts, Folk Gossip — Sidecar Alice Notley (1945-2025).

Best line today/ “I once listened to an interview with Alice Notley where she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, that poetry is where we go when we die.” newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

this is so good

Straws in the Wind - Part 34 News, information and comment from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Faculty Association.

another reminder that Trump 2, for all his Republican normie elements that @jbouie correctly describes, is the first to figure out how to crush the richest universities and not just the regional publics the Rs normally impoverish uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/07/stra...

Summary Table of the massive defunding of biomedical research in the United States
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Liner Note 30: UPenn’s Trans Athlete Sell Out is Also a Disaster for Universities Dún Laoghaire Ireland on June 18, 2025 I haven’t found dissent in the standard places about Penn’s capitulation to Trump on transgender wome...

I have a new post on why the UPenn deal with the Trump Dept of Education is so bad for trans people and also universities

utotherescue.blogspot.com/2025/07/line...

I study the history of Nazi resistance. Here’s what the US left can learn from it | Luke Berryman Effective opposition calls for a laser focus on change, no matter how small. We should consider these activists’ examples

"The resisters that I researched ... were laser-focused on creating change. ... they sought to improve life for themselves and others in the here and now, in any way that they could, no matter how small." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This is disgusting.

Absolutely incredible turnout for Budapest Pride! So proud of all the organizers, including some old friends, who estimate hundreds of thousands— major embarrassment to Orban

I stand with Caraceni

Pathological idiocy from ICE

I got mad. @marcwatkins.bsky.social got to work unpacking what is very clearly a well-funded anti-labor spin campaign.