Image of two hands doing a pinky swear against a yellow backdrop

Saving Through Solidarity

BY AUDREY BERLOWITZ The inexplicable budget cuts my financially-solvent university enacted through its 2023–24 APR process both portended and was practice for our current moment. The “headwinds,” justifications for why the university had to cut twenty programs before new system-wide performance-based metrics formally went into effect, have unsurprisingly arrived. If anyone working inside the university…

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Georgia Calls Us All to Act

BY MATTHEW BOEDY Here in Georgia in the last few days:  Lawmakers failed to pass a bill to end DEI in student activities and programs in our public university system. The bill would have codified into law policy moves already done to erase DEI in the last year by our system administration.  One of our…

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The Scariest Paragraph I Ever Read

BY HANK REICHMAN I subscribe to Don Moynihan’s substack, “Can We Still Govern.”  Moynihan is Professor of Public Policy at the Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan.  His posts are a terrific guide to how best to understand the administrative impact of the Musk-Trump assault on governance, as well as other related topics…

Trump’s “Patriotic Education” Mandate

BY HISTORIANS FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY This statement was issued by the steering committee of Historians for Peace and Democracy on January 31, 2025, and sent to its membership. “Who controls the present controls the past,” wrote George Orwell in 1949. Authoritarian regimes have long tried to rewrite history to advance their political objectives. The…

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US Department of Education Announces Investigations of Five Campuses

BY JENNIFER RUTH Yesterday, the Department of Education announced investigations into Columbia University, Northwestern University, Portland State University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, explaining that “widespread antisemitic harassment has been reported” at these five institutions. Given the confusion that reigns in and over higher education today, it’s worth trying…

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Academic Neutrality and Scholasticide in Gaza

BY DAVID MOSHMAN On January 6, at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association (AHA), members voted 428 to 88 in support of a “Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza.” The resolution noted that Israel has killed hundreds of teachers and professors and has destroyed eighty percent of Gaza’s schools, all its university campuses,…

Sign Open Letter to NYU Leadership

POSTED BY JENNIFER RUTH Please consider signing this open letter to the NYU administration. The text is below. Click the preceding link to access the form itself so you can add your name. On December 12, the NYU administration invited the NYPD to arrest two faculty members who were supporting students involved in a nonviolent protest…

Drummers and flag-bearers in Nazi-style uniforms stand on a stage in front of banners mixing US and Nazi symbolism, including stars, stripes, and swastikas, with a portrait of George Washington at the center.

Trump, American Nazis, and a Night at the Garden

BY JEFFREY C. ISAAC This week Donald Trump held a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, promoting the themes of “Make America Great Again,” “America First,” and, of course, “The Greatness of Trump.” According to a New York Times headline, it was “A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny, and Racism.” Stephen…

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2024 Endorsement from Higher Education

BY MATTHEW BOEDY With organizational help from Washington Post humor columnist Alexandria Petri’s recent piece on presidential endorsements . . . The Washington Post, among other major newspapers, is not endorsing presidential candidates this year.   And major universities are stepping back from issuing statements on matters of public concern. Since the latter institutions are choosing…