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Sara Morell

@smorell93

Assistant Professor at The College of New Jersey. UMich Polisci PhD. Gender, Candidates, and Political Behavior. https://www.sarahillarymorell.com/

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Latest posts by Sara Morell @smorell93

So all colleges and universities will bring back the DEI stuff they cut when obeying in advance right...............................................................................................................................................right?

21.01.2026 19:42 👍 1060 🔁 392 💬 8 📌 8
Twitter thread in Spanish by José Mario de la Garza, a human rights lawyer in Mexico, translated using Google Translate:

1. Overthrowing a dictator sounds morally right. No one mourns a tyrant. But international law wasn't built to protect the good, but to restrain the powerful. That's why it prohibits force almost without exception: not because it ignores injustice, but because it knows that if each country decides whom to "liberate" by force, the world reverts to the law of the strongest.

2. The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is “overthrowing a dictator”; tomorrow it will be “correcting an election,” “protecting interests,” “restoring order.” The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades.

Twitter thread in Spanish by José Mario de la Garza, a human rights lawyer in Mexico, translated using Google Translate: 1. Overthrowing a dictator sounds morally right. No one mourns a tyrant. But international law wasn't built to protect the good, but to restrain the powerful. That's why it prohibits force almost without exception: not because it ignores injustice, but because it knows that if each country decides whom to "liberate" by force, the world reverts to the law of the strongest. 2. The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is “overthrowing a dictator”; tomorrow it will be “correcting an election,” “protecting interests,” “restoring order.” The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades.

Cont’d:

3. The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable.

Cont’d: 3. The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable.

Maduro isn't the problem: he's the face of the problem. Removing him from power would be merely opening the door. Behind him is the machine: Rodríguez, Cabello, the military command, the operators of repression and plunder. If you only change the person at the top and leave the system intact, what follows isn't democracy: it's a reshuffling.

And there's something even more difficult: Chavismo didn't just capture institutions, it captured daily life. Economy, media, bureaucracy, employment, fear, favors, blackmail. A country can't be "de-Chavistaized" by decree or by an electoral miracle. The real transition begins when that network is broken without setting the country ablaze.

The challenge is enormous, and it's also a moral one: to unite without vengeance, but without impunity. Targeted justice for those most responsible, truth for the victims, guarantees that the rest will dismantle the system, and a plan for people to live again—not just survive. Because freedom doesn't come with a new president: it comes when the state ceases to be a threat.

Maduro isn't the problem: he's the face of the problem. Removing him from power would be merely opening the door. Behind him is the machine: Rodríguez, Cabello, the military command, the operators of repression and plunder. If you only change the person at the top and leave the system intact, what follows isn't democracy: it's a reshuffling. And there's something even more difficult: Chavismo didn't just capture institutions, it captured daily life. Economy, media, bureaucracy, employment, fear, favors, blackmail. A country can't be "de-Chavistaized" by decree or by an electoral miracle. The real transition begins when that network is broken without setting the country ablaze. The challenge is enormous, and it's also a moral one: to unite without vengeance, but without impunity. Targeted justice for those most responsible, truth for the victims, guarantees that the rest will dismantle the system, and a plan for people to live again—not just survive. Because freedom doesn't come with a new president: it comes when the state ceases to be a threat.

Best thing I’ve read this morning, from a human rights lawyer in Mexico. Translation is in the ALT-text.

03.01.2026 14:16 👍 2816 🔁 1357 💬 40 📌 105

an “inherent power” to respond to an “imminent” attack is just a license for aggressive war on the president’s whim

03.01.2026 12:39 👍 5395 🔁 932 💬 208 📌 24

And he specifically references the mentee asking for feedback on a paper. So we know that this is a situation where the mentee is reliant on him for support and guidance.

18.11.2025 00:04 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
Texas A&M Tightens Rules on Talking About Race and Gender in Classes

Texas A&M Tightens Rules on Talking About Race and Gender in Classes www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...

“The policy defines race ideology as, among other things, ‘a concept that attempts to shame a particular race or ethnicity.’”

These GOP-led efforts will ruin their states’ public universities. Sad!

13.11.2025 23:14 👍 112 🔁 32 💬 8 📌 18

An important reminder that we shouldn't make confident election takes too quickly after an election, especially when generalizing about large groups of voters.

05.11.2025 13:40 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

(And there's a real question about whether he'll comply)

28.10.2025 16:42 👍 69 🔁 13 💬 2 📌 0
Preview
More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days. The government does not track how often immigration agents grab citizens. So ProPublica did. Our tally — almost certainly incomplete — includes people who were held for days without a lawyer. And near...

BREAKING from PP

We found immigration agents have held more than 170 *citizens*

The govt doesn't track citizens held. So we did. We tallied:

Nearly 20 kids, two w/ cancer

More than 20 citizens held for day or more, incommunicado

www.propublica.org/article/immi...

by @nicolefoy.bsky.social

16.10.2025 16:06 👍 4490 🔁 2740 💬 74 📌 237

It's both not going to tell you anything you don't already know and the sheer scope is just exhausting to read through.

14.10.2025 20:14 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

This somehow managed to be even worse than what I was expecting.

14.10.2025 18:09 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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JUST IN: A new class action lawsuit challenges ICE's warrantless immigration arrests in Washington, D.C., which they say are occuring without probable cause and based largely on perceived ethnicity.

www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

25.09.2025 14:22 👍 5805 🔁 1727 💬 105 📌 90

A reminder that the DOJ wants to investigate the issue. The DOJ wasting time investigating our classrooms is an open invitation for any frivolous complaint from any student, anywhere with too much time on their hands.

10.09.2025 13:01 👍 193 🔁 23 💬 3 📌 9

The justification for the occupation of DC is that a DOGE employee was carjacked. What does this look like?

24.08.2025 19:37 👍 582 🔁 234 💬 36 📌 7
Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.

The Washington D.C. school riot report is disgusting and revealing. We will not sacrifice our children to any such type school system, and you can write that down. The federal troops in Mississippi could be better used guarding the safety of the citizens of Washington D.C., where it is even unsafe to walk or go to a ballgame, and that is the nation's capitol. I was safer in a B-29 bomber over Japan during the war in an air raid, than the people of Washington are walking to the White House neighborhood. A closer example is Atlanta. The city officials fawn for political reasons over school integration and then build barricades to stop residential integration, what hypocrisy!

Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. The Washington D.C. school riot report is disgusting and revealing. We will not sacrifice our children to any such type school system, and you can write that down. The federal troops in Mississippi could be better used guarding the safety of the citizens of Washington D.C., where it is even unsafe to walk or go to a ballgame, and that is the nation's capitol. I was safer in a B-29 bomber over Japan during the war in an air raid, than the people of Washington are walking to the White House neighborhood. A closer example is Atlanta. The city officials fawn for political reasons over school integration and then build barricades to stop residential integration, what hypocrisy!

Immediately after his "segregation forever!" line in his inaugural address, George Wallace asserted that the federal troops at Ole Miss -- sent there after a racist riot killed two and injured hundreds -- were needed more in Washington, DC.

This is a very old, very obvious play from racists.

19.08.2025 15:47 👍 1438 🔁 476 💬 20 📌 8
What’s a technology that you think is overhyped?

I’m going to give a sideways answer to this, which is that the venture capital business model needs to be understood as requiring hype. You can go back to the Netscape IPO, and that was the proof point that made venture capital the financial lifeblood of the tech industry.

Venture capital looks at valuations and growth, not necessarily at profit or revenue. So you don’t actually have to invest in technology that works, or that even makes a profit, you simply have to have a narrative that is compelling enough to float those valuations. So you see this repetitive and exhausting hype cycle as a feature in this industry. A couple of years ago, you would have been asking me about the metaverse, then last year, you would have asked me about Web3 and crypto, and for each of these inflection points there’s an Andreessen Horowitz manifesto.

It’s not simply that one piece of technology is overhyped, it’s that hype is a necessary ingredient of the current business ecosystem of the tech industry. We should examine how often the financial incentive for hype is rewarded without any real social returns, without any meaningful progress in technology, without these tools and services and worlds ever actually manifesting. That’s key to understanding the growing chasm between the narrative of techno-optimists and the reality of our tech-encumbered world.

What’s a technology that you think is overhyped? I’m going to give a sideways answer to this, which is that the venture capital business model needs to be understood as requiring hype. You can go back to the Netscape IPO, and that was the proof point that made venture capital the financial lifeblood of the tech industry. Venture capital looks at valuations and growth, not necessarily at profit or revenue. So you don’t actually have to invest in technology that works, or that even makes a profit, you simply have to have a narrative that is compelling enough to float those valuations. So you see this repetitive and exhausting hype cycle as a feature in this industry. A couple of years ago, you would have been asking me about the metaverse, then last year, you would have asked me about Web3 and crypto, and for each of these inflection points there’s an Andreessen Horowitz manifesto. It’s not simply that one piece of technology is overhyped, it’s that hype is a necessary ingredient of the current business ecosystem of the tech industry. We should examine how often the financial incentive for hype is rewarded without any real social returns, without any meaningful progress in technology, without these tools and services and worlds ever actually manifesting. That’s key to understanding the growing chasm between the narrative of techno-optimists and the reality of our tech-encumbered world.

Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...

19.02.2025 16:42 👍 9720 🔁 3163 💬 157 📌 351

I have never wanted a piece of sports memorabilia more in my life. Obsessed.

18.07.2025 20:06 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

It’s a complete misunderstanding of the causes of backlash to civil rights. Anti-discrimination ordinances were followed by Anita Bryant. Baehr v Miike — the first state court ruling about gay marriage — was followed by DOMA. Blaming minorities for the backlash to efforts to advance their rights...

19.06.2025 18:20 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Target is also the big box store with the most (relative) city presence. I think they really underestimated how many Democrats in major cities would just stop shopping at them. It's really wild to me they didn't realize this.

21.05.2025 15:35 👍 206 🔁 4 💬 6 📌 3

As a professor at a public college in New Jersey, I cannot accept thank you gifts from students (including baked goods -- basically anything more than a hand-written note) as we're state employees and it would violate state lobbying laws.

11.05.2025 21:00 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Congrats!!

08.05.2025 12:18 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
In the three years since Ron DeSantis set out to rid Florida’s universities of woke ideology, my campus changed significantly. Professors suddenly worried about what they could say and teach. Some started avoiding terms like “racism.” One student recently told me that when someone used “intersectional” in class, the instructor told her not to use that word.

In the three years since Ron DeSantis set out to rid Florida’s universities of woke ideology, my campus changed significantly. Professors suddenly worried about what they could say and teach. Some started avoiding terms like “racism.” One student recently told me that when someone used “intersectional” in class, the instructor told her not to use that word.

One colleague told me that he stopped assigning an article about lynching and white evangelicalism for fear that those terms could raise red flags. Another said she was censoring her language not just in class and on campus but also on personal social media.

Several professors have been subjected to efforts at entrapment. Last year a man posing as a student tried to encourage Muslim faculty members to criticize Mr. DeSantis and Israel. A similar incident happened to me. In October 2024 my department chair called me into his office to tell me that someone claiming to be a student in my Religion and Science class had complained that I spent 20 minutes talking about specific candidates, including who I was voting for and why. I was stunned. That never happened in that class or any other; it is antithetical to the way I teach. Fortunately

One colleague told me that he stopped assigning an article about lynching and white evangelicalism for fear that those terms could raise red flags. Another said she was censoring her language not just in class and on campus but also on personal social media. Several professors have been subjected to efforts at entrapment. Last year a man posing as a student tried to encourage Muslim faculty members to criticize Mr. DeSantis and Israel. A similar incident happened to me. In October 2024 my department chair called me into his office to tell me that someone claiming to be a student in my Religion and Science class had complained that I spent 20 minutes talking about specific candidates, including who I was voting for and why. I was stunned. That never happened in that class or any other; it is antithetical to the way I teach. Fortunately

Brutal account of what it’s like to teach at the University of Florida right now in the NYT—extraordinary climate of fear. People afraid to say intersectional and talk about lynchings. Fake students trying to entrap Muslim faculty or just making things up altogether. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/07/o...

07.05.2025 11:42 👍 3602 🔁 1387 💬 97 📌 196

Absolutely devastating. I'm so sorry Carson.

23.04.2025 01:49 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
What DEI threatens isn’t merit. It’s monopoly. Political science professor Hakeem Jefferson argues for DEI's importance to de-monopolizing universities.

A colleague at Stanford’s business school used The Stanford Daily to argue—poorly—against DEI. The piece was riddled with historical errors and left one searching for fact, so I broke my public writing hiatus to respond.

I hope you’ll read and share the piece.

stanforddaily.com/2025/04/22/w...

23.04.2025 00:23 👍 8422 🔁 2906 💬 13 📌 271
Preview
Have young voters really abandoned the Democrats? by Caroline Soler, Brian Schaffner, and Stephen Ansolabehere

the question to ask about a certain prominent pollster who has the ear of influential figures in media is whether he's trying to inform the public or whether he's trying to win new clients tufts-pol.medium.com/have-young-v...

22.04.2025 16:17 👍 1126 🔁 158 💬 28 📌 6
There are three key facts in the Holocaust Encyclopedia produced by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. This is the second key fact:

What distinguishes a concentration camp from a prison (in the modern sense) is that it functions outside of a judicial system. The prisoners are not indicted or convicted of any crime by judicial process.

There are three key facts in the Holocaust Encyclopedia produced by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. This is the second key fact: What distinguishes a concentration camp from a prison (in the modern sense) is that it functions outside of a judicial system. The prisoners are not indicted or convicted of any crime by judicial process.

This, from the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

14.04.2025 20:53 👍 6829 🔁 2964 💬 55 📌 133
Preview
She Worked in a Harvard Lab to Reverse Aging, Until ICE Jailed Her President Trump’s immigration crackdown ensnared Kseniia Petrova, a scientist who fled Russia after protesting its invasion of Ukraine. She fears arrest if she is deported there.

“The customs official canceled Ms. Petrova’s visa on the spot and began deportation proceedings.” One way to understand Trump effect in govt: an ever widening circle of people, like low-level customs officials, get to make categorical decisions abt lives of others. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/s...

11.04.2025 17:35 👍 1072 🔁 372 💬 43 📌 30

"those who credit manufacturing jobs for a glorious past mistake correlation for causation. They think their grandparents had the 'good life' because of jobs in manufacturing. In reality, it was unions, pensions, high marginal tax rates, and strong social policies—with racism and sexism thrown in"

08.04.2025 11:30 👍 298 🔁 100 💬 8 📌 4
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American Democracy started here in Philly. Today 15,000+ told Trump-Musk #HandsOffPhilly 📸Credit: @pt74.bsky.social @50501philadelphia.bsky.social @newpennsylvania.bsky.social @phlscienceaction.bsky.social @pftlocal3.bsky.social @indivisible.org @maddow.msnbc.com @maddowblog.msnbc.com

06.04.2025 03:54 👍 1086 🔁 159 💬 12 📌 10