Brownstone buildings at Teachers College looking west toward Riverside Church. Creative Commons photo by Bohao Zhao
#edusky colleagues, higher ed or K-12, please share. We are at Columbia, but we know that this struggle matters for education across the lifespan.
A Statement from Teachers College Faculty on the Attack on American Education
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
'People who want to write either do it or they don’t. At last I began to say that my most important talent – or habit – was persistence. Without it, I would have given up writing long before I finished my first novel. It’s amazing what we can do if we simply refuse to give up'
― Octavia E. Butler🌸
Vote NO on cloture. Signed, your constituent
The #economicblackout, starting midnight tonight.
Scatterplot titled “Empirical Evidence of Ideological Targeting in Federal Layoffs: Agencies seen as liberal are significantly more likely to face DOGE layoffs.” • The x-axis represents Perceived Ideological Leaning of federal agencies, ranging from -2 (Most Liberal) to +2 (Most Conservative), based on survey responses from over 1,500 federal executives. • The y-axis shows Agency Size (Number of Staff) on a logarithmic scale from 1,000 to 1,000,000. Each point represents a federal agency: • Red dots indicate agencies that experienced DOGE layoffs. • Gray dots indicate agencies with no layoffs. Key Observations: • Liberal-leaning agencies (left side of the plot) are disproportionately represented among red dots, indicating higher layoff rates. • Notable targeted agencies include: • HHS (Health & Human Services) • EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) • NIH (National Institutes of Health) • CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) • Dept. of Education • USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) • The National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE), despite its conservative leaning (+1 on the scale), is an exception among targeted agencies. • A notable outlier: the Department of Veterans Affairs (moderately conservative) also faced layoffs despite its size. Takeaway: The figure visually demonstrates that DOGE layoffs disproportionately targeted liberal-leaning agencies, supporting claims of ideological bias. The pattern reveals that layoffs were not driven by agency size or budget alone but were strongly associated with perceived ideology. Source: Richardson, Clinton, & Lewis (2018). Elite Perceptions of Agency Ideology and Workforce Skill. The Journal of Politics, 80(1).
The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️
“Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it’s personal. And the world won’t end.” – Audre Lorde
It is so surreal. I feel like I am living and preparing for 3 timelines simultaneously: what we need to survive here and fight back, what we need if that becomes untenable and we have to migrate, and what my kid needs for middle school this week.
To my friends and colleagues at UAB, IU, UF, FSU, UL, WashU, OSU, CWRU, etc, etc. Call both your senators and your representative. They listen. Emphasize the direct economic impact of NIH research, and the indirect impacts on pharmaceutical/biotech. Underscore its relevance to national security.
list of banned keywords
🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.
The entire archive of CDC datasets can be found here.
HUGE shoutout to data archivists- this work is important 👏🙌🏻
archive.org/details/2025...
For #BlackHistoryMonth we're offering 40% OFF Haymarket Books on the Struggle for Black Liberation
Shameless plug for my earlier reported story on how collective action can be both good for the climate, as well as our mental health: www.verywellmind.com/collective-a...
How are you engaging in self- and collective-care this week? I went back to the basics: morning sunlight, reading a good fantasy fiction book, limiting social media checking behaviors, and sharing information with my circles.
SHARE WIDELY.
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.
With mass deportations starting today across the country, it is vitally important - for both citizens and non-citizens - to know your rights.
You have the right to remain silent. Assert it. You have the right to a lawyer. Ask for one.
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