It's rare to find educated people with morals such that they'll stand for something beyond self-interest.
A.Crespo, #law professor at #Harvard, explains on #C4news how the #university's lawsuit to uphold the #1stamendment is liminal for the #ruleoflaw in the US, and how either #academia & the law profession stand up as one, or #fascism wins. Have 40 years of ultra economic liberalism entirely destroyed democratic society or have the basics of human cooperation survived?

https://www.channel4.com/news/trumps-uni-crackdown-is-not-about-anti-semitism-harvard-professor

Can any of you STEM professor types tell me how long a cover letter for a postdoc position should run?

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/15/harvard-letter-refusing-demands/

Obama and Yale faculty back Harvard as Trump cuts $2bn in federal grants- #HIgherEd #Academia #AcademicChatter #Universities #AmericanCoup #RepublicansDidThis https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/apr/15/obama-yale-harvard-trump-cuts

Why do journal editors keep inviting me as reviewer # 2?

I'd like to be able to write a constructive and helpful review for a change.

We all know that we lack knowledge about most subjects on Earth.
So, we look things up on #Wikipedia whenever we don't know something.

Once you have been a Wikipedia editor for a while you learn the community has major flaws. So you trust quality #journalism instead.

Once you work as a #journalist, you realise that you can largely just write whatever you want without any qualifications. So you look up to scientists instead.

And once you work in #academia... you realise civilisation is a myth.

Reminder to all American scientists that Europe and other parts of the world are actively opening doors for you to move and get new jobs.

Many of you have probably already lost your jobs or had your projects cancelled. This is your chance to find a country where the food isn't poison, the healthcare is for free, labor regulations strongly favor the laborer, the cities are green and full of beautiful architecture - and also, you can get there by a fast, modern train.

#obama praised Harvard’s response as an example of how other universities should respond to President Donald Trump’s widespread efforts to punish higher education institutions he views as adversarial.

#harvard #fascism #trump #academia

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/15/barack-obama-harvard-reaction-00009112

Good on #Harvard for drawing a line; though disappointing others have just capitulated.

Anti-intellectualism and hostility to universities is usually a cornerstone of #autocracy and #totalitarianism. If you tolerate this...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz01y9gkdm3o #AcademicFreedom #science #scholarship #academia

Today Im mostly looking at how to make the #ViewerJS #iframe at least partially responsive (have a better height re screensize maybe). So Im staring at SO a lot for hack ideas. This is their AI answer warning. Very interesting considering 'AI' takes everything we make but we don't want anything it gives back, at least not in the main tech forums. Uni's should take note of this, but probably dont even know.

Major relief to know that MAGA will protect this nation’s universities and cultural institutions against “ideological capture.”

About time someone stood up to the dangerously illiberal agenda turning our college deans and tenured faculty into autocrats and dictators.

#uspol #democracy #academia

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/14/us/trump-harvard-demands.html

NY Times - #news - Columbia Student Activist Arrested by ICE at His Appointment for Citizenship…Mohsen Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident, has lived in the United States for 10 years and was arrested in Vermont. He has not been charged with a crime. #academia #columbia #ColumbiaUniversity #activism #resistance #AmericanCoup #RepublicansDidThis #legal #ICE

Hold the line. Fuck that guy.

#highered #academia #democracy

https://apnews.com/article/harvard-trump-administration-federal-cuts-antisemitism-0a1fb70a2c1055bda7c4c5a5c476e18d

Harvard Will Fight Trump’s Demands

https://lemm.ee/post/61346487

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/15/harvard-denies-trump-demands/

https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2025/the-promise-of-american-higher-education/

Harvard's response to Trump.

I think one of the reasons I can't be a researcher is a terrible lack of creativity: I cannot think of research topics that would be of interest for someone else to read. I can write a paper, but I cannot come up with a research agenda or see opportunities. #research #academia #PublishOrPerish

Kudos to #Harvard for standing up to the #Trump admin.

Friday, April 11, the Trump admin expanded its list of demands to Harvard. (Note that Harvard made the govt letter public on the Harvard website.)
https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2025/04/Letter-Sent-to-Harvard-2025-04-11.pdf

Today, Harvard President Alan Garber issued a public letter to the university community, explaining the latest Trump demands and the university's 𝙣𝙤 answer. "The University will not negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights."
https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2025/the-promise-of-american-higher-education/

Also see Harvard's official answer to the Trump admin, through its lawyers. "Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government. Accordingly, Harvard will not accept the government’s terms as an agreement in principle."
https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2025/04/Harvard-Response-2025-04-14.pdf

#Academia #AcademicFreedom #Censorship #DefendResearch #Universities #USPol #USPolitics
@academicchatter