Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Osita Nwanevu

@ositanwanevu.com

Apropos of nothing, let's check in with how things are going at Bari Weiss's free speech university. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Most people didn’t think much of it when the university dean, Ben Crocker, called a student named Dan into his office on Monday, Sept. 9, the first day of classes. But at 7:44 in the evening, they received an email from three administrators saying that Dan had been removed from campus, “transported to his home out of state,” and barred from further access to the university.

The nature of the allegations concerned, at their core, a pair of charged statements Dan allegedly made that would be familiar to any Title IX officer. The first was a general statement implying that UATX girls carried themselves physically in a way that invited sexual assault. The second was a suggestion to a specific female student that she had carried herself in a way that invited sexual assault. Dan had already been the subject of some negative attention on campus because of provocative statements he’d made in a UATX-based Discord “introductions” chat. These included a challenge — “If I catch any of you guys in my stuff, I’ll kill you” — which was a reference to the 1981 movie “Stripes” and likely misunderstood by fellow students. In another exchange, a discussion of transgender issues, Dan expressed reservations about hormone treatment and said that he couldn’t wait “to play devil’s advocate for legalizing pedophilia.”

Between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m., Crocker visited the dorms, where he hosted a meeting on the roof to discuss the issue with students. Crocker’s message was that Dan’s conduct had been evaluated to be a “credible threat” — a phrase that would be repeated by the administration many times over the following days. Crocker then faced what one student attendee recalled as a “firing squad” of questions. Some students said that Dan had seemed off, but others saw his hasty removal as an example of the very cancel culture to which UATX was supposed to be the antithesis.

Several students noted a lack of diversity. Consistent with its emphasis on “merit-based admissions,” UATX doesn’t publish demographic data. The students with whom I spoke said their classmates — and the college’s leadership — were overwhelmingly white, disproportionately came from wealthy families and had an overrepresentation of apparent neurodivergence. They found ideological diversity to be particularly lacking. “I didn’t realize exactly how conservative it would be,” one current student told me. “You know, when I hear free speech and open debate and all that jazz, I assumed that there was going to be a more equal amount of political views, and there wasn’t.”

Classes weren’t as innovative as most students expected. “Year one was exceptionally boring,” the student said. “They did great books, they just didn’t do it in a great way,” said another student, who lamented the amount of memorization required. “I thought we were going to be intensely debating,” he said.

Several students shared course syllabi with me. Most are easy enough to imagine being offered on any campus — with the notable exception of math and science. “The math classes go over algebra you learned in ninth grade,” a student told me. “There was just nothing there.” He described the offering as “schizophrenic” and described a class he’d taken at University of Texas at Austin as “exponentially more important.”

Indeed, the syllabus I reviewed for a class called “Intellectual Foundations of Science II” covered a range of topics unusual for a science class including “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.” A student who’d taken the course shared a slide with me on “ensoulment” — the principally religious question of when a soul enters the human body — and said that the class had been told that IVF but not abortion could be consistent with the Catholic belief about ensoulment.

The poor quality of the science offerings had bothered Heying and Pinker. “Others thought I was the token liberal,” Heying told me, “but I came to understand myself as the token scientist.” In an email, Pinker wrote, “They should have hired a widely esteemed scientist and proven program builder to set up their science division.”

Another surprising similarity with other colleges stemmed directly from Dan’s expulsion: The students feared cancellation. “At any moment a frivolous Title IX complaint could be filed against you,” a former student told me. “I’ve never felt my speech was so chilled as it was in the classroom at UATX.”

During the many conversations I had reporting this story, two questions came up more than any other.

The first: Where was Bari Weiss? Many of the people I interviewed told me about internal conversations and shared internal emails. Weiss, who remains on the board of trustees, was almost never present in the conversations as they were related to me, and while I saw many emails on which Kanelos and Ferguson were copied, I never saw any including Weiss.

speaks onstage during an event in New York City, on Nov. 19, 2024. | Noam Galai/Getty Images for The Free Press

One person I spoke to, who was present during the early planning stages, told me that Weiss was “very elusive” and almost never present in person. This was ironic since UATX was closely associated with Weiss — a bust of whom now resides in the school library. Weiss, meanwhile, has only risen further during the Trump 2.0 era and is now editor-in-chief of CBS News, where she has been criticized as genuflecting to the Trump administration. A spokesperson for CBS News did not respond to a request for comment from Weiss.

One former member of the development team told me that they would routinely ask prospective donors how they got to know UATX. “Eighty percent of the time, the answer was Bari Weiss,” they said. “It was very often referred to as Bari Weiss’ University, or Bari Weiss’ University Project, or Bari Weiss’ University of Austin.”

For several people, this was a source of resentment. “I don’t care whether she wants to pretend this is all gone now — she is the reason that this place exists. She was huge, she was held in such high regard, she had such an enormous impact,” the former staffer said.

“I want her to be held to account,” she added. “I’m pissed.”

January 16, 2026 at 4:40 PM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Cam Walker

@camwalker.bsky.social

Great reporting from the ABC.

Bowman says scientists have stopped being reluctant to say climate change was making disastrous fires like these worse.
“The temps are higher, which changes the atmosphere.”

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

No time to warn or to prepare: Natimuk met the fire of our future

The anatomy of the Natimuk fire offers a glimpse into a new and faster kind of bushfire — and the growing vulnerability of communities as climate change fuels dangerous conditions.

www.abc.net.au

January 17, 2026 at 1:16 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Parker Molloy

@parkermolloy.com

For @wired.com, I wrote about how misogyny and homophobia have been used by the right to wage a campaign to destroy Renee Good www.wired.com/story/the-ca...

The Campaign to Destroy Renee Good

After an ICE agent shot and killed the Minneapolis mother, conservative media launched an all-out attack on her reputation. Her identity as a queer woman was central to it.

www.wired.com

January 16, 2026 at 10:46 PM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Richard Warnica

@rwarnica.bsky.social

I spent the week in Minneapolis. About the only thing I’m sure of now is that more people are going to die. www.thestar.com/opinion/star...

Richard Warnica: In Minnesota, I witnessed Donald Trump’s American carnage made real

As confrontations between ICE and protestors and activists grow more common, the tension only rises.

www.thestar.com

January 16, 2026 at 12:43 PM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Mr. Dan Zak

@mrdanzak.com

Stunning photos from Minneapolis, including this one by John Locher for the Associated Press. www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

A family member reacts after a federal immigration officer used a battering ram to break down a door before making an arrest on January 11, 2026, in Minneapolis.

January 15, 2026 at 7:22 PM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Private Eye Magazine

@privateeyenews.bsky.social

“New technologies will come along to save the environment.” What they said versus where we are:

From the new Private Eye, in shops now.

January 8, 2026 at 9:37 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Jeff Goodell

@jeffgoodell.bsky.social

As a journalist, I've spent lots of time climbing around in old coal plants. They're all rotted-out, cob-webbed piles of metal, industrial haunted houses on the verge of collapse. Keeping them going is yet another sign American energy poverty and political decline.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/c...

Trump Wants to Halt Almost All Coal Plant Shutdowns. It Could Get Messy.

www.nytimes.com

January 16, 2026 at 12:06 PM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Dayna Tortorici

@dtortorici.bsky.social

I wrote about @reproutopia.bsky.social's excellent book "Enemy Feminisms: Terfs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation" for the new @nplusonemag.com

n+1 @nplusonemag.com · 3d

“Given the history of intrafeminist conflict, Lewis suggests, it’s time we gave up the comforting myth that feminism is always and everywhere a force for good.”

In n+1’s Winter 2026 issue: coeditor @dtortorici.bsky.social on Sophie Lewis’s ENEMY FEMINISMS. www.nplusonemag.com/issue-52/rev...

Not All Women | Dayna Tortorici

The point of all this cataloging — which is less schematic in Lewis’s presentation than my summary suggests — is to help us recognize traces of enemy feminism when we encounter them in the present. An...

www.nplusonemag.com

January 14, 2026 at 6:45 PM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

UMAW

@umaw.bsky.social

In April 2024, Spotify implemented a new scheme: songs with less than 1k streams per year would no longer receive royalties.

The data for 2025 was just released via Luminate, and 88% of songs have been demonetized.

Read it again: 88% of songs on Spotify have been demonetized.

January 15, 2026 at 4:58 PM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Al Jazeera English

@aljazeera.com

The US has announced 'phase two' in Gaza, but most phase one points never materialised on the ground https://aje.news/ib9a1r

January 16, 2026 at 10:00 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Andy McKay

@korimakoecology.bsky.social

God this is grim.

thespinoff.co.nz/internet/10-...

I spent 18 months training generative AI – here’s what I learned

What it's like to teach AI.

thespinoff.co.nz

January 16, 2026 at 8:15 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Liberal Currents

@liberalcurrents.com

Neon Liberalism #60: Samantha and guest Will Stancil talk the murder of Renée Good and the Trump administration's larger assault on Minneapolis. Will is working with his neighborhood rapid reaction group in Minneapolis, and he recounts witnessing ICE abductions and confronting ICE agents.

Neon Liberalism #60: Minneapolis Under Siege

Samantha and guest Will Stancil talk the murder of Renée Good and the Trump administration's larger assault on Minneapolis. Will is on the front lines of monitoring ICE in Minneapolis, working with hi...

www.liberalcurrents.com

January 16, 2026 at 9:02 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Josiah Hawthorne

@josiahhawthorne.bsky.social

This is your reminder that Hungarian-Jewish scientist George de Hevesy dissolved two Nobel Prizes in aqua regia to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis.

He then left the dissolved solution on his shelf and fled to Sweden.

(After the war he un-dissolved the gold and the prizes were re-cast.)

January 16, 2026 at 4:14 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Dr. Heather Leslie

@heatherleslie.bsky.social

One of the best AI critiques I’ve seen read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/...

A Pedagogy of the Inevitable

Over the last couple of years, two altogether incompatible discourses of “AI literacy” have emerged. One seeks just enough literacy to support a smooth, perhaps even joyful, integration with new techn...

read.dukeupress.edu

January 16, 2026 at 5:14 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

hop dac

@hopdac.bsky.social

Please sign this petition to help restore funding to Writers Victoria:

www.parliament.vic.gov.au/get-involved...

Restore funding for Writers Victoria - Petitions - Parliament of Victoria

www.parliament.vic.gov.au

January 14, 2026 at 6:16 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Andrew Lawrence

@ndrew.bsky.social

i am calling on sauron to show some restraint and turn down the temperature

January 15, 2026 at 5:43 PM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Ingrid M

@ingridm.bsky.social

very important concerns🔥🔥🔥

Review of the Exposure Draft Legislation: Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026
Submission 14
Submission to the Review of the Exposure Draft Legislation: Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026
Dr David Brophy, University of Sydney
I refer to Section 80.2BF of the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026, the intent of which is to criminalise "publicly promoting or inciting racial hatred etc." In particular, I refer to paragraph 249 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which states:
249. New subparagraph 80.2BF(1)(b)(ii) is intended to include dissemination of ideas which assert that one group, distinguished by race, colour, national or ethnic origin, is inherently superior or inferior to another, ideas promoting exclusion, segregation or denial of rights based on race, colour or national or ethnic origin or encouraging contempt, hostility or dehumanisation of those groups.
I am concerned that a law prohibiting the dissemination of such ideas will capture within its scope ordinary and mainstream forms of support for Israel
As is well known, Israeli laws and policies are routinely criticised —by UN bodies, human rights organisations, and scholars as differentiating rights on the basis of nationality or ethnicity.
A prohibition extending to the "dissemination of ideas... promoting exclusion, segregation or denial of rights based on race, colour or national or ethnic origin" would therefore place supporters of Israel in the position of having to defend whether their political views fall foul of the proposed provision, even when those views are expressed in good faith and through lawful democratic advocacy.
This risk is heightened by the fact that support for Israel is not limited to abstract expressions of solidarity but often entails endorsement of specific legal and political structures: Israel's self-definition as a Jewish state; its constitutional order; its citizenship and immigration laws; and its security regime in the occupi…

January 16, 2026 at 2:56 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Parker Molloy

@parkermolloy.com

Simpsons screencap: an Oscar for best supporting actor with the winner's name crossed out and the words "Homer Simpson" scratched in

January 16, 2026 at 1:58 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Alex Kelly

@alexkelly.bsky.social

It feels like you couldn’t make it up - but this IS made up - of burning fossil fuels that are driving extreme weather events. Now we are all copping it. Enough! No new coal and gas. I would like a summer holiday and beach cricket with my kids. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

www.abc.net.au

January 16, 2026 at 1:54 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

The Australia Institute

@australiainstitute.org.au

“Those responsible for the climate crisis must be made to pay for the mess they have made,” writes @alexkelly.bsky.social, Director of the Economic Media Centre and a filmmaker, based on Dja Dja Wurrung Country.

Read Alex Kelly’s full piece on The Point: thepoint.com.au/opinions/260...

January 16, 2026 at 1:49 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

David Roberts

@volts.wtf

The basic problem is that high-quality journalism is not a viable market product. If it is not protected from market forces, it will inevitably degenerate into the ragetainment that dominates these days.

Ragetainment is what, measured on a pure impulsive will-they-click-it basis, the public wants.

January 16, 2026 at 12:44 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Antipoverty Centre

@antipovertycentre.org

Surveillance of welfare recipients is not an appropriate response to people in increasingly desperate circumstances committing violent acts.

But Labor's plan seems to be just introducing more pre-crime punishments until needing welfare is itself seen as the crime.
www.itnews.com.au/news/service...

Services Australia to tap law enforcement data for staff security

Privacy obligations competing with staff safety concerns.

www.itnews.com.au

January 16, 2026 at 1:09 AM

Reposted by Ben Eltham

Anne Lutz Fernandez

@lutzfernandez.bsky.social

Rethinking Schools published my article about pushing back on some of the arguments made by those seeking to rush AI tools into schools.

Resisting AI Mania in Schools

A former English teacher takes on many of the arguments of AI promoters.

rethinkingschools.org

January 3, 2026 at 3:51 PM

Ben Eltham

@beneltham.bsky.social

Thanks, I hate it

AI Firehose @ai-firehose.column.social · 2d

A study introduces ConvoLearn, a dataset of 1,250 rich tutor-student dialogues, enhancing AI tutors' support for dialogic learning. Fine-tuning on this dataset elevates LLM performance, highlighting the significance of pedagogical strategies in AI education. https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.08950