James S. Murphy
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jamessmurphy.bsky.social
James S. Murphy
@jamessmurphy.bsky.social
1.1K followers 180 following 1.1K posts
Sometimes I write slow, sometimes I write quick. Mostly about college stuff.
Email: jstephenmurphy@gmail.com
Website: www.jamessmurphy.com
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jamessmurphy.bsky.social
James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · Nov 20
What states get the biggest benefit from the US Department of Education (@usedgov)
jamessmurphy.bsky.social
So, is it a Christmas movie?
December 26, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Reposted by James S. Murphy
sky.skymarchini.net
“Like prime, but with human beings”
A box car used in the holocaust to transport human beings to the camps.
December 24, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Reposted by James S. Murphy
ilyasomin.bsky.social
Heritage Foundation implosion has been a wakeup call for some conservatives about dangerous trends on Trump-era right. I hope they will see that nationalism is inherently prone to bigotry, and reject it in favor of universal principles of the Founding: reason.com/volokh/2025/...
Lessons of the Heritage Foundation's Implosion
The decline of this major conservative institution has been a wakeup call for conservative intellectuals. But will they draw the right lessons from it?
reason.com
December 23, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Reposted by James S. Murphy
annabower.bsky.social
Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:
News Team, Thank you for the notes and texts. I apologize for not reaching out earlier. I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity. Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one. We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story. If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a "kill switch" for any reporting they find inconvenient. If the standard for airing a story becomes "the government must agree to be interviewed," then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state. These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless. CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that "low point." By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones. We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of "Gold Standard" reputation for a single week of political quiet. I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight. Sharyn
December 22, 2025 at 3:37 AM
Reposted by James S. Murphy
adamisacson.com
Current issue of @theonion.com nails it again.
December 21, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Reposted by James S. Murphy
propublica.org
NEW: A Texas district in which Black students were allegedly taunted with monkey noises.

An Arizona school where students admitted saying “slavery is good.”

These are some of the incidents Trump’s Education Department has ignored:
Monkey Sounds, “White Power” and the N-Word: Racial Harassment Against Black Students Ignored Under Trump
Since Trump returned to office, the Education Department’s civil rights office has not resolved a single racial harassment investigation. It sends a message that “people impacted by racial discriminat...
www.propublica.org
December 19, 2025 at 12:34 PM
jamessmurphy.bsky.social
More of these please!
December 19, 2025 at 11:53 AM
jamessmurphy.bsky.social
Look, I also oppose the federal tax credit scholarship, but please, advocacy orgs, stop using Facebook & Google forms to file identical comments on regulations from hundreds or thousands of randos. It's amateurish, unhelpful, and ineffective; if anything it's counterproductive.
December 19, 2025 at 4:16 AM
jamessmurphy.bsky.social
Somebody give Donald Trump the UCSD remedial math exam.
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 7d
FOX: If you cut something by 100%, the cost goes down to 0. If you cut it by 600%, the drug companies are actually paying you

LUTNICK: What he's saying is if a drug was $100 and you bring it down to $13, it's down 7 times

F: Not a 600% cut

L: But it's 700% higher price before. It's down 700% now
December 18, 2025 at 9:34 PM
jamessmurphy.bsky.social
When you're just fine with a 404 error
December 18, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by James S. Murphy
craigcalcaterra.bsky.social
The Vanity Fair photographer from the Susie Wiles story.

Holy. Shit.

www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/...
Were there moments that you missed? Anything that happened that’s on the cutting room floor? I don’t think there’s anything I missed that I wish I’d gotten. I’ll give you a little anecdote: Stephen Miller was perhaps the most concerned about the portrait session. He asked me, “Should I smile or not smile?” and I said, “How would you want to be portrayed?” We agreed that we would do a bit of both. And then when we were finished, he comes up to me to shake my hand and say goodbye. And he says to me, “You know, you have a lot of power in the discretion you use to be kind to people.” And I looked at him and I said, “You know, you do, too.”
December 17, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by James S. Murphy
joshua-goodman.com
At a time when sound economic advice is sorely needed, the current administration is crippling the knowledge base of the federal government.
johncawley.bsky.social John Cawley @johncawley.bsky.social · 9d
Within categories of nonacademic jobs; perhaps the bleakest sector is hiring by the federal govt. (Not surprising given DOGE cuts and then the government shutdown.) # of such jobs is down 71.1% from last year and is even 79.1% lower than during COVID (2020). There are only 24 listed this yr!
December 18, 2025 at 10:01 AM
jamessmurphy.bsky.social
Bongino made it less than 30 Scaramuccis.
December 18, 2025 at 1:41 AM
jamessmurphy.bsky.social
It's so wild to me that at Harvard basically a quarter of the White students who were admitted in the 20-teens were legacies. There's no reason to think it's better now.
December 17, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Reposted by James S. Murphy
lexalogue.bsky.social
The % of #Alabama high school seniors who earn college credit before graduation has almost doubled since 2019, to 27%: buff.ly/7xjmhfn But this article doesn't address a big question: Do these credits apply to college degree requirements after the student matriculates? #AcademicSky #highered
Alabama seniors earning college credit before graduation nearly doubles since 2019
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – As state workforce efforts focus on increasing the number of Alabamians with a post-high school credential, one quiet but rapidly growing trend has emerged that is giving…
buff.ly
December 17, 2025 at 4:32 PM
jamessmurphy.bsky.social
Education is the third best issue for Democrats. Huge advantage over Republicans.
December 17, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by James S. Murphy
bgrueskin.bsky.social
CBS News staffers might want to check into how things are going at their boss’s anti-woke “university” in Austin.

Via @ngluckman.bsky.social

www.chronicle.com/article/at-t...
According to LinkedIn, roughly 20 university employees have left this year. That's a lot for a new institution that had 34 staff members listed on its website this week (the number is separate from faculty). The departures include the president, the provost, the lead fund raiser, the executive director of admissions, as well as people who worked in events, operations, and other positions. Over the summer, the provost and the lead fund raiser also left the university, according to their LinkedIn profiles. Summers, the former Harvard president, stepped down from the advisory board in July, saying that he was "not comfortable with the course that UATX has set nor the messages it promulgates and so am withdrawing." (His colleagues on the board, Zimmer and Pinker, stepped down shortly after the university's launch, with Zimmer saying that UATX's critical statements about higher education "diverged very significantly from my own views.")
December 17, 2025 at 12:53 PM
jamessmurphy.bsky.social
Higher education leaders have largely failed to enter into this debate over what we talk about when we talk about merit, but they need to. Because the Trump Administration is already winning this fight.
insidehighered.com Inside Higher Ed @insidehighered.com · 9d
“Merit” Was the Word of the Year in Admissions. But What Does It Mean?

The Trump administration called on institutions to be more meritocratic in their admissions processes. But what merit is... remains a contentious topic in higher ed. https://bit.ly/44AjBOp

#AcademicSky #HigherEd #EDUSky
President Donald Trump in front of the word “Merit” where he is making the "i" in the word.
December 17, 2025 at 3:44 PM
jamessmurphy.bsky.social
18 state attorneys general sent a letter to the Department of Education opposing the ACTS survey collection. Their issues are mainly with privacy. They're not wrong to be concerned.
oag.ca.gov/system/files...
December 17, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by James S. Murphy
kendrawrites.com
One of the things that you see at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina is a Jim Crow era Coke machine that was designed to fit into a segregated bus station. One machine two sides.

The Coke cost more on the Black side.
kashana.blacksky.app Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 10d
Amazing how many articles are just “I’m a white guy who didn’t get the promotion I wanted and the only answer to this problem that concerns every single one of us is to re-segregate the workplace”
December 16, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Reposted by James S. Murphy
nikkimcr.bsky.social
good morning holy shit

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/u...
December 16, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Reposted by James S. Murphy
jamessmurphy.bsky.social
The post-SFFA enrollment tracker is now up to 28 colleges and universities.
Click on the post below to see the details.
Read the post to see which 13 schools shared data last year but not this year!
Share the post so everyone can see the weird thing Stanford did with its numbers this year!!
jamessmurphy.bsky.social James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · Oct 7
I relaunched the post-SFFA enrollment tracker for the class of 2029.

What took so long? Very few colleges & universities have published class profiles.

At this point last year, I had 33 places in the tracker. This year I have 13. jamessmurphy.com/2025/09/15/t...
The Impact of the SFFA Decision on College Enrollment: 2025 Update
Discover the impact of the SFFA decision on college admissions with our 2025 enrollment tracker and insights on diversity in institutions.
jamessmurphy.com
December 9, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Reposted by James S. Murphy
propublica.org
Arizona, the model for voucher programs across the country, spent so much money paying private schoolers’ tuition that it faced hundreds of millions in budget cuts to critical state programs and projects last year.

(Published July 2024)
School Vouchers Were Supposed to Save Taxpayer Money. Instead They Blew a Massive Hole in Arizona’s Budget.
Arizona, the model for voucher programs across the country, has spent so much money paying private schoolers’ tuition that it’s now facing hundreds of millions in budget cuts to critical state program...
www.propublica.org
December 16, 2025 at 2:30 AM
jamessmurphy.bsky.social
Today's the last day for public comment on the ACTS survey component. I don't think there's much chance of stopping it from happening (this month![Happy Holidays?]), but comments on how to improve it might still have a chance.

I just provided the 97th comment. www.regulations.gov/document/ED-...
December 15, 2025 at 7:12 PM
jamessmurphy.bsky.social
Not sure how psychometrically sound this exam is going to be.
December 15, 2025 at 3:04 PM