Rachel Fish
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rachelefish.bsky.social
Rachel Fish
@rachelefish.bsky.social
Sociologist studying schools, disability, race, gender. Associate Prof at Smith College. Former elem teacher. Parent. Cycling enthusiast. She/her/hers.
Reposted by Rachel Fish
Ive been blocked by some pro-gAI academics on here who think Im "ableist" for refusing to allow gAI in my classrooms, but the thing is I do fundamentally believe that we make a moral statement when we decide to teach students that they must rely on this kind of theft to read, write and think.
This is a great example of how genAI steals from us all on multiple levels. It's stolen a promotional spot for real books and authors, it's stolen a job from an actual journalist who could have compiled this, it's stolen an opportunity for parents to be recommended good NZ books for their kids
#4 sounds like a lovely book but I didn't write it. Have had whānau up and down the country send me clippings lol
Whoever put together this list that has been circulated to regional papers, didn't fact check.
December 25, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
Behold: the first-ever list of news outlets that have banned generative AI in their reporting. As of today, this is literally information that you cannot find on Google.

My goal is to fill the starter pack, so please send over suggestions with supporting evidence!

go.bsky.app/8cn1XfT
December 17, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
Grading and googling hallucinated citations, as one does nowadays, and now that LLMs have been around for a while, I've discovered new horrors: hallucinated journals are now appearing in Google Scholar with dozens of citations bc so many people are citing these fake things
December 15, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
Most daycares and private preschools won’t enroll children with disabilities. Especially for low income families, Head Start is their *only option*.
Head Start is a 60-year-old US Department of Health and Human Services program that, among other things, creates inclusive and accessible classrooms for children with disabilities. But those applying for funding were told by the Trump regime to avoid the words "inclusion" and "disability." 🤡
Head Start centers told to avoid 'disability,' 'women' and more in funding requests
New court documents reveal a list of nearly 200 words or phrases the Trump administration told Head Start programs it does not want to see in their funding requests.
www.npr.org
December 13, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
It’s good to see papers start to address LLMs as structural plagiarism — provenance, more hidden than the original words or training data. www.nature.com/articles/s42...
LLM use in scholarly writing poses a provenance problem
Nature Machine Intelligence - LLM use in scholarly writing poses a provenance problem
www.nature.com
December 14, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
so far tonight msnbc has interviewed two students from brown university that are also survivors of separate high school shootings.

insanity.
December 14, 2025 at 1:28 AM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
That and the attempts to force AI despite few people wanting it and LOTS of people trying to figure out how to get rid of it. This isn't a desired technology. This isn't like when people lined up in excitement for iphones; it's like when the phones all came loaded with unwanted U2 albums.
December 11, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
I was informed the Department of Education was shutting itself down and yet they have been making a dramatic blockbuster-style preview of their new ideological project? youtu.be/bUNVdCduGKg?...
December 8, 2025 at 11:44 AM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
This tech is destructive of human creativity and intellect. It is burning the planet so people can avoid thinking. Administrators who embrace it are hastening their own demise.
December 5, 2025 at 1:47 AM
Agreed. Higher levels of accommodations reflect the ways that our schools are not accessible places for many students. Privilege and inequality matter in terms of access to diagnosis, as well as the social and cultural capital to advocate for accommodations.
Not convinced there are a lot of students faking it to get academic accommodations.

What I do believe:
-the barriers to getting accommodations is high
-there is an equity issue in whose parents can pay for the assessments that underlay obtaining those accommodations
-tests are part of the problem.
Even by the standards of The Atlantic, this is an extraordinarily weak evidence base for an article.

Data from a tiny handful of schools that isn't measuring the variable at issue and a few thin, secondhand anecdotes.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
December 4, 2025 at 12:55 AM
So excited to get @angelafrederick.bsky.social ‘s book in the mail!
November 25, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
I am gutted to learn of @sfdirewolf.bsky.social (Alice Wong’s) passing. She was always a warm friend, a wonderful spirit, and someone who fostered my own growth. She helped me see that, as a #disabled person with chronic illness, I matter—I am whole. I’ll be posting some of Alice’s work. ❤️ forever
November 15, 2025 at 11:37 AM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
Something everyone needs to know about @sfdirewolf.bsky.social Alice Wong was her commitment to Palestine. Just a year ago, she & I wrote a letter in @literaryhub.bsky.social defending six Palestinian journalists. Sadly, Alice now joins two of them on the other side: Anas al-Sharif & Hossam Shabat
November 15, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Academics: I'm serving as an external letter writer for a tenure case for the first time. Any tips on serving in this role? Any thoughts on roughly how much time I should set aside?
November 3, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
🚨 1/ SCOOP We all know Pamela Paul is not a good journalist. But in her (poorly argued) WSJ screed on the alleged "growing divide" in LGBTQ circles abt trans rights, she reports ESPECIALLY badly—including abt Jose Arango & his boyfriend who dumped him.

Paul didn't talk to the boyfriend.

I did.
November 2, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
the adl is no longer, by its own definition, america’s preeminent jewish civil rights organization — because it’s no longer a civil rights organization at all
Anyway if you still work at this genocidal hate group working on behalf of apartheid in Israel and fascism in the US—and if you still quote them as an authority in any news story—you're endangering all of us.
www.jta.org/2025/10/29/u...
ADL removes ‘Protect Civil Rights’ from website as it narrows its mission amid right-wing attacks - Jewish Telegraphic Agency
The removal took place after FBI Director Kash Patel said he would cut ties with the ADL, though it is unclear if that has happened.
www.jta.org
October 29, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Great work, @lauramauldin.bsky.social . So needed.
"Reporting the thoughts of a billionaire as news is as grotesque as the amount of wealth they’ve been allowed to accumulate." I had a lot of fun writing this for @thenewrepublic.bsky.social -- seeing Gates' thoughts on climate change reported yesterday made me cranky
October 29, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
Here is the proposed agreement the Trump admin sent to UCLA, which administrators fought tooth and claw to keep secret ucop.edu/communicatio...
ucop.edu
October 25, 2025 at 12:17 AM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
Yet again, we can't afford to let LLMs become a source of epistemic grounding for society.
Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory
An intensive international study was coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC
www.bbc.co.uk
October 24, 2025 at 5:21 AM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
Every once in a while during the 2024 campaign, I'd meet parents of disabled kids who were part of Moms for Liberty or people who taught autistic kids. @slooterman.bsky.social writes how they are afraid right now as Trump targets special education staff.
19thnews.org/2025/10/spec...
Trump’s attempt to gut special education office has some conservative parents on edge
The president called the layoffs a part of cuts to “Democrat programs,” but children across the nation would be impacted.
19thnews.org
October 19, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
It is not so long ago that disability policy was bipartisan. I taught at the Bush School, and George H.W. Bush would talk about his pride in signing the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Every once in a while during the 2024 campaign, I'd meet parents of disabled kids who were part of Moms for Liberty or people who taught autistic kids. @slooterman.bsky.social writes how they are afraid right now as Trump targets special education staff.
19thnews.org/2025/10/spec...
Trump’s attempt to gut special education office has some conservative parents on edge
The president called the layoffs a part of cuts to “Democrat programs,” but children across the nation would be impacted.
19thnews.org
October 19, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Montpelier
October 18, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
Here’s a block list:

bsky.app/profile/did:...
October 17, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by Rachel Fish
The official White House account has been blocked by over 5,000 accounts since it was created less than two hours ago: clearsky.app/whitehouse-4...
October 17, 2025 at 10:09 PM
A Prelude to Violence
October 14, 2025 at 2:05 AM