Travis S. Lowe
@tslowe.bsky.social
Sociologist. Associate Professor @ the University of Tulsa. Studies inequality, urban sociology, and the sociology of work.
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
A federal judge on Friday threw out President Trump’s defamation suit against The New York Times four days after it was filed, calling the complaint “improper and impermissible” in its present form. nyti.ms/4gyVUe3
September 19, 2025 at 6:20 PM
A federal judge on Friday threw out President Trump’s defamation suit against The New York Times four days after it was filed, calling the complaint “improper and impermissible” in its present form. nyti.ms/4gyVUe3
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
The key problem with what Ezra Klein says here is that he fails – or is unwilling – to grapple with the fundamental reality of the political conflict: The movement that dominates today’s Right fully rejects the very idea of “living here with each other” as equals. That’s their defining position.
"All I can say for me in the work I do is that I want to create a space that takes our disagreements seriously, that takes the stakes of them seriously, the consequences for people seriously, but does so without deepening our divisions irreparably. We are going to have to live here with each other"
September 18, 2025 at 12:10 PM
The key problem with what Ezra Klein says here is that he fails – or is unwilling – to grapple with the fundamental reality of the political conflict: The movement that dominates today’s Right fully rejects the very idea of “living here with each other” as equals. That’s their defining position.
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
i have said this before but when “getting rid of race in admissions” for the administration means “you can’t even try to reach out to underrepresented communities and encourage them to apply and if you do it is illegal discrimination against white people” then the actual goal here is segregation
Harvard Ends Undergraduate Minority Recruitment Program as Trump Targets Race in Admissions | News | The Harvard Crimson
By ending the minority recruitment program in May, Harvard shuttered a more than 50-year-old initiative to encourage minority high school students to apply.
www.thecrimson.com
September 15, 2025 at 12:16 PM
i have said this before but when “getting rid of race in admissions” for the administration means “you can’t even try to reach out to underrepresented communities and encourage them to apply and if you do it is illegal discrimination against white people” then the actual goal here is segregation
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
The goal of MAHA isn't better health. It's bigger health (and social) inequalities. Because equality is the greatest threat to power.
they’re ok if everyone gets sicker as long as poor people get MORE sicker.
Stay tuned for articles on “Consumption: get the new glow in your cheeks everyone’s talking about!” blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/tuberculosis...
Stay tuned for articles on “Consumption: get the new glow in your cheeks everyone’s talking about!” blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/tuberculosis...
September 7, 2025 at 11:49 AM
The goal of MAHA isn't better health. It's bigger health (and social) inequalities. Because equality is the greatest threat to power.
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
For anyone who believes that the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture and the National Museum of American History spend too much time focusing on the history of slavery and legalized segregation, how much time should they spend on these subjects? 🗃️
September 4, 2025 at 9:03 PM
For anyone who believes that the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture and the National Museum of American History spend too much time focusing on the history of slavery and legalized segregation, how much time should they spend on these subjects? 🗃️
Yes. Let's also cut the full-time work week by at least 25%. 40 hours is not a magical threshold - it is a social construction!
Too many families are trapped by a workday and a school schedule that are incompatible.
@kedseconomist.com makes the case for a bold new solution: a Child Development System that fills the gap—year-round, for every child. www.kedits.com/cp/169052357
@kedseconomist.com makes the case for a bold new solution: a Child Development System that fills the gap—year-round, for every child. www.kedits.com/cp/169052357
July 30, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Yes. Let's also cut the full-time work week by at least 25%. 40 hours is not a magical threshold - it is a social construction!
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
I am grieving the barbarism that is going to unfurl from all this. People are going to die. Livelihoods gone. All to feed a corrupt kleptocracy.
I see every day up close how different it is from the first time around. There are no guardrails. A disaster. I’m sorry we have to live through this.
I see every day up close how different it is from the first time around. There are no guardrails. A disaster. I’m sorry we have to live through this.
July 3, 2025 at 8:00 PM
I am grieving the barbarism that is going to unfurl from all this. People are going to die. Livelihoods gone. All to feed a corrupt kleptocracy.
I see every day up close how different it is from the first time around. There are no guardrails. A disaster. I’m sorry we have to live through this.
I see every day up close how different it is from the first time around. There are no guardrails. A disaster. I’m sorry we have to live through this.
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
When we treat evil as the product of individual pathology, we risk missing the cultural and structural forces that incentivize evil and allow it to thrive.
June 12, 2025 at 11:55 AM
When we treat evil as the product of individual pathology, we risk missing the cultural and structural forces that incentivize evil and allow it to thrive.
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
The real question is--why do so many Americans believe the MAHA message, despite it being so obviously false?
And I'd argue--it's because that message offers both a sense of control in the face of uncertainty and a sense of moral superiority as a reward for good health.
Let me explain... 1/🧵
And I'd argue--it's because that message offers both a sense of control in the face of uncertainty and a sense of moral superiority as a reward for good health.
Let me explain... 1/🧵
The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services has repeatedly claimed: “If you’re healthy, it’s almost impossible to die from an infectious disease in modern times.”
That is dangerously false.
www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...
That is dangerously false.
www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...
Experts Push Back on RFK Jr’s Infection Comments
The new Secretary of Health and Human Services has made claims about measles and other communicable diseases that could lead to sickness, and even death, his critics claim.
www.medscape.com
April 12, 2025 at 4:08 PM
The real question is--why do so many Americans believe the MAHA message, despite it being so obviously false?
And I'd argue--it's because that message offers both a sense of control in the face of uncertainty and a sense of moral superiority as a reward for good health.
Let me explain... 1/🧵
And I'd argue--it's because that message offers both a sense of control in the face of uncertainty and a sense of moral superiority as a reward for good health.
Let me explain... 1/🧵
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
“And I’m like, what do you mean, you ‘do your own research’? You running a double-blind study in your living room, dawg?”
- A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic
- A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic
April 30, 2025 at 11:36 AM
“And I’m like, what do you mean, you ‘do your own research’? You running a double-blind study in your living room, dawg?”
- A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic
- A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
The point isn't to make government more "efficient." It's to push the rest of us--and particularly those of us who might be critical of their efforts--into a state of precarity and uncertainty. Because precarity and uncertainty make people easier to exploit and control.
NYT: One estimate finds that DOGE’s “firings, re-hirings, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of workers” will actually COST taxpayers “upward of $135 billion this fiscal year.”
@nytimes.com 🤡
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/u...
@nytimes.com 🤡
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/u...
April 25, 2025 at 12:15 PM
The point isn't to make government more "efficient." It's to push the rest of us--and particularly those of us who might be critical of their efforts--into a state of precarity and uncertainty. Because precarity and uncertainty make people easier to exploit and control.
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT IS THE LAW OF THE LAND AND A SUPERSTATUTE AND THE PRESIDENT CANNOT UNDO IT.
sincerely,
a constitutional law professor who also teaches employment discrimination
sincerely,
a constitutional law professor who also teaches employment discrimination
April 24, 2025 at 1:39 AM
THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT IS THE LAW OF THE LAND AND A SUPERSTATUTE AND THE PRESIDENT CANNOT UNDO IT.
sincerely,
a constitutional law professor who also teaches employment discrimination
sincerely,
a constitutional law professor who also teaches employment discrimination
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
3,000 people die of food poisoning each year in this country. This is not Making America Healthy Again. www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/fda...
FDA making plans to end its routine food safety inspections, sources say
Food safety inspections would be left to state and local authorities under the plan being developed by the FDA.
www.cbsnews.com
April 18, 2025 at 6:25 PM
3,000 people die of food poisoning each year in this country. This is not Making America Healthy Again. www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/fda...
This is scary. The only violence that is being done is by the police, and people are cheering for it. Not sure how you fix this.
A town hall for Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia on Tuesday quickly deteriorated into chaos, as police officers forcibly removed several protesters and subdued two of them with stun guns.
Read more: nyti.ms/42MLMZV
Read more: nyti.ms/42MLMZV
April 16, 2025 at 11:42 AM
This is scary. The only violence that is being done is by the police, and people are cheering for it. Not sure how you fix this.
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
On this Tax Day, let's remember:
--the top marginal tax rate was >90% post-WWII; now it's 37%
--because of loopholes, billionaires often pay little or nothing in income tax
--cuts to the IRS lead to *more* audits of lower-income households, because high earners cost more to investigate
--the top marginal tax rate was >90% post-WWII; now it's 37%
--because of loopholes, billionaires often pay little or nothing in income tax
--cuts to the IRS lead to *more* audits of lower-income households, because high earners cost more to investigate
April 15, 2025 at 8:34 PM
On this Tax Day, let's remember:
--the top marginal tax rate was >90% post-WWII; now it's 37%
--because of loopholes, billionaires often pay little or nothing in income tax
--cuts to the IRS lead to *more* audits of lower-income households, because high earners cost more to investigate
--the top marginal tax rate was >90% post-WWII; now it's 37%
--because of loopholes, billionaires often pay little or nothing in income tax
--cuts to the IRS lead to *more* audits of lower-income households, because high earners cost more to investigate
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
"those who credit manufacturing jobs for a glorious past mistake correlation for causation. They think their grandparents had the 'good life' because of jobs in manufacturing. In reality, it was unions, pensions, high marginal tax rates, and strong social policies—with racism and sexism thrown in"
April 8, 2025 at 11:30 AM
"those who credit manufacturing jobs for a glorious past mistake correlation for causation. They think their grandparents had the 'good life' because of jobs in manufacturing. In reality, it was unions, pensions, high marginal tax rates, and strong social policies—with racism and sexism thrown in"
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
once again, i urge those who think it is hysterical to call this a segregationist administration to contend with the actual evidence at hand rather than adopt the braindead belief that any talk of racism or anti-black discrimination is "woke"
March 27, 2025 at 1:50 PM
once again, i urge those who think it is hysterical to call this a segregationist administration to contend with the actual evidence at hand rather than adopt the braindead belief that any talk of racism or anti-black discrimination is "woke"
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
(DOE is the Department of Energy, the Department of Education is ED)
March 20, 2025 at 5:13 PM
(DOE is the Department of Energy, the Department of Education is ED)
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
A key step in fighting the Trump admin's attacks on higher education specifically and democracy more broadly is to say as clearly as we can that we share values that are meaningful and that we will not stand by while our institutions are destroyed.
You can do that here:
bit.ly/DemocracyAndHigherEd
You can do that here:
bit.ly/DemocracyAndHigherEd
March 19, 2025 at 2:12 PM
A key step in fighting the Trump admin's attacks on higher education specifically and democracy more broadly is to say as clearly as we can that we share values that are meaningful and that we will not stand by while our institutions are destroyed.
You can do that here:
bit.ly/DemocracyAndHigherEd
You can do that here:
bit.ly/DemocracyAndHigherEd
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
The media can (and should) reject the Right's deceptive frame. This is not about "references to diversity, equity, and inclusion."
It is a neosegregationist attempt to erase everyone but white males from the nation's history.
It is a neosegregationist attempt to erase everyone but white males from the nation's history.
Arlington National Cemetery has scrubbed information about prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members and topics such as the Civil War from its website, part of an effort across the Defense Department to remove all references to diversity, equity and inclusion from its online presence.
Arlington Cemetery website scrubs links about Black and female veterans
Pentagon leaders have ordered that their websites and social media pages remove articles and images that “promote” DEI.
www.washingtonpost.com
March 14, 2025 at 6:30 PM
The media can (and should) reject the Right's deceptive frame. This is not about "references to diversity, equity, and inclusion."
It is a neosegregationist attempt to erase everyone but white males from the nation's history.
It is a neosegregationist attempt to erase everyone but white males from the nation's history.
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
Was thinking about how people at different ends of the economic spectrum are experiencing these times, then I remembered this--an example of how differently the ruling class experiences economic downturns compared to everyone else:
time.com/archive/6734...
time.com/archive/6734...
March 13, 2025 at 12:04 AM
Was thinking about how people at different ends of the economic spectrum are experiencing these times, then I remembered this--an example of how differently the ruling class experiences economic downturns compared to everyone else:
time.com/archive/6734...
time.com/archive/6734...
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
USE THEM.
Don’t you dare scrub your syllabus!!!!
Don’t you dare scrub your syllabus!!!!
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
The words Black, anti-racism, Hispanic and Diversity are amongst those they hope to disappear. USE THEM. #resist
The words Black, anti-racism, Hispanic and Diversity are amongst those they hope to disappear. USE THEM. #resist
The Words Federal Agencies Are Discouraged From Using Under Trump (Gift Article)
Federal agencies have issued guidance to employees on hundreds of terms to limit or avoid using. An analysis of government websites shows many of the same words being removed.
www.nytimes.com
March 7, 2025 at 10:47 PM
USE THEM.
Don’t you dare scrub your syllabus!!!!
Don’t you dare scrub your syllabus!!!!
Reposted by Travis S. Lowe
The ASA, American Federation of Teachers @AFT, and AFT-Maryland, facilitated by @DemocracyForward, have filed a complaint today in federal court in Maryland challenging the “Dear Colleague Letter” published by the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.
Educators Sue to Challenge Trump Administration's Efforts to Weaponize Civil Rights Laws, Attack Educational Programs and Student Opportunities - Democracy Forward
bit.ly
February 25, 2025 at 10:55 PM
The ASA, American Federation of Teachers @AFT, and AFT-Maryland, facilitated by @DemocracyForward, have filed a complaint today in federal court in Maryland challenging the “Dear Colleague Letter” published by the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.