J. D. Meyers
@jdmeyers.bsky.social
Theologian, nonviolence theorist, adjunct professor.
Nonviolent resistance, Christianity, Christian Nationalism, labor, teaching, academic libraries, and U.S. higher education.
Nonviolent resistance, Christianity, Christian Nationalism, labor, teaching, academic libraries, and U.S. higher education.
Reposted by J. D. Meyers
This from @tressiemcphd.bsky.social hit me over the head like a mallet of truth. This is the thing. This is what I’ve been trying to warn people about perfectly crystallized. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/o...
August 12, 2025 at 12:03 PM
This from @tressiemcphd.bsky.social hit me over the head like a mallet of truth. This is the thing. This is what I’ve been trying to warn people about perfectly crystallized. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/o...
My sense that neither party supports higher education is driven in part by Democrats' efforts to have students earn more college credit in high school.
I've been yearning for someone to write about the negative effects of these policies on learning. Here's a start:
www.chronicle.com/article/the-...
I've been yearning for someone to write about the negative effects of these policies on learning. Here's a start:
www.chronicle.com/article/the-...
Why the Boundary Between High School and College Is Crumbling
Pushing students to and through higher ed seemed like a good idea, but it’s had an effect on how they learn.
www.chronicle.com
July 15, 2025 at 3:23 AM
My sense that neither party supports higher education is driven in part by Democrats' efforts to have students earn more college credit in high school.
I've been yearning for someone to write about the negative effects of these policies on learning. Here's a start:
www.chronicle.com/article/the-...
I've been yearning for someone to write about the negative effects of these policies on learning. Here's a start:
www.chronicle.com/article/the-...
I have a lot of compassion for people using AI for work (which is basically every professional I know). The pitch for AI is utterly disconnected from how LLMs actually work.
Things that would be easy to do with a little code LLMs totally botch. They have to. It's how they're built.
Things that would be easy to do with a little code LLMs totally botch. They have to. It's how they're built.
AI slop now making up saccharine Bible verses that do not exist
July 9, 2025 at 10:30 PM
I have a lot of compassion for people using AI for work (which is basically every professional I know). The pitch for AI is utterly disconnected from how LLMs actually work.
Things that would be easy to do with a little code LLMs totally botch. They have to. It's how they're built.
Things that would be easy to do with a little code LLMs totally botch. They have to. It's how they're built.
We've gone 87 years with no minimum salary for teachers. Exempt from the minimum wage. Exempt from overtime laws. Exempt from the minimum salary. Exempt from respect.
87 years ago, President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act into law, establishing the 40-hour workweek, child labor protections, overtime pay, minimum wage and more.
These protections were won because workers stood up, organized and demanded better.
These protections were won because workers stood up, organized and demanded better.
June 25, 2025 at 10:14 PM
We've gone 87 years with no minimum salary for teachers. Exempt from the minimum wage. Exempt from overtime laws. Exempt from the minimum salary. Exempt from respect.
Reposted by J. D. Meyers
Big news: The Trump administration has essentially proposed shutting down tribal colleges and universities, displacing more than 20,000 students.
My latest for ProPublica:
My latest for ProPublica:
NEW: A nearly 90% funding cut proposed by the Trump administration would likely shut down and devastate the 37 tribal colleges and universities created to serve the students disadvantaged by the nation’s historic mistreatment of Indigenous communities.
By @mattkrupnick.bsky.social
By @mattkrupnick.bsky.social
Trump Wants to Cut Tribal College Funding by Nearly 90%, Putting Them at Risk of Closing
ProPublica found that Congress was underfunding tribal colleges by a quarter-billion dollars per year. Rather than fixing the problem, proposed federal funding cuts unveiled this week would devastate ...
www.propublica.org
June 3, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Big news: The Trump administration has essentially proposed shutting down tribal colleges and universities, displacing more than 20,000 students.
My latest for ProPublica:
My latest for ProPublica:
Finally. The takeover of the USIP was one of the most egregious DOGE actions. The refusal of a TRO was baffling, given that it is a nonprofit.
Would not be surprised to see lawsuits or criminal charges over the building seizure & destruction of property.
Gift article: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/u...
Would not be surprised to see lawsuits or criminal charges over the building seizure & destruction of property.
Gift article: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/u...
Judge Rules That Trump Administration Takeover of Institute of Peace Is Illegal
www.nytimes.com
May 19, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Finally. The takeover of the USIP was one of the most egregious DOGE actions. The refusal of a TRO was baffling, given that it is a nonprofit.
Would not be surprised to see lawsuits or criminal charges over the building seizure & destruction of property.
Gift article: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/u...
Would not be surprised to see lawsuits or criminal charges over the building seizure & destruction of property.
Gift article: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/u...
Yet we can't even get a minimum salary for teachers, who legally can be paid a penny a pay period.
May 8, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Yet we can't even get a minimum salary for teachers, who legally can be paid a penny a pay period.
That they can't teach AI how many stars and stripes the American flag has tells you everything you need to know about how AI programs work.
That the DOD doesn't proof its posts (or doesn't care if the flag is wrong) tells you everything you need to know about Hegseth's Pentagon. Also, his finger!
That the DOD doesn't proof its posts (or doesn't care if the flag is wrong) tells you everything you need to know about Hegseth's Pentagon. Also, his finger!
May 4, 2025 at 12:14 AM
That they can't teach AI how many stars and stripes the American flag has tells you everything you need to know about how AI programs work.
That the DOD doesn't proof its posts (or doesn't care if the flag is wrong) tells you everything you need to know about Hegseth's Pentagon. Also, his finger!
That the DOD doesn't proof its posts (or doesn't care if the flag is wrong) tells you everything you need to know about Hegseth's Pentagon. Also, his finger!
That the mainstream press doesn't routinely refer to the administration as "white supremacist" in every article bogles my mind. They're not exactly subtle.
“Black Press USA has learned that Trump officials are sending back exhibit items to their rightful owners and dismantling them—starting with the 1960 Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in exhibit.”
blackpressusa.com/the-smithson...
blackpressusa.com/the-smithson...
The Smithsonian PURGE: Trump Team Removes Artifacts of Black Resistance
Critics warn: it’s not just history being erased—it’s identity.
blackpressusa.com
April 25, 2025 at 5:50 PM
That the mainstream press doesn't routinely refer to the administration as "white supremacist" in every article bogles my mind. They're not exactly subtle.
The authoritarian turn came first for universities, which can't be the bulwarks of democracy they once were unless they re-democratize themselves.
Here my colleague Gabe Winant asks "Who governs the University?" We should all be asking this question. These institutions are landlords, healthcare providers, employers, police forces, and educators. They should be democratically governed.
chicagomaroon.com/47073/viewpo...
chicagomaroon.com/47073/viewpo...
Who Governs the University?
With authoritarian threats looming, our campus needs democracy.
chicagomaroon.com
April 23, 2025 at 10:45 PM
The authoritarian turn came first for universities, which can't be the bulwarks of democracy they once were unless they re-democratize themselves.
Reposted by J. D. Meyers
The rise of end times fascism. An essay by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
The rise of end times fascism
The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them
www.theguardian.com
April 13, 2025 at 2:19 PM
The rise of end times fascism. An essay by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
Musk and DOGE keep making public claims of fraud without running them past the workers who understand the systems they are examining. I can't tell if they are just really incompetent or purposefully using incompetence as cover for lying to the public.
Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency announced this week that they found cases of seemingly fake people receiving unemployment benefits. But that fake data exists for a reason. nyti.ms/42CtLMS
April 12, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Musk and DOGE keep making public claims of fraud without running them past the workers who understand the systems they are examining. I can't tell if they are just really incompetent or purposefully using incompetence as cover for lying to the public.
Reposted by J. D. Meyers
Curtailing people’s ability to read widely and carefully, to locate, assess, and compare different sources for themselves, and to write in their own voice about what they find and what it means, is arguably more effective than censorship. It is also one of the most obvious effects of generative AI.
April 11, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Curtailing people’s ability to read widely and carefully, to locate, assess, and compare different sources for themselves, and to write in their own voice about what they find and what it means, is arguably more effective than censorship. It is also one of the most obvious effects of generative AI.
This is what genocidal governments do. They treat people as non-human, even classify them as such in paperwork, to justify their crimes.
What a grim paragraph www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/u...
April 10, 2025 at 11:22 PM
This is what genocidal governments do. They treat people as non-human, even classify them as such in paperwork, to justify their crimes.
I'd also bet most Americans also don't know that when we put people of Japanese heritage in concentration camps during WWII, we renditioned them from Latin America as well, including from El Salvador. They were stripped of their passports, declared "illegal aliens," & imprisoned without due process.
I'd bet most Americans don't realize the six Nazi extermination camps during World War II also involved rendition to a foreign country.
Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chełmno and Majdanek were all located in Poland. Not Germany. Important historical fact.
Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chełmno and Majdanek were all located in Poland. Not Germany. Important historical fact.
This is a concentration camp, by the way.
This is a death camp. We're setting up death camps in foreign countries and renditioning people there.
This is a death camp. We're setting up death camps in foreign countries and renditioning people there.
April 10, 2025 at 4:39 PM
I'd also bet most Americans also don't know that when we put people of Japanese heritage in concentration camps during WWII, we renditioned them from Latin America as well, including from El Salvador. They were stripped of their passports, declared "illegal aliens," & imprisoned without due process.
ChatGPT is singlehandedly taking care of grade inflation.
LLMs inhibit student learning and produce absolute garbage work, at least in the humanities (I can't speak beyond that).
I would love to see a larger data set, but the grade distribution in my classes has entirely changed.
LLMs inhibit student learning and produce absolute garbage work, at least in the humanities (I can't speak beyond that).
I would love to see a larger data set, but the grade distribution in my classes has entirely changed.
April 5, 2025 at 11:20 PM
ChatGPT is singlehandedly taking care of grade inflation.
LLMs inhibit student learning and produce absolute garbage work, at least in the humanities (I can't speak beyond that).
I would love to see a larger data set, but the grade distribution in my classes has entirely changed.
LLMs inhibit student learning and produce absolute garbage work, at least in the humanities (I can't speak beyond that).
I would love to see a larger data set, but the grade distribution in my classes has entirely changed.
Trump has repeatedly said he wants to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the military to be used against Americans.
Here's world-class nonviolence theorist Daniel Hunter on what to do if that happens: wagingnonviolence.org/2025/04/what...
Here's world-class nonviolence theorist Daniel Hunter on what to do if that happens: wagingnonviolence.org/2025/04/what...
What to do if the Insurrection Act is invoked
With the Insurrection Act looming, now is the time to learn how it might unfold and the strategic ways to respond.
wagingnonviolence.org
April 4, 2025 at 8:19 PM
Trump has repeatedly said he wants to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the military to be used against Americans.
Here's world-class nonviolence theorist Daniel Hunter on what to do if that happens: wagingnonviolence.org/2025/04/what...
Here's world-class nonviolence theorist Daniel Hunter on what to do if that happens: wagingnonviolence.org/2025/04/what...
My greatest fear: Trump is going to need a war to compensate with his base for crashing the economy. And he'll want one because war powers are basically unlimited.
Worse, it'll need to be a war he can blame on the other party, so more likely China than Canada or Greenland. Nobody wins that war.
Worse, it'll need to be a war he can blame on the other party, so more likely China than Canada or Greenland. Nobody wins that war.
April 4, 2025 at 7:36 PM
My greatest fear: Trump is going to need a war to compensate with his base for crashing the economy. And he'll want one because war powers are basically unlimited.
Worse, it'll need to be a war he can blame on the other party, so more likely China than Canada or Greenland. Nobody wins that war.
Worse, it'll need to be a war he can blame on the other party, so more likely China than Canada or Greenland. Nobody wins that war.
Reposted by J. D. Meyers
As we all know, NEH funding was already almost inexpressibly meager. It bears repeating that they’ve targeted NEH and IMLS exactly because they’ve been *incredibly* efficient at spurring new thought, writing, and community-building.
Brutal: “The National Endowment for the Humanities, which supports museums, scholarship and historical sites, could see grants curtailed and staffing slashed by up to 80 percent.” bit.ly/3EfIPrg
DOGE Demands Deep Cuts at Humanities Endowment
The National Endowment for the Humanities, which supports museums, scholarship and historical sites, could see grants curtailed and staffing slashed by up to 80 percent.
bit.ly
April 2, 2025 at 2:41 PM
As we all know, NEH funding was already almost inexpressibly meager. It bears repeating that they’ve targeted NEH and IMLS exactly because they’ve been *incredibly* efficient at spurring new thought, writing, and community-building.
In a democracy, Congress would vote on eliminating federal funding for libraries and museums (and vote no, because knowledge is essential for informed democratic decision making).
Instead, the world's richest man has seized the power of the purse from Congress. We are no longer in a democracy.
Instead, the world's richest man has seized the power of the purse from Congress. We are no longer in a democracy.
SCOOP: DOGE notified the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS) today that the entire staff is being put on administrative leave effective immediately, I’ve learned from an agency source.
They’ll be cancelling huge swaths of grants/contracts and starting a Reduction in Force (RIF).
They’ll be cancelling huge swaths of grants/contracts and starting a Reduction in Force (RIF).
March 31, 2025 at 6:55 PM
In a democracy, Congress would vote on eliminating federal funding for libraries and museums (and vote no, because knowledge is essential for informed democratic decision making).
Instead, the world's richest man has seized the power of the purse from Congress. We are no longer in a democracy.
Instead, the world's richest man has seized the power of the purse from Congress. We are no longer in a democracy.
Reposted by J. D. Meyers
As I’m always telling people, my job is 70% giving feedback and thereby engaging students in conversations about their ideas and hopes for their writing. It’s not grading. It’s not correcting. It’s thinking with.
Reading and responding to student writing IS the core duty of writing teachers. Outsourcing it to an algorithm that can't read is choosing to give up on that duty. The fact that teachers are responsible for too many students to do this duty is not an excuse! www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Bridget Phillipson eyes AI’s potential to free up teachers’ time
Exclusive: education secretary exploring tools to compile student reports and assess writing and vocational skills
www.theguardian.com
March 31, 2025 at 1:22 PM
As I’m always telling people, my job is 70% giving feedback and thereby engaging students in conversations about their ideas and hopes for their writing. It’s not grading. It’s not correcting. It’s thinking with.
Reposted by J. D. Meyers
As always Tressie McMillan Cottom connects all the maneuvers and sticks the landing #AcademicSky
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/o...
Opinion | Actually, A.I. Is Pretty Mid (Gift Article)
A.I. is just what we need in the post-fact era: less research and more predicting what we want to hear.
www.nytimes.com
March 29, 2025 at 12:16 PM
As always Tressie McMillan Cottom connects all the maneuvers and sticks the landing #AcademicSky
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/o...
The book purges are coming for higher education.
The military is already complying with the white/hetero/cis supremacist censorship agenda (see gift article). It's only a matter of time before even private universities are asked to purge books or lose federal funding
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/u...
The military is already complying with the white/hetero/cis supremacist censorship agenda (see gift article). It's only a matter of time before even private universities are asked to purge books or lose federal funding
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/u...
March 29, 2025 at 4:05 PM
The book purges are coming for higher education.
The military is already complying with the white/hetero/cis supremacist censorship agenda (see gift article). It's only a matter of time before even private universities are asked to purge books or lose federal funding
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/u...
The military is already complying with the white/hetero/cis supremacist censorship agenda (see gift article). It's only a matter of time before even private universities are asked to purge books or lose federal funding
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/u...
Reposted by J. D. Meyers
I wrote about why American science is under attack. TLDR: it's because authoritarians demand the power to define what is true, and the entire project of empirical study is a threat to that power.
www.brookings.edu/articles/pop...
www.brookings.edu/articles/pop...
March 27, 2025 at 5:31 PM
I wrote about why American science is under attack. TLDR: it's because authoritarians demand the power to define what is true, and the entire project of empirical study is a threat to that power.
www.brookings.edu/articles/pop...
www.brookings.edu/articles/pop...
Reposted by J. D. Meyers
"Creating a ruckus" is his euphemism for wrote an op-ed in a newspaper. The Constitution protects all people under U.S. jurisdiction (not just citizens) from government actions penalizing them for speech, use of the free press, or peaceful assembly.
March 27, 2025 at 6:34 PM
"Creating a ruckus" is his euphemism for wrote an op-ed in a newspaper. The Constitution protects all people under U.S. jurisdiction (not just citizens) from government actions penalizing them for speech, use of the free press, or peaceful assembly.