Ray Horton
@rayhorton.bsky.social
Associate Professor of English, Murray State University
Studies American literature & religion and literature
Proud union member: United Campus Workers, KY
Plenty of opinions, all my own.
Studies American literature & religion and literature
Proud union member: United Campus Workers, KY
Plenty of opinions, all my own.
Reposted by Ray Horton
In the last two weeks, I’ve gotten tons of institutional emails about AI and undergrad education, and literally none about the simultaneous politicization and defunding of federal humanities research funding.
August 17, 2025 at 2:36 PM
In the last two weeks, I’ve gotten tons of institutional emails about AI and undergrad education, and literally none about the simultaneous politicization and defunding of federal humanities research funding.
Reposted by Ray Horton
Fun fact: even as UCLA is being extorted for $1B by a fascist government, its administration is requiring all faculty to install a “security” program that surveils everything we do and shares that information with the federal government.
Summary of our concerns
1. Implementation Timeline
We have learned that the UC system has suffered numerous and increasingly frequent cyber attacks and security breaches. For years, the administration has done little to stud...
sites.google.com
August 9, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Fun fact: even as UCLA is being extorted for $1B by a fascist government, its administration is requiring all faculty to install a “security” program that surveils everything we do and shares that information with the federal government.
Reposted by Ray Horton
[piles of books literally on fire in dumpster, visible in background, classroom lighted entirely by screensavers of computers & tablets purchased with library budget, teachers huddle together tapping at school-mandated assessment apps on phones]
Principal: Why do our reading scores keep dropping?!?
Principal: Why do our reading scores keep dropping?!?
August 4, 2025 at 12:42 AM
[piles of books literally on fire in dumpster, visible in background, classroom lighted entirely by screensavers of computers & tablets purchased with library budget, teachers huddle together tapping at school-mandated assessment apps on phones]
Principal: Why do our reading scores keep dropping?!?
Principal: Why do our reading scores keep dropping?!?
Reposted by Ray Horton
What if the news media agreed to stop calling these Ivy League deals “settlements” and just said, you know, “Cornell has agreed to pay $100 million in extortion money.”
August 2, 2025 at 2:08 AM
What if the news media agreed to stop calling these Ivy League deals “settlements” and just said, you know, “Cornell has agreed to pay $100 million in extortion money.”
Hello, I’m an English professor in a film. The only thing patchier than my feeble attempts at sobriety is my 5:00 shadow. Sometimes my students sit in a circle, but I do all the talking. I’m not like other profs; I smoke indoors, party w/ students, & ask girls at the bar if they’ve heard of Kerouac.
Hello, I'm an English Professor in a film. I have only ever read Moby Dick, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. I quote them extensively in ways that let you know the film writers were English majors.
Hello, I'm a historian in a film. My office is a massive space filled with Persian rugs, leather couches and massive wooden bookcases. There's a Tiffany lamp on my desk and an original Gutenberg Bible on a stand next to it. I am wearing a tweed suit with five layers.
July 28, 2025 at 5:13 AM
Hello, I’m an English professor in a film. The only thing patchier than my feeble attempts at sobriety is my 5:00 shadow. Sometimes my students sit in a circle, but I do all the talking. I’m not like other profs; I smoke indoors, party w/ students, & ask girls at the bar if they’ve heard of Kerouac.
Reposted by Ray Horton
Just learned from LinkedIn that a Heritage Foundation affiliate is now FOIA-ing (or equivalent) instructors’ syllabi to go snooping for supposed illegal DEI at state universities. It’s hard to describe how far past McCarthyism we’re headed here.
July 26, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Just learned from LinkedIn that a Heritage Foundation affiliate is now FOIA-ing (or equivalent) instructors’ syllabi to go snooping for supposed illegal DEI at state universities. It’s hard to describe how far past McCarthyism we’re headed here.
Reposted by Ray Horton
The sheer quantity of bullshit here. The solution to instructor exhaustion and overwork is not outsourcing grading (if that’s not direct mentoring of students, I don’t know what is) but hiring more faculty and reducing class sizes. Give the money to teachers, not Sam Altman
July 23, 2025 at 9:29 PM
The sheer quantity of bullshit here. The solution to instructor exhaustion and overwork is not outsourcing grading (if that’s not direct mentoring of students, I don’t know what is) but hiring more faculty and reducing class sizes. Give the money to teachers, not Sam Altman
Reposted by Ray Horton
Apparently for the NYT, offering a range of opinions on their editorial page runs from, it’s a crime against humanity to commit the “destruction of a people in whole, or in part,” to “actually it’s just fine.”
July 23, 2025 at 3:46 AM
Apparently for the NYT, offering a range of opinions on their editorial page runs from, it’s a crime against humanity to commit the “destruction of a people in whole, or in part,” to “actually it’s just fine.”
Reposted by Ray Horton
Can't wait to see who relays the raw sludge from J. Edgar Hoover's insane vendetta against MLK as objective truth.
"Excuse me, these are FBI sources. Are you telling me the COINTELPRO perspective was *biased* somehow?"
"Excuse me, these are FBI sources. Are you telling me the COINTELPRO perspective was *biased* somehow?"
BREAKING: The Trump administration releases thousands of FBI records on Martin Luther King Jr., despite his family's opposition.
Trump administration released FBI records on MLK Jr. despite his family’s opposition
The Trump administration has released records of the FBI’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate’s family and the civil rights group that he led until his 1968 assassination.
bit.ly
July 21, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Can't wait to see who relays the raw sludge from J. Edgar Hoover's insane vendetta against MLK as objective truth.
"Excuse me, these are FBI sources. Are you telling me the COINTELPRO perspective was *biased* somehow?"
"Excuse me, these are FBI sources. Are you telling me the COINTELPRO perspective was *biased* somehow?"
Reposted by Ray Horton
If I had said this last year, that Trump would try and deport US citizens in his first year, all Republicans and a nontrivial number of liberals and centrists would have attacked me for behind hyperbolic, and fear-mongering, and of having Trump Derangement Syndrome.
And yet:
And yet:
Trump calls for deporting US citizens: "We also have a lot of bad people that have been here for a long time ... many of them were born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here too, if you want to know the truth. So maybe that'll be the next job."
July 2, 2025 at 1:58 AM
If I had said this last year, that Trump would try and deport US citizens in his first year, all Republicans and a nontrivial number of liberals and centrists would have attacked me for behind hyperbolic, and fear-mongering, and of having Trump Derangement Syndrome.
And yet:
And yet:
Reposted by Ray Horton
Eliminating academic programs does not eliminate the need for the expertise those programs produce. Instead those same knowledges and skills will now be the responsibility of increasingly overburdened and underprepared instructors across the institution.
July 1, 2025 at 2:42 AM
Eliminating academic programs does not eliminate the need for the expertise those programs produce. Instead those same knowledges and skills will now be the responsibility of increasingly overburdened and underprepared instructors across the institution.
Reposted by Ray Horton
That sound you hear is every columnist at The Atlantic screaming into a pillow
June 25, 2025 at 2:16 AM
That sound you hear is every columnist at The Atlantic screaming into a pillow
Reposted by Ray Horton
If you're a member of the Democratic gerontocracy, the chances of you catching a primary challenger just went up 1000%.
June 25, 2025 at 1:55 AM
If you're a member of the Democratic gerontocracy, the chances of you catching a primary challenger just went up 1000%.
Reposted by Ray Horton
if you are somehow satisfied you should probably know you are in the distinct minority of the party
June 9, 2025 at 5:51 PM
if you are somehow satisfied you should probably know you are in the distinct minority of the party
Reposted by Ray Horton
unions: they get the job done
May 29, 2025 at 3:03 AM
unions: they get the job done
Reposted by Ray Horton
Really feeling for my students tonight. This was a miserable semester, waiting every day for the other shoe to drop. Yes, it will profoundly damage US universities and our economy, but I'm sorry for what the students themselves are being subjected to. They deserve better than this hateful treatment.
May 29, 2025 at 2:33 AM
Really feeling for my students tonight. This was a miserable semester, waiting every day for the other shoe to drop. Yes, it will profoundly damage US universities and our economy, but I'm sorry for what the students themselves are being subjected to. They deserve better than this hateful treatment.
“Continuing Bonds of Communion: Remembering Jonathan McGregor and Hal Bush,” our hybrid memorialization / scholarly round table on two dear friends of the American Religion and Literature Society, both gone far too soon. 💔
May 26, 2025 at 2:34 PM
“Continuing Bonds of Communion: Remembering Jonathan McGregor and Hal Bush,” our hybrid memorialization / scholarly round table on two dear friends of the American Religion and Literature Society, both gone far too soon. 💔
Kentucky friends! Sign and share this petition for Gov. Beshear to veto House Bill 424. As you will see from the statements of support we’ve received from @aaup.bsky.social and @penamerica.bsky.social, this is an anti-tenure bill, and we need KY’s campus workers, especially faculty, to stand up!
Petition for Governor Beshear to VETO House Bill 424
Dear Governor Beshear, We, the undersigned faculty members at Kentucky’s public universities, along with the administrators, staff, students, and community supporters who have signed this letter in s...
actionnetwork.org
March 22, 2025 at 1:04 AM
Kentucky friends! Sign and share this petition for Gov. Beshear to veto House Bill 424. As you will see from the statements of support we’ve received from @aaup.bsky.social and @penamerica.bsky.social, this is an anti-tenure bill, and we need KY’s campus workers, especially faculty, to stand up!
Reposted by Ray Horton
Columbia University’s immediate submission & betrayal of the core mission of higher education reflects cowardice and capitulation to a government that appears intent on destroying US higher education.
Full statement from AAUP President Todd Wolfson:
www.aaup.org/news/cowardi...
Full statement from AAUP President Todd Wolfson:
www.aaup.org/news/cowardi...
Cowardice and Capitulation: Columbia Has Sacrificed Its Own Students to Authoritarianism
The AAUP condemns in the strongest possible terms any university that would sacrifice its own students to the demands of an authoritarian government. Columbia University’s decision to punish students ...
www.aaup.org
March 14, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Columbia University’s immediate submission & betrayal of the core mission of higher education reflects cowardice and capitulation to a government that appears intent on destroying US higher education.
Full statement from AAUP President Todd Wolfson:
www.aaup.org/news/cowardi...
Full statement from AAUP President Todd Wolfson:
www.aaup.org/news/cowardi...
Reposted by Ray Horton
Students are being held, research on unapproved topics is being cancelled, universities have been told to remove any visible commitment to diversity, and Columbia was told to put Middle East studies into receivership.
But sure, its Trump derangement syndrome.
But sure, its Trump derangement syndrome.
March 15, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Students are being held, research on unapproved topics is being cancelled, universities have been told to remove any visible commitment to diversity, and Columbia was told to put Middle East studies into receivership.
But sure, its Trump derangement syndrome.
But sure, its Trump derangement syndrome.
I’ve been lurking on BlueSky for a few months now without posting anything. Given the events of today, I feel like this meme I just made is a solid first post?
March 15, 2025 at 12:28 AM
I’ve been lurking on BlueSky for a few months now without posting anything. Given the events of today, I feel like this meme I just made is a solid first post?