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skort.bsky.social
Scott Ross, animate candy corn
@skort.bsky.social
290 followers 550 following 220 posts
lecturer, wustl | africanist anthro | humanitarianism, infrastructure, war, media, sound | gwu phd | hella left | he/him | arizonan in exile | wants to be your friend
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skort.bsky.social
Student journalists and columnists have been relentless on this beat, glad they get to break this news: www.studlife.com/news/2025/10...
October 22, 2025 at 1:00 PM
skort.bsky.social
Two WashU professors are in @stltoday.com against the Compact: "This isn't really an offer — it's a bait and switch. The administration is asking WashU to make costly sacrifices in exchange for vapor." www.stltoday.com/opinion/colu...
October 21, 2025 at 7:25 PM
skort.bsky.social
The WashU Faculty Senate Council (elected representatives across the whole university) have issued a statement emphatically opposing the Compact after their meeting with the Provost and the Chancellor's statement yesterday:
The Faculty Senate Council (FSC) met with Provost West yesterday and shared with great passion the deep concerns and strong opposition the Faculty Senate has to the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. FSC received hundreds of emails, text messages, phone calls and office visits from Faculty Senate members, articulating the serious threats the Compact poses to academic freedom, educational integrity and scientific inquiry. No university should strive for or be given preferential treatment by our federal government in exchange for compliance with one political ideology. No institution can maintain its integrity and stay true to its values, including freedom of speech and respect for the human dignity of all, by capitulating to the untenable demands embedded in the Compact. Consequently, following the meeting with Provost West, the FSC unanimously decided to express our strong opposition to WashU signing the Compact. We respect Chancellor Martin’s intent to engage in dialogue and recognize the importance of maintaining open and transparent communication with our federal partners. However, we believe continued ambiguity about Wash U’s position risks undermining confidence and clarity within our community. We call on Chancellor Martin and the Board of Trustees to join us in unequivocally rejecting the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, or any similar actions that compromise or threaten the mission, values, and independence of WashU and higher education more broadly. The FSC stands ready to work in partnership with University leadership, and in solidarity with faculty, students, and staff across higher education, to defend our shared principles of academic freedom, integrity, and institutional independence. The Faculty Senate Council of Washington University
October 21, 2025 at 6:52 PM
skort.bsky.social
Great reporting by our student paper too: www.studlife.com/news/2025/10...
WashU meets with White House to discuss Trump higher ed compact - Student Life
Chancellor Andrew D. Martin met virtually with White House representatives on Friday afternoon to discuss President Trump’s higher education compact, which asks universities to commit to a range of po...
www.studlife.com
October 18, 2025 at 2:49 PM
skort.bsky.social
Great and immediate response from our local AAUP chapter, alongside those from across the country. sites.wustl.edu/aaup/ "The alleged offer is pure political interference in higher education, and it blatantly opposes the mission of the University."
The compact characterizes efforts to improve diversity as discriminatory, a continuation of other efforts to undermine the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It makes other demands about admission, like requiring the use of standardized tests and limiting the admission of international students, that directly flout the shared governance rights of faculty. It redefines sex and gender according to rigid binary divisions incompatible with science and our value of human respect; forcing members of the University to accept these definitions in their work and medical practice would violate our academic freedom as well as standards of care. Finally, it instructs universities to ensure a “vibrant marketplace of ideas on campus.” Given recent government actions to suppress the expression of ideas with which it disagrees, such as arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen students and faculty members for Constitutionally protected speech, we can only interpret this as a thinly-veiled attempt to restrict academic freedom to those who agree with the current government, defeating the very purpose of academic freedom and of higher education as a whole.
October 18, 2025 at 2:43 PM
skort.bsky.social
This essay is a really succinct and important read. The manufactured crisis in Chicago is an attempt to use state violence to justify more state violence to oppress whole cities, breaking every norm about democracy. www.thebulwark.com/p/emergency-...
We should say what is going on here in clear and unsentimental terms: The president instructed federal agents to use extralegal violence against both immigrants and citizens in Chicago. When the citizenry of Chicago objected to these violent acts, the president used their First Amendment demonstrations of protest as pretext to deploy the Texas National Guard into the city, so that armed soldiers from Texas could impose the president’s will on the people of Illinois.
October 8, 2025 at 4:52 PM
skort.bsky.social
"There is no crisis in Chicago that requires the National Guard. To the extent that there is civil instability in Chicago it has been caused by Trump’s surge of federal agents into the city and their lawless assault on the citizens of Chicago." Some examples:
September 12: ICE agents shoot and kill Chicago resident Silverio Villegas González in Franklin Park. ICE claimed that González was shot after he “seriously injured” an ICE agent. But bodycam footage shows the same agent immediately after the encounter describing his injuries as “nothing major.” September 30: Some 300 federal agents raid an apartment building in the dead of night. Some rappel from a Black Hawk helicopter positioned over the building. They ransack apartments and detain not only children but several U.S. citizens October 4: CPB agents shoot an unarmed woman, Marimar Martinez. They claim that she provoked them by ramming their vehicle with her car. Martinez’s lawyer tells the Chicago Sun-Times that there is bodycam footage that shows an agent turning left into Martinez’s vehicle, after which an agent says, “Do something, bitch.” The agent then gets out of the vehicle and shoots Martinez. October 7: A masked federal agent is caught on camera aiming a weapon at a resident who is reportedly doing nothing more than documenting his activity.
October 8, 2025 at 4:46 PM
skort.bsky.social
More here: www.studlife.com/news/2025/10...
WashU Med labeled ‘DEI Indoctrination Training Camp,’ DOJ investigation requested - Student Life
On Sept. 15, 2025, America First Legal (AFL) filed a complaint against WashU School of Medicine for its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practices, asking the Department of Justice to issue an in...
www.studlife.com
October 2, 2025 at 9:09 PM
skort.bsky.social
From @aaup.org's new report on Title VI and academic freedom: www.aaup.org/reports-publ...
On Title VI, Discrimination, and Academic Freedom
This report considers how Title VI has been used to create an enforcement apparatus that sidesteps long-established AAUP-recommended procedures of shared governance and offers recommendations for facu...
www.aaup.org
September 24, 2025 at 1:58 PM
skort.bsky.social
...of discrimination that prevent or limit educational access. The Trump administration’s attempt to unmake the Civil Rights Act by hijacking the language of discrimination is nothing less than an attempt to rewrite the history of the nation."
September 24, 2025 at 1:58 PM
skort.bsky.social
How Can We Live Together? www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...
How Can We Live Together? - Boston Review
Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.
www.bostonreview.net
September 23, 2025 at 7:01 PM
skort.bsky.social
As this column summarizes, Schmitt's speech is "full blood and soil" nationalism, refuting ideas about equality and opportunity and doubling down on white supremacy: missouriindependent.com/2025/09/15/m...
Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt openly promoted white supremacism in a public speech • Missouri Independent
Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt suggested true Americans are “the sons and daughters of the Christian pilgrims that poured out from Europe’s shores.”
missouriindependent.com
September 23, 2025 at 6:48 PM