The Trump administration pushed out a university president – its latest bid to close the American mind; The Guardian, July 7, 2025

 Robert Reich, The Guardian ; The Trump administration pushed out a university president – its latest bid to close the American mind

"Let’s be clear: DEI, antisemitism and transgender athletes are not the real reasons for these attacks on higher education. They’re excuses to give the Trump regime power over America’s colleges and universities.

Why do Trump and his lackeys want this power?

They’re following Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s playbook for creating an “illiberal democracy” – an authoritarian state masquerading as a democracy. The playbook goes like this:

First, take over military and intelligence operations by purging career officers and substituting ones personally loyal to you. Check.

Next, intimidate legislators by warning that if they don’t bend to your wishes, you’ll run loyalists against them. (Make sure they also worry about what your violent supporters could do to them and their families.) Check.

Next, subdue the courts by ignoring or threatening to ignore court rulings you disagree with. Check in process.

Then focus on independent sources of information. Sue media that publish critical stories and block their access to news conferences and interviews. Check.

Then go after the universities."

‘The American system is being destroyed’: academics on leaving US for ‘scientific asylum’ in France; The Guardian, July 5, 2025

 Ashifa Kassam, The Guardian ; ‘The American system is being destroyed’: academics on leaving US for ‘scientific asylum’ in France

"Months into Trump’s second presidency, politics is increasingly blurring into academia as the government works to root out anything it deems as “wokeism” from the post-secondary world.

“There’s a lot of censorship now, it’s crazy,” said Carol Lee, an evolutionary biologist, pointing to the list of terms now seen as off-limits in research grant applications. “There are a lot of words that we’re not allowed to use. We’re not allowed to use the words diversity, women, LGBTQ.”"

Ohio libraries celebrate veto of budget measure censoring materials; Ohio Capital Journal, July 1, 2025

 SUSAN TEBBEN , Ohio Capital Journal; Ohio libraries celebrate veto of budget measure censoring materials

"The General Assembly still has the chance to override the veto with a three-fifths vote, but it would do so after libraries and advocates across the state stood staunchly against the measure.

The Columbus Metropolitan Library posted a statement to their social media applauding DeWine’s veto, calling it “a significant win for intellectual freedom and the right of every Ohioan to freely access information at their library.”

Jade Braden, a circulation assistant for Worthington Libraries, said the veto “helps ensure that library professionals, not statehouse politicians, continue to make choices about how we serve our entire community, what materials we provide and how we display those materials in our libraries.”

“Protecting intellectual freedom is an ongoing battle in which we will always need to be vigilant,” Braden told the OCJ. “The fight for our community and their right to read is one we continually dedicate ourselves to.”"

ESSAY: Billionaire do-gooding is out. Naked oligarchy is in; The Ink, July 2, 2025

 ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, The Ink; ESSAY: Billionaire do-gooding is out. Naked oligarchy is in

 "No one was ever going to announce that the era of performative elite do-gooding had ceded to the era of naked oligarchy. But this week three events made that eclipse clear.

The first was the multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos’s wedding, in Venice, to Lauren Sánchez, who would surely float if she fell into a canal. As celebrities poured into a city already strained by tourism, and the happy couple was photographed frolicking in a literal foam party aboard a yacht, there was an almost refreshing, well, nakedness to the avarice, to the carelessness, to the not-giving of civic fucks. There was a reminder of the omnipotence and the utter loneliness at the commanding heights: you can get anyone you want to your wedding, and the people you want are the people you’d invite if you told your assistant to run to the dentist’s office, pick up People magazine, write down names in it, and invite them. These are people who have everything, and who don’t have the thing everybody else does.

The second was the inevitable announcement by multi-billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s charitable foundation, run with his wife, Priscilla Chan, that it is no longer focused on ending all the diseases, as it once promised. Rather, in the Trump era, it is focused on things that would not be any trouble to Trump. “Can we cure all diseases in our children’s lifetime?” read a screen behind the couple at a rehearsal in 2016. The answer turns out to be: No. The Washington Post, owned by the oligarch in the above item, nonetheless rightly warned, in the Zuckerberg-Chan case, of “the risks for communities reliant on wealthy private donors.”

The third event was the passage today of Donald Trump’s and the Republicans’ budget, a document of searing meanness that former Labor Secretary Robert Reich calls the “Worst Bill in History” — a “giant budget-busting, Medicaid-shattering, shafting-the-poor-and-working-class, making-the-rich-even richer bill.” Like the Bezos wedding and the Zuckerberg-Chan pivot, the bill had one refreshing quality, though. It made zero effort to mask its ugliness. It said the cruel part out loud.

There is a nakedness to our oligarchy now, and it is pruny as hell. But at least there is this: As far as I can tell, the era of highly performative elite do-gooding is passing."

Here’s how Trump’s megabill will affect you; CNN, July 1, 2025

 Zachary Wolf and Tami Luhby , CNN; Here’s how Trump’s megabill will affect you

"Seniors, students, taxpayers, children, parents, low-income Americans and just about everyone else will be affected by the massive tax and spending bill being hashed out in real time on Capitol Hill...

Here’s what we know about how the Senate bill will affect… 

people on Medicaid: millions will lose coverage...

people who need help affording food: fewer will get it...

people with Affordable Care Act policies: more difficulty getting covered...

people who aren’t on Medicaid, Obamacare or SNAP: may still feel the cuts"

KY library book challenges rose 1,000% in 2024. That’s not a typo. What happened?; Lexington Herald Leader, June 30, 2025

 John Cheves , Lexington Herald Leader; KY library book challenges rose 1,000% in 2024. That’s not a typo. What happened?

"Challenges to Kentucky public library books soared by 1,061% last year, rising from 26 incidents in 2023 to 302 incidents in 2024, according to a recently released state report. That eye-popping number is buried in small type at the bottom of page six of the annual Statistical Report of Kentucky Public Libraries, published in April by the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives."

Poorest Americans Dealt Biggest Blow Under Senate Republican Tax Package; The New York Times, July 1, 2025

 Tony Romm , The New York Times; Poorest Americans Dealt Biggest Blow Under Senate Republican Tax Package

"Millions of low-income Americans could experience staggering financial losses under the domestic policy package that Republicans advanced through the Senate on Tuesday, which reserves its greatest benefits for the rich while threatening to strip health insurance, food stamps and other aid from the poor.

For many of these families, the loss of critical federal support is likely to negate any improvements they might have seen as a result of slightly lower taxes, experts said. That reality could undercut Republican lawmakers and President Trump, who insisted anew this week that their legislative vision would benefit the entire economy.

The latest evidence arrived in the hours before lawmakers finalized their signature legislation. Studying a since-amended version of the Senate bill, experts at the Budget Lab at Yale, a research center, concluded Monday that it would parcel out its benefits disproportionately.

Americans who comprise the bottom fifth of all earners would see their annual after-tax incomes fall on average by 2.3 percent within the next decade, while those at the top would see about a 2.3 percent boost, according to the analysis, which factors in wages earned and government benefits received.

On average, that translates to about $560 in losses for someone who reports little to no income by 2034, and more than $118,000 in gains for someone making over $3 million, the report found. Martha Gimbel, the co-founder of the budget lab, described the Senate measure as “highly regressive.”

The disparity owes largely to the fact that Republicans aim to pay for their tax cuts by slashing programs for the poor, including Medicaid and food stamps. The cuts amount to one of the largest retrenchments in the federal safety net in a generation. But the savings they generate only offset a fraction of the total cost of the bill, which is expected to add more than $3 trillion to the federal debt by 2034."

Trump celebrates harsh conditions for detainees on visit to ‘Alligator Alcatraz’; The Guardian, July 1, 2025

 Richard Luscombe , The Guardian; Trump celebrates harsh conditions for detainees on visit to ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

"Trump made no effort to challenge that narrative as he spoke to reporters before leaving Washington DC to travel to Florida, laughing as he made zigzag motions with his hands while offering advice to anybody thinking of escaping.

“The snakes are fast, but alligators [are faster],” he said.

“We’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator. Don’t run in a straight line, look, like this, and you know what? Your chances go up about 1%. Not a good thing.”

At a press conference following the tour, Trump was equally dismissive of concerns about conditions in the Everglades, where the daily heat index in July regularly exceeds 100F (37.8C).

“It might be as good as the real Alcatraz. A little controversial, but I couldn’t care less,” he said."

Senate megabill marks biggest Medicaid cuts in history; The Hill, July 1, 2025

  NATHANIEL WEIXEL  , The Hill; Senate megabill marks biggest Medicaid cuts in history 

"Senate Republicans on Tuesday passed the largest cuts to Medicaid since the program began in the 1960s, a move that would erode the social safety net and cause a spike in the number of uninsured Americans over the next decade. 

The tax and spending bill is projected to cost more than $3 trillion during that time, but it would be partially paid for with about $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid."

DeWine vetoes library material restriction in Ohio budget; WFMJ, July 1, 2025

  

WFMJ; DeWine vetoes library material restriction in Ohio budget

"Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Monday vetoed a controversial provision in the state's new budget that would have imposed restrictions on public libraries regarding the placement of materials related to sexual orientation or gender identity.

The veto came as DeWine signed the state budget bill. In his statement, the Republican governor expressed concerns about what he described as the "vague restrictions" proposed for libraries.

"No child should have access to inappropriate materials or to materials that their parents or guardians deem inappropriate," DeWine said. "In Ohio, we have strong laws on obscenity and material harmful to juveniles, and the DeWine-Tressel Administration expects those laws to be enforced. Therefore, a veto of this item is in the public interest."

The provision, which had drawn strong opposition from library systems across the state, including the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County, would have required libraries to segregate such materials so they were not visible to patrons under 18.

Library advocates, including the Ohio Library Council (OLC), argued that the language was "overly vague and broad" and "ultimately unworkable." Aimee Fifarek, CEO and director of the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County, previously warned that complying with the mandate could force libraries to "close down" to review and re-code materials, potentially leading to "unconstitutional censorship."

What Gives Carla Hayden Hope; American Libraries, June 28, 2025

 Greg Landgraf  , American Libraries; What Gives Carla Hayden Hope

"The discussion concluded with a series of rapid-fire questions, one of which inadvertently demonstrated the folly of opposing diversity. Alexander asked Hayden about what food she doesn’t like. She responded immediately, “Brussels sprouts.” Alexander—a fan of the sprouts—was surprised. Hayden declared, “Just because I don’t like them doesn’t mean that you can’t eat them. Diversity is just having choices.”"

Carla Hayden, former Librarian of Congress, speaks on her dismissal, the future of libraries at Philadelphia event; WHYY, June 29, 2025

 Emily Neil, WHYY ; Carla Hayden, former Librarian of Congress, speaks on her dismissal, the future of libraries at Philadelphia event

"Former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden spoke at the Free Library of Philadelphia Parkway Central Branch on Saturday night, where she sat down for a fireside chat with Ashley Jordan, president and CEO of the African American Museum in Philadelphia...

In his introductory remarks, Kelly Richards, president and director of the Free Library of Philadelphia, said that Hayden has always been a “tireless advocate” for the library systems throughout her career. He said libraries are not just “repositories of knowledge” in a democratic society, but “vibrant centers of community life, education and inclusion.”

“Libraries have a reputation for being a quiet place, but not tonight,” Richards said, as audience members gave Hayden and Jordan a standing ovation when they entered the stage."

What the University of Virginia Should Have Done; The New York Times, June 30, 2025

  Timothy J. Heaphy, The New York Times ; What the University of Virginia Should Have Done

"According to The Times, Mr. Ryan’s departure was prompted by “demands by the Trump administration that he step aside to help resolve a Justice Department inquiry into the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.” The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department has been investigating the university for its alleged failure to eliminate D.E.I. programs and continuing to consider race and ethnicity in various programs and scholarships.

I served as university counsel at the University of Virginia from 2018 through 2022. During that time, it was my job to defend the university from unfounded allegations and investigations. The Justice Department has alleged that the university’s actions violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which states, “No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” Had I been university counsel last week, I would have advised my client to challenge what I believe to be a false allegation that the university’s policies are unlawful...

Mr. Ryan was known to urge the university to be both “great and good” in all its endeavors. His departure will result in a less inclusive university community, which will harm all students who choose the University of Virginia. It is a sad day for the university, which will suffer the consequences of this bad decision."

Trump sent ‘explicit’ threat to cut funds from University of Virginia, senator says; The Guardian, June 29, 2025

 Marina Dunbar , The Guardian; Trump sent ‘explicit’ threat to cut funds from University of Virginia, senator says

"The University of Virginia (UVA) received “explicit” notification from the Trump administration that the school would endure cuts to university jobs, research funding and student aid as well as visas if the institution’s president, Jim Ryan, did not resign, according to a US senator.

During an interview Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Mark Warner, a Democratic senator for Virginia, defended Ryan – who had championed diversity policies that the president opposes – and predicted that Donald Trump will similarly target other universities.

Warner said he understood that the former UVA president was told that if he “tried to fight back, hundreds of employees would lose jobs, researchers would lose funding, and hundreds of students could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld”.

“There was indication that they received the letter that if he didn’t resign on a day last week, by 5 o’clock, all these cuts would take place,” Warner added. He also said he believes this to be the “most outrageous action” that the Trump administration has taken on education since it retook office in January.

Ryan resigned from his position as UVA president on Friday. He was facing political pressure from Washington to step aside in order to resolve a justice department investigation into UVA’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, the New York Times reported on the same day.

“I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job,” Ryan said in his resignation message to the university community. He expressed an unwillingness to risk the employment of other staff, as well as cuts to funding and financial aid for students.

Ryan had a reputation for trying to make the UVA campus more diverse and encouraging students to perform community service. He had served as the university’s president since 2018."

ACM FAccT ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency; June 23-26, 2025, Athens, Greece

  

ACM FAccT

ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency

A computer science conference with a cross-disciplinary focus that brings together researchers and practitioners interested in fairness, accountability, and transparency in socio-technical systems.

"Algorithmic systems are being adopted in a growing number of contexts, fueled by big data. These systems filter, sort, score, recommend, personalize, and otherwise shape human experience, increasingly making or informing decisions with major impact on access to, e.g., credit, insurance, healthcare, parole, social security, and immigration. Although these systems may bring myriad benefits, they also contain inherent risks, such as codifying and entrenching biases; reducing accountability, and hindering due process; they also increase the information asymmetry between individuals whose data feed into these systems and big players capable of inferring potentially relevant information.

ACM FAccT is an interdisciplinary conference dedicated to bringing together a diverse community of scholars from computer science, law, social sciences, and humanities to investigate and tackle issues in this emerging area. Research challenges are not limited to technological solutions regarding potential bias, but include the question of whether decisions should be outsourced to data- and code-driven computing systems. We particularly seek to evaluate technical solutions with respect to existing problems, reflecting upon their benefits and risks; to address pivotal questions about economic incentive structures, perverse implications, distribution of power, and redistribution of welfare; and to ground research on fairness, accountability, and transparency in existing legal requirements."

Global South voices ‘marginalised in AI Ethics’; Gates Cambridge, June 27, 2025

  Gates Cambridge; Global South voices ‘marginalised in AI Ethics’

"A Gates Cambridge Scholar is first author of a paper how AI Ethics is sidelining Global South voices, reinforcing marginalisation.

The study, Distributive Epistemic Injustice in AI Ethics: A Co-productionist Account of Global North-South Politics in Knowledge Production, was published by the Association for Computing Machinery and is based on a study of nearly 6,000 AI Ethics publications between 1960 and 2024. Its first author is Abdullah Hasan Safir [2024 – pictured above], who is doing a PhD in Interdisciplinary Design. Other co-authors include Gates Cambridge Scholars Ramit Debnath[2018] and Kerry McInerney [2017].

The findings were recently presented at the ACM’s FAccT conference, considered one of the top AI Ethics conferences in the world. They show that experts from the Global North currently legitimise their expertise in AI Ethics through dynamic citational and collaborative practices in knowledge production within the field, including co-citation and institutional of AI Ethics."

UVA President James Ryan Caved to MAGA—and They Forced Him Out Anyway; The New Republic, June 27, 2025

 Siva Vaidhyanathan, The New Republic ; UVA President James Ryan Caved to MAGA—and They Forced Him Out Anyway

[Kip Currier: Capitulation to Trump almost never gives people and organizations what they think or hope it will. For examples, just look to the craven law firms that have debased themselves and are paying the price for submission.

The forcing out of UVA President James Ryan is just another step in what Trump et al have planned for higher education.]

[Excerpt]

"Thomas Jefferson’s vision for a noble and educated republic has been dealt a firm blow. The enemies of free and open inquiry, of science, and of informed, democratic citizenship have chopped off the head of the very university Jefferson founded to make his vision real. 

On Friday, the Trump administration, aided by a board appointed entirely by Republican Governor Glenn Younkin, forced University of Virginia President James Ryan to resign. The Justice Department had threatened to block all federal funds to the second-oldest public university in the country if Ryan remained in office.   

Ryan and the board had eliminated all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in March, even though the specious executive order commanding such changes was already under challenge by the courts. The university chose to comply rather than fight.   

But, in a turn that Franz Kafka would appreciate (and perhaps inspired), the Trump administration declared that capitulation insufficient. In a clumsily worded letter to the university sent in April, the Department of Justice claimed that it had “received complaints that [Ryan’s] office and the University may have failed to implement these directives and further that you have refused to produce the report on the matter.”...

To this day, no one at the university has a clear idea what the university could or should have done. The New York Times reported Thursday that the only specific move the Justice Department demanded in recent weeks was Ryan’s resignation. 

Laying the attack on the University of Virginia on DEI was brilliant and maddening. What, exactly, is DEI? Those of us who work in universities have a good idea. It is the collection of efforts and programs that allow students who have served in the military, do not come from homes that have had college students before, graduated from high schools deep in the coal fields of Appalachia, arrived on student visas from Nigeria, have endured sexual violence or harassment, or occupy segments of society that are constantly under attack from the majority to succeed and graduate. They are not zero-sum programs. They do not deny anyone else an opportunity to attend a university or thrive at one.   

DEI programs recognize that society and the world are complex, diverse places."

Hegseth announces new name of US navy ship that honored gay rights icon Harvey Milk; The Guardian, June 27, 2025

 Edward Helmore, The Guardian ; Hegseth announces new name of US navy ship that honored gay rights icon Harvey Milk

[Kip Currier: The money quote in this Guardian article is Pete Hegseth's statement that:

“People want to be proud of the ship they are sailing in."

It's an intentionally offensive statement against gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk. It's also a coded slur meant to troll LGBTQ+ people -- delivered at the tail end of Pride Month -- by suggesting which vessel names inspire feelings of pride and which do not.

Recall, too, that Hegseth kicked off June and Pride Month by announcing he would be renaming naval vessels that had been given the names of historical figures and civil rights activists, several of whom were veterans, like Harvey Milk, Cesar Chavez, and Medgar Evers.]

[Excerpt]

"The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has formally announced that the US navy supply vessel named in honor of the gay rights activist Harvey Milk is to be renamed after Oscar V Peterson, a chief petty officer who received the congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in the Battle of the Coral Sea in the second world war.

“We are taking the politics out of ship naming,” Hegseth announced on Friday on X.

In an accompanying video-statement, Hegseth added: “We are not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration. Instead, we are renaming the ship after a congressional Medal of Honor recipient.”

“People want to be proud of the ship they are sailing in,” Hegseth added."

How IMLS Funding Cuts Will Impact Prison Libraries; Medium, June 11, 2025

 Lauren Triola , Medium; How IMLS Funding Cuts Will Impact Prison Libraries

"With the recent chaos surrounding the future of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), people are concerned about libraries around the country losing vital government funding. Most of the uproar against the proposed cuts has centered on how important public libraries are to their communities. However, there’s another type of library that will also be affected by these funding cuts — one that is indispensable to the community it serves.

Prison libraries are a lifeline to many people who are incarcerated. They depend heavily on IMLS grants, and if IMLS is dismantled or suffers severe funding cuts, then prison libraries will struggle to exist."

Alaska Cannot Survive This Bill; The New York Times, June 27, 2025

 Bryce Edgmon and Cathy Giessel, The New York Times ; Alaska Cannot Survive This Bill

"The likely impacts from the “big, beautiful bill” are particularly ugly for our home state, Alaska: Nearly 40,000 Alaskans could lose health care coverage, thousands of families will go hungry through loss of benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and the shift in costs from the federal government to the state will plunge our budget into a severe deficit, cripple our state economy and make it harder to provide basic services.

This is not about partisanship. One of us is a Republican and the other is an independent. In the Alaska Legislature, our State Senate and House are led by a bipartisan governing coalition. Our focus is squarely on the survival of the people we represent.

The benefits of Medicaid and the SNAP program permeate the entire fabric of the Alaska economy, with one in three Alaskans receiving Medicaid, including more than half of the children. In remote Arctic communities, Medicaid dollars make medical travel possible for residents from the hundreds of roadless villages to the communities where they are able to receive proper medical treatments...

Alaska cannot afford to lose health care funding. Our state is near the top of the list for the highest rates of suicide, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted infections in the nation. It is also severely lacking in adequate behavioral health services. The cuts will only make these problems worse.

Work requirements instituted in Medicaid are untenable for rural Alaska, with many communities facing limited broadband access and job opportunities. Alaskans who lose health care coverage will be forced to delay care until it’s an emergency."