It would, I think, be genuinely useful if Chuck Schumer were politically ruined after last week.
There’s a limit to how useful it actually is to direct our energies specifically at elected politicians right now. Politicians aren’t going to save us. BUT: institutional leaders of many stripes (.gov, .edu, .org, and .com alike) are still acting much, much more afraid of the consequences of •fighting• than they are of the consequences of •compliance•.
We can change that. Make compliance ruin some high-profile careers. Make examples out of a few people. Schumer. Newsom. The Columbia admin. Tar and feather them. flipboard.com/@vanityfair/top-…
Won’t You Spare a Thought for Chuck Schumer’s Book Tour?
The Senate minority leader has postponed his multi-city promo tour, citing security concerns following his vote to pass the GOP funding bill. This is going to ruin the tour.Vanity Fair - By Issie Lapowsky
This entry was edited (3 months ago)
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Paul Cantrell
Unknown parent • • •No, nor a single sound night of sleep. Let the boos follow them anywhere they show their face.
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Speaking of which:
What’s going on at Columbia? What’s the state of the resistance there?
Columbia just •rescinded• degrees they’d granted. This wasn’t even just a politically motived expulsion, which would already be utterly horrifying. They ••revoked diplomas•• already granted.
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •That means if you get a degree from Columbia, you might suddenly, at the political whim of any random president, not have a degree anymore. All that money you paid, all that work you did? Poof! It can disappear overnight!
Can you imagine?! Can you imagine what that does to the expected value of a Columbia degree??
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •If I were a prospective student, I would really think twice about accepting an offer from Columbia now. Nope nope nope.
And if I were a current student, an alum, faculty…well, I’d be out for administrators’ heads on pikes (figuratively speaking), because everything I’ve invested in that place is going up in smoke.
myrmepropagandist
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Paul Cantrell
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@futurebird
Wild indeed.
(Did CMU do something too? I totally missed that.)
myrmepropagandist
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Paul Cantrell
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •Got it. Sigh.
Professor_Stevens
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Paul Cantrell
in reply to Professor_Stevens • • •@Professor_Stevens
Honestly, I hope she does. I hope there’s a walkout. I hope the whole semester just…stops midway through. I hope the school finds itself looking down the slope of complete ruin as a result of this. I hope no administrator gets a night of sleep.
If she explodes, she’ll have my back.
Paul Cantrell reshared this.
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •An elite college degree is an investment with a payoff horizon of 20 or 40 or 60 years. It’s costly — not just in money, but in time, energy, years of life. People are only willing to invest in it because they believe the investment will endure.
If a Columbia degree is like a cheap roof that might just leak or collapse at any time, what’s their case? “Give us four years of your life, drain your savings, go into debt! Everything you worked for •might not• suddenly collapse!! Our degrees are just cheap paper anyway, right??”
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Yes, strategies like this from @jhlibby:
newsie.social/@jhlibby/1141791…
You don’t even have to sue them out of existence. You just have to make the administration believe that they •could• face a devastating lawsuit.
Make them more afraid of complying with fascists than they are of fighting fascists. Make compliance existentially dangerous.
J H Libby (@jhlibby@newsie.social)
NewsiePaul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •And look, in the unlikely event that anyone reading this actually thinks this was a reasonable thing for Columbia to do, if you think “oh, •those• students deserved it“…
…I want you to ask yourself, honestly, whether you can imagine the Trump administration ordering Columbia to rescind the degrees of — say — trans graduates. Because I can.
And I want you to ask yourself, honestly, whether you can imagine the current leadership of Columbia refusing that order. Because at this point, I sure can’t.
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Now •there’s• a good question from @n1xnx.
A good question, and a possible avenue for applying pressure.
tilde.zone/@n1xnx/114179272234…
Steve Hersey (@n1xnx@tilde.zone)
tilde.zoneM.S. Bellows, Jr.
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Jenniferplusplus
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Paul Cantrell reshared this.
Dan Wineman
in reply to Jenniferplusplus • • •@jenniferplusplus Not to diminish any of this, but it looks like the degree revocations are temporary, and for “students” (not alumni), with some kind of process for reinstatement. I can’t tell if this means they’ve revoked the potential to earn a degree, or revoked already-earned undergrad degrees from current graduate students, or what. But these details seem to have been overlooked by everyone posting about it.
communications.news.columbia.e…
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Dan Wineman • • •@dwineman @jenniferplusplus
AIUI, the degrees were •already granted•. In what sense that means “not alumni,” I’m not sure.
And yes, it’s “temporary” as in “we’re gauging the reaction and trying to figure out what we can get away with.” Executives tend to be profoundly fear-driven people, especially at large institutions; they’ll hedge and waffle until the end of time.
That’s why pushback now is so important. If this blows up in their face, I’m sure they’ll have been “just reviewing” and never mind; if it buys them favor, then of course the “temporary” part was just a bit of perfunctory due process on the way to permanent recovation.
Eleanor Saitta
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •LukefromDC
in reply to Eleanor Saitta • • •@dymaxion They need to understand that locking people up for being trans means war not just with trans folks, but ALL of the LGBTQ community.
CisQueer men: I am one of you and I understand we are next if trans folks are defeated. The time to fight is NOW! Boots on, asses in the grass, ready to go.
Eleanor Saitta
in reply to LukefromDC • • •They're fine with that. That's the goal.
@inthehands
LukefromDC
in reply to Eleanor Saitta • • •Eleanor Saitta
in reply to LukefromDC • • •Si vis pacem, para bellum
@inthehands
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Eleanor Saitta • • •Sigh.
Eleanor Saitta
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Paul Cantrell reshared this.
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Eleanor Saitta • • •💀💀💀
Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •What happened to personal development, to love of knowledge for knowledge sake, to becoming a person who can benefit society?
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 • • •You are singing the tune of my pinned post!
innig.net/teaching/liberal-art…
What Liberal Arts Education Is For – Teaching – innig.net
innig.netaburka 🫣
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Paul Cantrell
in reply to aburka 🫣 • • •aburka 🫣
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Greg Bell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •LJ
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Ⓐ Dirk Ritter
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •If anything, Columbia also made it abundantly clear they only whish to educate subservient slaves for the rich and powerful to exploit.
Dare to object and their expensive titles will become worthless.
Jesse Morris
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •That seems kind of meaningless as a mode of censure. If the people affected were to list “Degree from Columbia, later revoked” on their C.V., with a footnote linking to this whole idiocy, whose hiring or further education admission decisions would that affect?
OTOH it sure does make it less appealing to apply to and spend 4 years working one's butt off to _get_ a degree from Columbia, the idea that you are forever after beholden to their political agenda.
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Jesse Morris • • •@aubilenon
That second part is the thing.
Sure, a sympathetic human looking at your resume might understand. But an unsympathetic human? Someone skimming resumes, weeding the pile? An official form that simply asks whether you have a degree, without room for explanation? An official policy that doesn’t bend? Some might escape all that, but for others the real consequences could be devastating.
Bilal Barakat 🍉
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Paul Cantrell
in reply to Bilal Barakat 🍉 • • •That is doubtless true in many cases, but there •will• be situations where students have to state whether they have a degree, yes or no, and answering “yes” would have legal consequences. Visa requirements, for example.
Bilal Barakat 🍉
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •You are right, I stand corrected:
mastodon.ar.al/@aral/114185246…
Aral Balkan
2025-03-18 20:09:50
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Bilal Barakat 🍉 • • •Yikes, debate in this thread aside, thanks for pointing this out.
Martin Vermeer FCD
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •@bifouba Yes, ugly.
I wonder if an honorary degree from a foreign university would count?
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Martin Vermeer FCD • • •I imagine so if and only if Ergodan says so.
bubbajet
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Columbia is now nothing more than a collection of office buildings. Were I a student there I’d immediately apply anywhere else. Get a hard copy full transcript of everything done so far.
If I had a degree rescinded, the lawsuit couldn’t be big enough. That’s years lost *on the back end,* when your earnings are highest.
There’s no value in staying. Bankrupt the institution.
i.grok
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •I looked at articles in their student paper
They aren't ignoring it, but it's not their headline story either. There is a statement by the School of Journalism faculty on their front page. A reference to outside protests. IMHO it seems pretty tepid.
If there are on-campus protests happening, the paper isn't reporting it yet.
Meanwhile at least one other university (that had their own protests & were closely following the events at Columbia University last year) is *completely* silent in their student paper. 😞
Paul Cantrell
in reply to i.grok • • •@igrok
To be fair, student papers usually have a slower turnaround than mainstream news outlets. And I hope that’s what it is.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a heavy thumb from above on what that paper can publish.
Jeff Rizzo
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •I really like that framing - make them more afraid of compliance than they are of fighting.
Now to figure out some strategies to effect that!
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Rob Hadley
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Paul Cantrell
Unknown parent • • •I see I boosted it already, so now I’m boosting your reply! Keep shouting it!
Paul Cantrell
Unknown parent • • •Paul Cantrell
Unknown parent • • •@johnzajac @jhlibby
I’m highly skeptical of the train of thought in that first paragraph. It’s true, to a very large extent, but the “unsustainability” of higher ed is much like the “unsustainability” of social security: the gap between the real problems and the imagined ones is •vast•, and right-wingers bent on institutional destruction prey on that gap.
What’s actually unsustainable about higher ed is our society’s vast and growing economic inequality: colleges want to remain accessible to people on the low end of the divide, but have to pay people on the “skilled labor” (hate that term) side of the divide. Those two are diverging faster and faster.
Paul Cantrell
Unknown parent • • •It’s an ideological half-difference. I believe education is a human right and something every human being should have access to. It should either be free or, that failing, withing financial reach for absolutely everyone.
I think it’s •extraordinarily• dangerous to concentrate all education under the single umbrella of the state. Too many eggs in one basket. That danger has never been clearer than it is right now: one of the reasons the admin is trying to make an example of Columbia is that the state schools are already rolling over for the fascists with no fuss en masse, and it’s private colleges that have been standing strongest on, say, sticking with their DEI mission.
It’s a miserable tragedy that mechanisms to spread public support to diverse institutions have largely been attempts to destroy the public ones (cf charter schools). I don’t have easy answers. But “outlaw private education” is a dangerous non-answer in my book.
... show moreIt’s an ideological half-difference. I believe education is a human right and something every human being should have access to. It should either be free or, that failing, withing financial reach for absolutely everyone.
I think it’s •extraordinarily• dangerous to concentrate all education under the single umbrella of the state. Too many eggs in one basket. That danger has never been clearer than it is right now: one of the reasons the admin is trying to make an example of Columbia is that the state schools are already rolling over for the fascists with no fuss en masse, and it’s private colleges that have been standing strongest on, say, sticking with their DEI mission.
It’s a miserable tragedy that mechanisms to spread public support to diverse institutions have largely been attempts to destroy the public ones (cf charter schools). I don’t have easy answers. But “outlaw private education” is a dangerous non-answer in my book.
John Breen
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •"The memo demonstrates how far DOGE’s campaign to maim the federal government has gone. In this case, the federal courts, part of the judicial branch, are saying that their daily operations may be impacted DOGE — a shocking admission from court administrators, a group not known for hyperbole or flippancy."
talkingpointsmemo.com/news/dog…
DOGE Rampage May Have ‘Immediate,’ ‘Long-term’ Effects For Courts, Judicial Branch Warns
Josh Kovensky (TPM - Talking Points Memo)your favorite perk
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Shawn K. Quinn
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Paul Cantrell
Unknown parent • • •Yes. Somebody said last week or so that there’s a split between Democrats who want to •fight• and Democrats who want to •survive•, and that this is a new split that crosses the previous ideological lines in the party. I think that second part is probably correct and important to understand.