Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Bradford Vivian

Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 9h

Things that spreading misinformation about universities can get you:

*Patronage from wealthy donors
*Elected to powerful poltical offices
*Lucrative book deals, media tours
*Leadership of major news networks
*And now—seems likely—Oscar nominations

But not real free speech or academic freedom.

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Reposted by Bradford Vivian

Inside Higher Ed @insidehighered.com · 6h

Judge Halts UT ’s Comprehensive Ban on Student Speech https://bit.ly/4ooUtBN

A woman wearing a kaffiyeh as a head scarf addresses a crowd of students seated in the grass in front of a building at the University of Texas at Austin.

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Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 7h

“After the Hunt,” I’m betting.

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Reposted by Bradford Vivian

Liam Knox @liamknox.bsky.social · 8h

The University of Southern California declined the Trump administrations preferential college funding compact, hours after Penn did the same.

USC is the fourth of nine formally invited schools to reject the White House’s deal.

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Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 9h

Things that spreading misinformation about universities can get you:

*Patronage from wealthy donors
*Elected to powerful poltical offices
*Lucrative book deals, media tours
*Leadership of major news networks
*And now—seems likely—Oscar nominations

But not real free speech or academic freedom.

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Reposted by Bradford Vivian

AAUP chapter @UT Austin @utaustinaaup.bsky.social · 11h

www.thedp.com/article/2025...

Penn rejects White House proposal for special funding treatment

With the decision, Penn becomes the third university to decline the offer.

www.thedp.com

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 14h

News story two days ago in @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social .

As far as I can tell, zero mention in NYT, WSJ, etc.

Though there was space for a front-page NYT story last week about Harvard students sometimes skipping class. (I am shocked, just shocked.)

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

A Majority of Frozen Federal Funding Has Been Restored, Harvard Says | News | The Harvard Crimson

Harvard has now received payments on the majority of funding that it lost since the Trump administration froze its access to federal grants this spring, the University notified faculty this month.

www.thecrimson.com

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Reposted by Bradford Vivian

Steve Herman @newsguy.bsky.social · 1d

Brown University President Christina Paxson announces that she has formally rejected the Trump administration's compact. www.browndailyherald.com/arti...

Brown University rejects Trump administration compact

President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 said that the compact would “restrict academic freedom and undermine the autonomy of Brown’s governance.”

www.browndailyherald.com

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Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 1d

Very fair. The more I read about it, my blood is already boiling.

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Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 1d

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Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 1d

Oh, I have to see this…

The New Hork Eimes
OPINION
MICHELLE GOLDBERG
The New Julia Roberts Movie
Seethes With Anti-Woke Resentment
Oct. 13, 2025

Movies Review
Julia Roberts's latest is as
confused about #MeToo as it is about academia

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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 1d

UPDATE: Following the firing of the director of the student newspaper, Indiana University has now cut the print edition of the newspaper entirely.

www.idsnews.com/article/2025...

Indiana University cuts IDS print entirely, hours after firing student media director
By IDS staff
Oct 15, 2025 1:23 pm · Updated Oct 15, 2025 1:23 pm

IU previously directed the Indiana Daily Student to stop printing news coverage in our newspaper. Upon pushback, the university fully cut print, including our special editions. The IDS was not involved in the decision.

Media School Dean David Tolchinsky sent the order to IDS leadership in an email responding to its appeal that the school not censor the newspaper. And the dean attributed the decision to “the campus.” He has not yet responded to a message for clarification.

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Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 1d

"The Department of Education’s proposed 'compact for higher education' is unconstitutional and should be unequivocally rejected by universities" -- new from Amanda Shanor & @serenamayeri.bsky.social at @knightcolumbia.org

A Brief Legal Analysis of the Department of Education’s Proposed Compact for Higher Education

knightcolumbia.org

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Nate O @nateo.bsky.social · 1d

Not once have I seen an explanation for why teenagers must hear things that upset them in virtue of the unspecified speech-acts being upsetting, nor have I ever seen an explanation for why teenagers will be forbidden to express displeasure with upsetting things.

William Hague: Why I’ll banish ‘safe spaces’ at Oxford
The new chancellor tells Cheltenham Literature Festival that there will be no ‘cancel culture’ and students should expect to hear things that upset them
October 14 2025, The Times
The new chancellor of Oxford University has said there will be no safe spaces for students and warned would-be undergraduates that they will “hear things that will upset and offend them”.

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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 2d

Indiana University has fired the staff director of the student newspaper, after disputes in which university leadership tried to pressure him to prevent students from publishing news.

IndyStar 2 . Follow
1h:
"All Media School and IU students, faculty and staff
should be scared by this blatant attack on someone
standing up for what's right," student Editors-ln-Chief
Mia Hilkowitz and Andrew Miller said in a statement.
Read more: bit.ly/43ebKW1
IndyStar.
IDS
The original investigative student
newsroom of Indiana University
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Indiana University fires IDS
adviser amid push to control
student newspaper's content

The director of student media at Indiana University was fired amidst a dispute between university leadership and editors at the Indiana Daily Student over what content gets printed in the student newspaper.

As director of student media, Jim Rodenbush did not directly oversee or have any say over the content published in the IDS, per a charter between the IDS and the university. But he told IndyStar his firing follows a series of meetings with IU Media School leadership in which it grew increasingly apparent they were expecting him to officially prohibit students from publishing news.

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Reposted by Bradford Vivian

Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 2d

I was grateful to give a lecture about academic freedom and misinformation about higher ed at the University of Alabama last week. I found the campus fascinating—a living museum to an era when U.S. colleges were truly anti-free speech and intolerant of diverse views. 1/5

#EduSky

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Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 2d

www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

Community colleges are losing millions in funding under Trump

Public community colleges are losing millions in federal funding as the Trump administration redirects money to support the president’s priorities.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 2d

That conceit is not just factually wrong, intellectually obtuse, historically myopic. Its spread represents a popular, willed, faux intellectual amnesia—a desire to suppress rich history from which we should continue to learn invaluable lessons. It's the problem of our time re: higher ed. 5/5

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Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 2d

And yet . . . the dominant bipartisan conceit about U.S. colleges and universities today is—inexplicably—that they have become unusually hostile to free speech because students and faculty sometimes protest hegemonic speech, ideas, and norms of the powerful and the privileged. 4/5

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Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 2d

The fact that UA is now a diverse world-class school is a triumph even as it, and higher ed in general, still struggles with legacies of segregation. It began as an institution that owned human beings (serving faculty/students). Its campus community today is testament to transformative change. 3/5

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Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 2d

That era is within living memory for many Americans. Campus sites memorialize the riots and violence that broke out when even a single African-American student (Autherine Lucy) enrolled in 1956. Numerous bullet holes still mark one building. 2/5

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Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 2d

I was grateful to give a lecture about academic freedom and misinformation about higher ed at the University of Alabama last week. I found the campus fascinating—a living museum to an era when U.S. colleges were truly anti-free speech and intolerant of diverse views. 1/5

#EduSky

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Reposted by Bradford Vivian

Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 3d

If red state schools accept this we are going to get a two-tiered system of higher ed. One set of states will be based in empirical reality and the other will be subject to the whims of a conspiratorial movement that is increasingly detached from facts.

Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 3d

After getting zero firm commitments to this point from the first nine invitees, the Trump administration is extending its proposed compact to all colleges. Expect some red-state publics to say yes.

Trump Offers All Colleges Preferential Funding Plan Rejected by MIT

The Trump administration is inviting all US colleges to participate in a compact — initially rejected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — that would grant preferential federal funding in re...

www.bloomberg.com

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Brian Soucek @brsoucek.bsky.social · 3d

Leading universities are closing departments, freezing graduate admissions, and shutting down museum shows for being “political”, but yes @nytimes.com please tell us about how Ilya Shapiro was almost forced to give his talk on a Wednesday rather than a Tuesday at NYU.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/o...

Opinion | I Resigned as Manhattan’s U.S. Attorney. Law Schools Are Missing the Point of My Story.

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Bradford Vivian

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 3d

The Trump administration has frozen billions in research grants to universities it accuses of bias unrelated to the research, jeopardizing the development of new medications that could prove lifesaving or life-changing.

Trump slashed funding for universities that helped create these vital drugs

Medications that prevent HIV, shrink tumors and treat seizures were invented with government funding. At research universities, that money is now canceled or in jeopardy.

www.washingtonpost.com

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