Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted

Linda Skitka @lindaskitka.bsky.social · 8h

The Moral Psychology Research Group (MPRG) is hosting an on-line conference 11/7-11/8: Any interested attendees are welcome! Speakers include Paul Bloom, Daryl Cameron, Joshua Greene, Melton Yecel, Abigail Cassario, and others (including me). For more details see sites.google.com/view/mprg/on...

the word morality is written in red glitter

ALT: the word morality is written in red glitter

media.tenor.com

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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 11h

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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Democracy Now! @democracynow.org · 11h

Speaker Johnson Continues to Delay Swearing-In of Rep.-Elect Adelita Grijalva

Arizona's attorney general is threatening legal action if House Speaker Mike Johnson continues to delay the swearing-in of Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva.

www.democracynow.org

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Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 11h

Glad to see this from Brown. Let's hope other universities follow the example set by Brown and MIT. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

Brown University Rejects White House Deal for Special Treatment

www.nytimes.com

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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 14h

Centrist pundits are obsessed with
our inability to form friendships across partisan divides and how it is ruining the social fabric of America. But while I’d be happy to be friends with someone who disagrees with me about zoning laws, I don’t want to befriend someone who jokes about gas chambers.

Politico @politico.com · 1d

EXCLUSIVE: Thousands of leaked messages show leaders of Young Republican groups joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape in a private Telegram chat.

Inside rising GOP leaders’ racist chats — obtained by POLITICO and spanning more than 7 months👇

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat

Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

www.politico.com

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tagerai.bsky.social @tagerai.bsky.social · 14h

I didn’t know you were on probation, I‘m so sorry to hear that. I had hoped Princeton was better.

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Ruha Benjamin @ruha9.bsky.social · 16d

As someone currently on probation at Princeton, what also stands out here is the sham faculty governance on display:

Faculty panel reviews all the evidence n decides there is no grounds for suspension.

Admin overrules their decision n Provost Kavita Bala calls for significant disciplinary action.

Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 16d

The whole outrageous story:

www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Cornell Cut Classes by a Pro-Palestinian Professor After an Israeli Student’s Discrimination Complaint

Dr. Eric Cheyfitz, who has taught at Cornell for more than two decades, claims the university is attempting to silence him as part of a broader crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism.

www.thenation.com

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Ruha Benjamin @ruha9.bsky.social · 15h

UPDATE: Cornell Drops Its Discrimination Case Against a Pro-Palestine Professor After Public Outcry:

“I think the pressure of the community and the outpouring of outrage for what happened to Cheyfitz contributed immensely.”

www.thenation.com/article/soci...

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 1d

"A key aspect of the way we lived with each other before these self-styled epochal developments [post-2020] involved exactly the “social shame and cultural pressure” that Klein and other influential voices now come to condemn"

tapping the 'bring back shame' sign
www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

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tagerai.bsky.social @tagerai.bsky.social · 16h

these dynamics really pop up in research on polarization i think. People treating anger as unpleasant and therefore bad, or about how it leads to shaming which causes ostracization that goes beyond issue disagreement as if that’s not the whole point

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tagerai.bsky.social @tagerai.bsky.social · 16h

in social Sciences there’s an interesting analog of research that kind of just assumed that things like honor and shame were intrinsically bad rather than obviously important for a functioning society

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 18h

"And yet Táíwò’s own position misses something fundamental about the world we now inhabit. Shame does not operate in a vacuum...today, the sturdy ground that once formed shame’s foundation has collapsed."

Helpful response by @eric-reinhart.com in @newrepublic.com

newrepublic.com/article/2015...

Why Shame No Longer Works in American Politics

While it once played a role in binding society, shame has lost its power—and so have the liberal tools that depend on it.

newrepublic.com

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · 17h

An insightful essay. A few years ago I wrote about the literature of shame, including questions about shamelessness, salutary kinds of shame and what shaming can (and cannot) be for:
www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/b...

But we shouldn't ignore how shame has also been used as a force for positive change, O'Neil says. She quotes what Frederick Douglass said he hoped to do for America: to use "the public exposition of the contaminating and degrading influence of Slavery" in order to "shame her out of her adhesion to a system so abhorrent to Christianity and to her republican institutions." At a time when slavery was still legally sanctioned, Douglass couldn't appeal to government authority, but he
could appeal to its ostensible ideals.

"In some cases, shaming is all we have, Jennifer Jacquet, a professor of environmental studies, writes in "Is Shame Necessary?" (2015). Shame is powerful and also wildly imprecise, meaning it must be
deployed "shrewdly," she says, with "scrupulous implementation." Overzealous deployment can backfire, making the target feel victimized and even more isolated. "As with antibiotics, if shaming is abused, we
might all end up as victims," she writes.

O'Neil and Jacquet encourage readers to try to think more deeply not just about what shame is but what it might be for. If it's for sheer punishment - for banishing someone out of the circle of concern forever — then there's no need for forbearance or mercy. But this can also sound like a nonviolent (and still extremely painful) form of sadism. Both books suggest that shame can help teach us how to live among one another, inculcate shared values and achieve mutual respect. O'Neil gives the example of Hopi "shame clowns," who poke fun at transgressors in a ritual that offers "ridicule and then redemption." The purpose of the ritual is reintegration, not ostracism: "The people they mock
remain members of the community."

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Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 21h

I have been concerned for years that red states will limit the ability of public university employees to attend conferences if the association takes a strong stance in favor of DEI. We're marching closer to that point, and it will hit education schools hard.

Under Anti-DEI Pressure, Ohio State Limits Conference Funds

The Education Department recently criticized Ohio State University’s involvement with a nonprofit that encourages people from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue doctorates. Now, OSU is rethinking ...

www.insidehighered.com

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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 1d

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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AAUP @aaup.org · 1d

“The university is under attack because gender studies is under attack, and if universities don’t stand up to this infringement on academic freedom now, it is not just gender studies that will be lost, but all free and open inquiry.”

— Laurie Essig, in a new post for AAUP’s Academe Blog

Academe @academemagazine.bsky.social · 1d

New on Academe Blog: academeblog.org/2025/10/14/h...

@aaup.org

How the Trump Regime and the Media Killed Gender Studies

BY LAURIE ESSIG On Wednesday, October 1, the Department of Education sent nine universities a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” The document asks universities to comply …

academeblog.org

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Eileen Clancy 🧿 @clancyny.bsky.social · 1d

c.w. torture

Torture device manufacturers in the U.S. stay innovating.

ICE has chosen the "Wrap" a full-body restraint device, to use for removals of people to 3rd countries. (Not being taken to home countries, other countries.)

@apnews.com: one man says ICE kept him in the Wrap for 16 hours.

[So disturbing. I'll do my best to describe.]

Video still:

This appears to be a video created by the company to demonstate the product, not a real prisoner. The whole lower body of a man is placed in almost a blanket that is strapped around him. There are multiple straps the size of large seatbelts with big buckles. There are straps that go over his shoulders. He is also back-cuffed. This video is a still from the moment when a helmet the size of a motorcycle helmet is being placed on his head and strapped on under his chin. he is also wearing a pale blue lightweight surgical mask.

caption:
1 of 5 | US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have been using a full-body restraint device called the WRAP during deportations. That continued despite concerns about safety from a watchdog division of its parent agency, the US Dept. of Homeland Security. (AP Video/Allen G. Breed)

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Kate Clancy @kateclancy.bsky.social · 1d

I am being asked to tell my department which pieces of lab equipment should be supported with backup power because they expect rolling blackouts and brownouts in 2026 due to increased energy demands from AI. In case you're wondering how my day is going.

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tagerai.bsky.social @tagerai.bsky.social · 1d

mainstream dems will talk about 'meeting voters where they're at' or some such, but whereas Mamdani does that and then tries to persuade them to move left toward his base, most dems will just tell their base to move right

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Sam Eyler-Driscoll 🍉🌻🍁 @sameyler.bsky.social · 1d

The lesson, which we should already know, is that confining fascists behind a cordon sanitaire is a condition for the exercise of democracy. Authoritarians simply cannot be folded into electoral politics for all the reasons in this thread. They make it impossible for democracies to credibly commit

Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 1d

This is not to say that elections don't matter; they clearly do, and democracy requires them, and in every case I'd rather my side win than lose. But if I'm working on the question of what to do *while in power*, it's going to be heavily biased towards *how do we ensure electoral defeat isn't fatal*

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Jacob Silverman @jacobsilverman.com · 8d

It's pub day for my book, "Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley," which chronicles the rise of the tech right and their role in the 2024 election. Thanks to everyone who helped along the way.
linktr.ee/gildedrage

Gilded Rage | Linktree

A searing look at the rise of Silicon Valley's far right. Out October 2025.

linktr.ee

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 1d

"a test"? you mean...a violation?

AP: Israel plans to halve aid into Gaza over slow return of dead hostages, a test for the Gaza ceasefire

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 2d

"Residents in Chicago and Portland are living in a police state where masked armed forces kidnap who they want to kidnap, where they have to listen to public officials routinely lie about what is happening in their neighborhoods." donmoynihan.substack.com/p/purge-merg...

StrictlyChristo 🇺🇦🌻❌👑 @strictlychristo.bsky.social · 2d

Federal Secret Police and plainclothes ICE agents kidnap multiple people from a neighborhood in Chicago. They then deploy teargas and brutally beat neighbors who come out to express their concern.

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 2d

yearly reminder to people insisting that we view Christopher Columbus as "a man of his time" that *the people responsible for the Spanish Inquisition* thought Columbus was out of pocket

Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 2d

Christopher Columbus was dragged back to Spain in chains by a crusading knight, convicted of tyranny and immeasurable cruelty, pardoned by Isabella but banned from returning to Hispaniola.

Fuck Columbus.

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J.M. Berger @jmberger.com · 2d

Also in every time, but especially in the age of chattel slavery, there were plenty of people in the dominant in-group who objected to these things. I spent a good bit of time on this point in the first Lawful Extremism paper:

www.middlebury.edu/institute/ct...

Every effort to minimize or absolve the significance of historical racism is grounded in the erasure of racism’s victims. Taney was a man of his time, but he was not the only man of his time, nor was he the only person, nor was he archetypical in any meaningful sense. It would be more accurate, but still grievously incomplete, to say he was a White person of his time, since most Black people from the same period strongly objected to the beliefs and opinions presented in the Scott decision.

As Douglass implies, Taney was also not the only White man of his time, nor was he an especially representative one. Millions of White men and women of the day opposed slavery and opposed the Dred Scott decision’s disenfranchisement of free Black people, even if relatively few of those people could be considered anti-racist in any modern sense.
The “man of his time” framing implies that it is not reasonable to expect someone of Taney’s era to display the necessary moral sophistication and fortitude to oppose the cultural norms under which he lived. But in fact, that is an entirely reasonable expectation, and Taney himself appeared to have displayed such sophistication many years earlier. As a young lawyer, Taney represented both free Black people and White emancipationists. During his arguments defending a radical abolitionist, Taney called slavery “a blot on our national character.” At the age of 41, he made the decision to free his own slaves. There is ample evidence that Taney, at one time, possessed enough moral discernment to understand that chattel slavery was wrong. Yet as he entered his 80s, he unambiguously aligned himself with enslavers.59

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