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Brent Cebul

@brentcebul.bsky.social

1K followers 360 following 150 posts

I teach history and write about US politics, cities, and inequality, most recently in ILLUSIONS OF PROGRESS: Business, Poverty, and Liberalism in the American Century (Penn Press, 2023).

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Brent Cebul @brentcebul.bsky.social · Sep 12

Mike Glass and I argue for @phenomenalworld.bsky.social that we’ve tried the #abundance incentive-based approach to housing crises before. But lack of oversight + incentives produced fraud, profiteering, and inflated rents -- and the Trump family fortune.
www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/add...

Adding Value | Phenomenal World

Mortgage insurance has traditionally been the method the federal government has used to induce investment in owner-occupied housing. But for multifamily rentals, the history of mortgage-insurance prog...

www.phenomenalworld.org

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Brent Cebul @brentcebul.bsky.social · 1d

Gingrich made his career in the 1980s by weaponizing post-Watergate ethics reforms. Not saying they're not a good idea, but, yes, important to think about guardrails for the guardrails

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Brent Cebul @brentcebul.bsky.social · 6d

Give this piece a few minutes. The water is nearly boiling. www.thebulwark.com/p/emergency-... Emergency Triad: The Chicago Rubicon and What Comes Next

Emergency Triad: The Chicago Rubicon and What Comes Next

We aren’t at the worst-case scenario yet. But if you squint, you can see it looming out there, just over the horizon.

www.thebulwark.com

Brent Cebul @brentcebul.bsky.social · 6d

Gonna frame it and hang it

Brent Cebul @brentcebul.bsky.social · 6d

And another beauty just arrived! Congrats @m-r-glass.bsky.social!

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Brent Cebul @brentcebul.bsky.social · 6d

A blistering piece by Penn historian Ben Nathans on the dangers of Trumps’s Faustian compact www.thedp.com/article/2025... Benjamin Nathans | Autonomy or obedience | The Daily Pennsylvanian

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Philadelphia Inquirer @inquirer.com · 7d

OPINION: "Signing on to the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education offered by the Trump administration would end the school's ability to determine its own future." — The Inquirer Editorial Board

Federal funding is not worth Penn’s independence | Editorial

Signing on to the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education offered by the Trump administration would end the school's ability to determine its own future.

www.inquirer.com

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whet moser @whetmoser.com · 9d

good read even if you are not in uva networks

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 9d

for any UVA folks that follow me you should circulate this among your networks balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...

Balkinization: The Art of Replacing the Law with the Deal

A group blog on constitutional law, theory, and politics

balkin.blogspot.com

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The Price Lab @pricelab.bsky.social · 11d

Price Lab exec committee member @brentcebul.bsky.social and Mike Glass are in the Journal of American History on FHA housing and segregation

Mortgaging Out: Fha Credit Policy, Segregated Rental Housing, and the Remaking of Metropolitan America

On a hot afternoon in July 1954, Fred C. Trump sat as a witness before the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency. He had been subpoenaed for an investig

academic.oup.com

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AAUP–Penn @aaup-penn.bsky.social · 11d

“‘The compact represents a total violation of academic freedom, shared governance and an open democracy,’ [AAUP-Penn president Jessa Lingel] wrote. “So now we'll get to see what kind of university we have—one that stands up to tyranny or one that capitulates.” www.thedp.com/article/2025...

Campus, civil rights groups criticize agreement presented to Penn tying adherence to funding advantage

“When an invitation is accompanied by consequences for not accepting it, it is in fact a threat, not an invitation,” the AAUP-Penn wrote.

www.thedp.com

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Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · 13d

And, as promised:

An FBI Counterterrorism Vet Explains How To Use Trump's New Orders Against The Left

'Recognize that you are going to be targeted'

www.forever-wars.com

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Gabriel Winant @gabrielwinant.bsky.social · 14d

@aaup.org won its case against the State Department's attempt to terrorize non-citizens and deprive them of their First Amendment rights

UChicago AAUP @uchicagoaaup.bsky.social · 14d

Huge victory for @aaup.org in AAUP v. Rubio:

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Ansley Erickson @ansleyerickson.bsky.social · 15d

Excited about this. Like that gerrymandering board game but for school boundaries.

Zahava Stadler @zahavastadler.bsky.social · 19d

I'm very proud to share a new, first-of-its-kind analysis and data tool from my team at @educationwork.newamerica.org.
Redrawing the Lines is a first-ever look at how, if states draw school district borders with equity as the goal, they can HUGELY reduce funding inequality and segregation. #edusky

Redistricting School Systems Can Increase Funding Fairness and Decrease Segregation

A new report and interactive data tool show how specific redistricting choices can create fairer school systems for our children.

www.newamerica.org

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Will Bunch @willbunch.bsky.social · 16d

This is the secret the Trump regime tried so hard to keep about the Dallas ICE shooting

The names of the dead and wounded

Jose Andres Bordones-Molina

Miguel Ángel García-Hernandez

Norlan Guzman-Fuentes

Fight Trump's dehumanization. Say their names. My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/dall...

What the Trump regime doesn’t want you to know about Dallas ICE shooting

The Trump regime's refusal to say the names of the Dallas ICE victims exposes the inhumanity of American fascism.

www.inquirer.com

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Philadelphia Inquirer @inquirer.com · 16d

Educators fear that reducing doctoral students, if this continues over several years, ultimately could mean fewer teachers for undergraduate students, less research and less innovation. (1/2)

Penn cut doctoral student admissions by 20% citing Trump’s threats to federal research funding.

Educators fear that reducing doctoral students, if this continues over several years, ultimately could mean fewer teachers for undergraduate students, less research and less innovation.

inquirer.com

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Paul Renfro @renfro.bsky.social · 20d

I'm not a member of the AHA (@historians.org), but if you are and if you care about the scholasticide unfolding in Gaza, please consider signing this resolution: 🗃️ qmemey.clicks.mlsend.com/tb/cl/eyJ2Ij...

Resolution in Solidarity with Gaza Signatures

Sign on here to support this Resolution in Solidarity with Gaza and bring it to the January 2026 AHA business meeting. Read the text of the resolution here.

qmemey.clicks.mlsend.com

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Ian S. Pumpkins @icpetrie.bsky.social · 21d

“In 23 years at Harvard and 15 as a tenured professor, I have seen a lot of tenure cases. While there have been other denials I was sorry to hear about, I have never been at such a total loss to explain Harvard’s decision,” said History professor Mary D. Lewis wrote in an emailed statement.

A Surprise Tenure Denial in Harvard’s Gender Studies Program Leaves Some Faculty Shaken | News | The Harvard Crimson

Durba Mitra’s colleagues thought she was a near-perfect tenure candidate. When her bid was shot down in June, they were left questioning the process.

www.thecrimson.com

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Brent Cebul @brentcebul.bsky.social · 21d

Great reporting by student journalists.

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

Reposted by Brent Cebul

Matthew Guariglia @mguariglia.bsky.social · 22d

I've seen the great historian Anne Gray Fischer say a few times that state violence is a permission structure--it gives an implied green light for civilians to attack the same targets as the state. It's the point at which "civilian" violence becomes "state-sanctioned" violence.

Teen Vogue @teenvogue.com · 22d

#OpEd: "We can’t bury the deeper, driving forces behind why this is happening. This phenomenon is only possible because of the outsized power that state agents — ICE, police officers, prison staff — have always had to abuse and control women and victims' bodies." Read the full story here. ⬇️

How ICE Raids Are Making It Easier for Civilian Men to Assault Immigrant Women

"This phenomenon is only possible because of the outsized power that state agents have always had to abuse and control women and victims' bodies," argues Kylie Cheung.

www.teenvogue.com

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Ryan Teague Beckwith @ryanbeckwith.bsky.social · 25d

If you have an extra $10 a month to spare, here's a list of worker-owned cooperative news sites you might want to support:

• 404 Media
• Defector
• The Flytrap
• Flaming Hydra
• The Appeal
• Aftermath
• Racket
• Hell Gate
• The 51st
• The Colorado Sun
• Range Media
• Discourse Blog
• Pop Heist

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Brent Cebul @brentcebul.bsky.social · 24d

This is the way www.criterion.com/films/29632-... After Hours (1985) | The Criterion Collection

After Hours

Desperate to escape his mind-numbing routine, uptown Manhattan office worker Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) ventures downtown for a hookup with a mystery woman (Rosanna Arquette). So begins the wildest ...

www.criterion.com

Brent Cebul @brentcebul.bsky.social · 25d

“The most dangerous element in our society may well be hopelessness. In an era of political realignment and contested ideas about the nation’s future, there are far too many Americans who can’t imagine any kind of future for themselves.”

Gift link

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/m...

Political Violence Isn’t New. But Something About This Moment Is.

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Brent Cebul

ktb ⧉ @kevinbaker.bsky.social · Sep 5

I mean this sort of seriously. Nobody remembers anything. The past 40 years have only been historicized in the most meager sense of the word. Everything feels like a rupture, feels unprecedented, feels disorienting precisely because there is no past.

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Daniel Aldana Cohen @aldasky.bsky.social · 27d

Calling all housing-brained people! You have the shocking opportunity to work w Ruthy, my absolute green housing queen—so smart, so knowledgeable, so fun!!! We need to rebuild the future of housing. Lfg! Please share widely and consider applying! 🌱🌹🏢

Ruthy Gourevitch @ruthygourevitch.bsky.social · Sep 8

‼️ Join my team ‼️ @cplusc.bsky.social is hiring a Housing Policy Manager to help advance progressive housing and climate solutions alongside some of the best tenant unions, labor unions, policymakers, and researchers in the field.

Apply here by Oct 5! climateandcommunity.org/careers/

Work With Us - Climate and Community Institute

Job opportunities at the Climate and Community Institute

climateandcommunity.org

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Brent Cebul @brentcebul.bsky.social · 28d

There is something ... self-defeating, about an approach to political strategy that takes so much of our political life as fixed and preordained and thereby minimizes the significance of doing actual politics."

Brent Cebul @brentcebul.bsky.social · 28d

this form of analysis’s overarching emphasis on the structural determinants of human behavior-on all the ways that human behavior is already dictated by conditions outside of our control-is in tension with one of the core tenets of political organizing: that people and things are permeable to change

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