Jen Rinaldi
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jenrinaldi.bsky.social
Jen Rinaldi
@jenrinaldi.bsky.social
Legal studies associate professor | queercrip theorist | committed to deinstitutionalization and prison and police abolition | she/her
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Hi Bluesky. I'm a socio-legal scholar with a background in disability studies. I use artistic and community-based research methods to understand the conditions that cause institutional and carceral violence.
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
I'm cited in this piece in the Toronto Star today about the spread of generative AI, the challenges it poses for historians & history education, and the need for digital literacy.

www.thestar.com/news/how-fak...
How fake AI history is threatening Remembrance Day — with endless YouTube videos glamorizing Nazis
A search for any historical topic is sure to be met with a torrent of fake AI-generated garbage — at real cost to our history.
www.thestar.com
November 11, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
Buried in the Doug Ford govt's fall budget are changes that would remove parts of Wasaga beach from provincial protection. As I reported in August, those parts are 60% of the world’s longest freshwater beach and the main nesting area for the endangered piping plover: thenarwhal.ca/wasaga-beach...
November 10, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
“Razing Palestine” (Ed. Leila Marshy) comes out this week. Proud to stand in solidarity with every contributor & others who experienced personal & professional consequences for speaking out against Israel’s genocide. These stories represent just the tip of the iceberg of repression in Canada.
November 9, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
You've probably heard of Bill C-12 and C-2, but there's a slate of other bills that, when assembled together transformer style, could create a freedom repression machine that rivals the one south of the border.

We broke down how it would work >> act.gp/4i9pU1b #Cdnpoli

📹 via leftiejane on IG
November 8, 2025 at 11:01 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
Another excerpt from Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis. Red Schulte’s letter speaks to those organizing outside the law—a place more people of conscience will find themselves as authoritarianism tightens its grip.
When Everything Is Criminalized, We Must Unlearn the Language of “Innocence”
No one should be caged, tortured, detained, or deported by the state — all carceral violence is done wrongfully.
truthout.org
November 6, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
With so much on the line, the new federal government has tabled a budget that in many ways could pass as a Conservative budget, write David Macdonald and Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood. #CanPoli
The Military Wins and Public Programs Lose in Carney’s Budget | The Tyee
But will the Liberals find enough support to survive a non-confidence vote?
thetyee.ca
November 5, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
If crime is way down, why are Canadians so afraid of crime? And what are politicians funnelling money into? My latest -- they are boosting policing to police us ... not keep us safe (unless you're rich, which trust me, you are not.)

noraloreto.substack.com/p/the-big-cr...
The big crime lie
Crime is down but spending on cops and security is up. Why?
noraloreto.substack.com
October 30, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Book award celebration. My heart feels full.
October 24, 2025 at 11:40 AM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
Queer and trans immigrants allege forced labor and sexual assault in Ice facility: ‘I was treated worse than an animal’

www.theguardian.com/...

#transgender #trans #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA
Queer and trans immigrants allege forced labor and sexual assault in Ice facility: ‘I was treated worse than an animal’
At the South Louisiana Ice Processing Center in Basile, detainees say they were forced into hard labor – and sexually assaulted and stalked by an assistant warden
www.theguardian.com
October 17, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
New analysis of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first 100 days after the federal election show oil and gas, mining and other industrial groups made up about 60 per cent of lobbying records. Environmental groups couldn’t get a word in. thenarwhal.ca/carney-natur...
Carney welcomed industry lobby, ignored environmental groups: records | The Narwhal
Records show resource industry lobbyists had regular access to Prime Minister Mark Carney in his first 100 days, while environmental groups were shut out
thenarwhal.ca
October 16, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
An Ohio University professor was removed from teaching a MFA class a day after returning home from an Israeli prison where he was detained upon being illegally abducted from the flotilla.

His students [solidarity!] walked out on the replacement prof in protest.

www.dispatch.com/story/news/s...
October 18, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
"Prisons are built in remote locations, shielded behind wire and walls, and utterly severed from society’s truth-seekers—its journalists, its documentarians, and its scholars—and from the families and loved ones of those inside." Read more:
Prison Journalism Is a Disinfecting Light. That’s Why Prisons Suppress It. - Inquest
A new initiative on prison journalism from the Institute to End Mass Incarceration aims to restore prison transparency and First Amendment rights for incarcerated journalists.
inquest.org
October 15, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
At UNB, professors and students were surveilled for Palestine solidarity because, per campus security, the university is the President’s “house.”

“If I tell my kids my kids you can’t do this, I don’t need to write it down… He’s the President and he can set the rules.”
October 15, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Upcoming event
October 7, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
““They dragged little Greta [Thunberg] by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others,” the Turkish activist ErsinÇelik, a participant in the Sumud flotilla, told Anadolu news agency.”+
Israel accused of detaining Greta Thunberg in infested cell and making her hold flags
Activist tells Swedish officials she has been subjected to harsh treatment, including insufficient food and water
www.theguardian.com
October 4, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
As Mark Carney prepares to observe his first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation as prime minister on Tuesday, some of the country’s top Indigenous voices say his economic-growth agenda is putting other key priorities on the back burner.
Indigenous leaders worry PM prioritizes big economic projects over their communities’ needs
Mark Carney's relationship with First Nations, Inuit and Métis got off to a rocky start this year with his major projects law, which would let Ottawa skirt certain environmental regulations
www.thestar.com
September 30, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
I started tracking the TRC's Calls to Action in 2016 and, since Eva Jewell and I stopped writing annual reports in 2023 out of despair, things have only become more bleak.

No meaningful structural changes have been made. They were never even attempted.

A clear-eyed take from @michellecyca.com
September 29, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
This is a probe. The IDF is dipping its toe in the water.

If the public reaction is muted Israel very well may blow up a bunch of these ships for the “crime” of bringing food and medical supplies to starving/suffering children.
Brazilian activist Thiago Avilla reports six explosions on different boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters
September 23, 2025 at 11:52 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
Canada, Australia, the U.K. and France have finally -- conditionally -- joined the many other nations who recognize the State of Palestine.

But today, Prime Minister Mark Carney also once again called for a “Zionist Palestine.”

Here's what's going on:
September 22, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
Oh this is BAD.

The new TOC from academia dot edu.

You grant us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license, permission, and consent to use your Member Content and your personal information (including, but not limited to, your name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness…
September 21, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
It’s not a double standard this *is* their standard.

Speech for them not for us.
Violence for us not for them.

The sooner we understand this the better.
September 13, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
Doug Ford wants to control admissions criteria at Ontario universities, and which non-tuition fees students pay once they’re on campus. It may not seem overtly political, but Bill 33 is part of a broader right-wing crackdown on campuses, writes @royinori.bsky.social. thelocal.to/bill-33-onta...
Doug Ford Is Trying to Control How Universities Operate | The Local
Ontario’s Bill 33 mandates merit-based admissions and gives the province unprecedented power over university and college operations. Is it part of a broader right-wing crackdown on campuses?
thelocal.to
September 11, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
Doug Ford tells young job seekers “try inheriting your daddy’s sticker factory”
Doug Ford tells young job seekers “try inheriting your daddy’s sticker factory”
QUEEN'S PARK - Ontario Premier Doug Ford is telling unemployed young job seekers to "Look harder" for label manufacturing companies that they can inherit, or failing that, a lifetime's worth of backroom conservative political connections.
www.thebeaverton.com
September 10, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Reposted by Jen Rinaldi
On crime policy, Carney agrees with... *checks notes*... *checks notes again*... Doug Ford.
CARNEY: "This government is committed to reforming the criminal code to ensure organized crime, gang crime, crime with handguns, home invasions, auto theft, that the individuals who participate in those crimes pay the price they should ... I agree with Premier Ford on these issues."

#cdnpoli
September 5, 2025 at 7:59 PM