#Personnel is Policy

[another-country-heard-from]

Personnel is Policy: Kamala Harris's Campaign Appointments Should Alarm Israel-Supporters

In any normal year, people with such radical records wouldn’t be allowed near a presidential campaign, let alone given senior appointments; but radical anti-Zionism is now unremarkable in today’s Democratic Party. This column originally published in the Jerusalem Post Continue reading Personnel is Policy: Kamala Harris’s Campaign Appointments Should Alarm Israel-Supporters

[arcticdementor]

More than 8,700 teachers from across the United States have signed the pledge to teach history honestly. This is an act of resistance to the GOP bills in at least 44 states that would require teachers to lie to students about the role of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history. The pledge states: “‘One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.’ – Martin Luther King Jr. (“Letter From Birmingham Jail,” April 1963). We, the undersigned educators, refuse to lie to young people about U.S. history and current events.” We share some of the pledges below. There are many more. In addition to signing the pledge, many teachers are organizing. Read As States Build Barriers to Racial Justice Teaching, Educators Fight Back in Rethinking Schools. If you are an educator, we invite you to sign the pledge. Everyone else, please share the pledges and tell your state legislators to defend the teaching of people’s history.

[arcticdementor]

I'm seeing a lot of under-supported optimism here.

University degrees mark selection for talent, and they can't drop the talent-selection system and replace it with nothing.

More specifically, degrees mark a selection for talent protected from disparate impact action (EEOC, lawsuits). You can't replace it with something, because any employer who tries to hire on the basis of that something will be destroyed via civil rights law.

Republicans have already been splitting K-12 schooling using the idea of charter schools - privately-operated schools that receive public money through vouchers.

To very limited effect, as practically all of the charter schools end up just as ideologically captured as public schools, because personnel is policy, and thanks to institutional capture of academia, the entire (credentialed) teaching profession — save some remnants in the oldest cohorts — is entirely aligned with the "woke left." It's part of why homeschooling is on the rise (until it ends up banned like in Germany).

What's different between universities and the K-12 system?

A whole lot. Regional/national accrediting as opposed to local; funding ("a mutual fund with a school attached"); the importance of individual institutional reputation and history; degrees of exclusivity and class stratification; degree to which de facto protection from "disparate impact" action depends on the "legitimacy" of the credential…

Republicans could begin partitioning out the different functions of the universities

How? Through what enforcement mechanism?

after the shift from truth-oriented organization to politics-oriented organization.

What shift is this? How do you expect it to happen?

The long-term goal would be to move the credential-minting portion of the university's portfolio - its main source of cash and influence - from universities to a third-party in-person exam service.

Again, how? And how do you keep employers from facing EEOC action when the "third-party in-person exam" shows disparate impact?

New university degrees would then be legally deprecated, and employers would be prohibited from accepting or knowing about them in hiring and promotion.

And how exactly would they enact and enforce this?

The intermediate, "one foot in the water" approach would be to require that all accredited degree-granting universities provide a by-exam award of each degree they grant

Require how? Via what authority (particularly for private universities)? Enforced by whom, exactly?

What is the value of learning on Harvard's campus, from Harvard's professors, as compared to someone with a similar level of aptitude learning from a small school in Iowa?

Try the entire reason for going to a school like Harvard, Yale, Princeton… socializing with the scions of the elites? You don't go to HYP for the learning, you go for the status and connections, — they're finishing schools for the ruling class.

None of these ideas are actionable, because there's no mechanism actually available (in reality, not words on old, musty paper nobody in DC actually cares about) to Republicans through which to enact and enforce anything along these lines.

A lot of the lefty people in the universities assume that they can be as partisan as they want, and the university won't go under, because Republicans don't have a choice. University degrees mark selection for talent, and they can't drop the talent-selection system and replace it with nothing.

Republicans have already been splitting K-12 schooling using the idea of charter schools - privately-operated schools that receive public money through vouchers.

What's different between universities and the K-12 system? Well, mostly research. If the research is increasingly partisan, however, then the two systems become more similar, and Republicans could begin partitioning out the different functions of the universities as part of a reform movement after the shift from truth-oriented organization to politics-oriented organization.

The long-term goal would be to move the credential-minting portion of the university's portfolio - its main source of cash and influence - from universities to a third-party in-person exam service. New university degrees would then be legally deprecated, and employers would be prohibited from accepting or knowing about them in hiring and promotion.

The intermediate, "one foot in the water" approach would be to require that all accredited degree-granting universities provide a by-exam award of each degree they grant, and they can't differentiate between traditional students and exam-only students in the awarding process - or mark it on the credentials in any way. (Naturally, this rule would also require that all of the involved texts are published openly, and there is no factual information involved which is not in the texts.)

What is the value of learning on Harvard's campus, from Harvard's professors, as compared to someone with a similar level of aptitude learning from a small school in Iowa?

Who can sit to take the exam? That depends on just how brutal the people who implement this policy want to be. If you're feeling merciful, you can allow Harvard to limit the number of by-exam seats to match the number of seats they have on campus, and impose conditions similar to the ones they use for admissions on the exam takers. This would still allow Harvard to keep most of their revenue, especially since a Harvard student would likely be guaranteed a seat.

If you're feeling harsher, you can allow Harvard to set the fee necessary to administrate the test, but 1) all in-person Harvard students must also pay the fee, and if they can't pay it, they can't take the test, and 2) the fee is limited to 1/10th of tuition, adjusted downwards for financial aid received by Harvard students.

I'm not going to go in to further details. There are also a number of potential problems, which I'm not going to go into, either.

The reason that the Republicans haven't unbundled the universities isn't because it's impossible. It's because they don't want to. They still think the universities can be salvaged, and that it makes sense to pool researchers with learners. They have lighter-touch tactics available before resorting to this, as well.

[mariacallous]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Biden set to appoint mass foreclosure cheerleader to the Fed

Personnel are policy, something that the Biden administration has proved again and again since the 2020 election. Biden himself is a kind of empty vessel into which different wings of the Democratic party pour their will, yielding a strange brew of appointments both great and terrible.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/personnel-are-policy/#janice-eberly

On the one hand, you have progressive appointments like Jonathan Kanter at the DoJ and Lina Khan at the FTC, leaders who are determined to challenge and curb corporate power:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/10/see-you-in-the-funny-papers/#bidens-legacy

On the other hand, you have deferential leaders like Pete Buttigieg, who fill their own staff with status quo counsel, and then let those timid corporate apologists run the show, leaving the substantial enforcement powers of a powerful agency to gather dust:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

While the Democrats’ anti-corporate wing got to drive the administration’s competition agencies, the corporate wing has enjoyed near-total dominance over finance regulations (with notable exceptions, e.g. Rohit Chopra), starting with Trump’s Jerome Powell, a bloodletting monster happy to shovel workers into their bosses’ crushers all day long:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/19/creditors-vs-workers/#finance-colored-glasses

Corporate Dems continue to flex their muscle. A seat has just opened up on the Federal Reserve Board, and the WSJ is pretty sure the seat is going to Janice Eberly, a corporate ghoul who helped Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner steal Americans’ houses on behalf of the bankers who destroyed the world economy in 2008:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-considers-two-economists-for-fed-vice-chair-58f13344

A quick refresher: Obama inherited the Great Financial Crisis, a massive global asset crash that followed from a decade of real-estate and derivatives deregulation that saw the world’s largest banks issuing mortgages they knew would fail, and then placing massive bets on “collateralized debt obligations” that were supposed to offset the risk.

The banks gambled trillions, nearly destroyed the world’s economy, and then blamed it all on reckless borrowers — mortgage holders who had been mis-sold predatory mortgages that were designed to trigger defaults thanks to low “teaser rates” that later “ballooned” into monthly payments the banks knew the borrowers couldn’t afford.

Geithner was Obama’s go-to guy for the GFC. It was under his leadership that billions were handed out to the banks to bail them out and keep them solvent during the crisis — and it was also under his leadership that bank execs were able to pay themselves millions in bonuses using that public money.

When the banks were in trouble, Geithner leapt into action. When the banks’ customers faced crises, he was MIA — especially during the foreclosure epidemic that followed, as the banks stole our homes out from under us, often forging the paperwork. No bank was seriously punished for this policy.

Back to Janice Eberly, who served as Geithner’s assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy — his hatchet-woman, in other words. Now, sometimes people in senior government roles stick around because they disagree with their bosses and want to mitigate the harm of their bosses’ policies.

That’s not why Eberly took the job. In 2014, she and Arvind Krishnamurthy co-wrote a Brookings Institute paper called “Efficient Credit Policies in a Housing Debt Crisis,” that explained why Geithner had it right all along — bailing out the banks and leaving homeowners in foreclosure is “efficient”:

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fall2014bpea_eberly_krishnamurthy.pdf

Writing in The American Prospect, Max Moran from the Revolving Door Project breaks down “Efficient Credit Policies,” explaining how Eberly’s stated views should disqualify her from sitting on the Fed board, especially as we teeter on the brink of a deep financial crisis:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-03-06-janice-eberly-fed-nominee-mortgage-crisis/

The first thing you need to understand here is HAMP, the Home Affordable Modification Program, which received the $100b Congress allocated to help homeowners whose mortgages were “underwater” — that is, whose houses were worth less than they owed for them.

That money could have gone to “principal reduction” — that is, to paying off part of your loan. If you owned $350,000 on a house that was now worth $300,000, the Feds could give the bank $50k and you wouldn’t be underwater anymore. The FDIC proposed just this, in a plan that would have required homeowners to pay back the US government if the price of their homes rebounded.

If you want to keep Americans from losing their homes, principal reduction is a straightforward and reliable approach. But the banks hated this — and that meant Geithner wouldn’t do it. Banks don’t like principal reduction because it means that they’ll lose out on future payments: reducing your principal by $50k now means that the banks won’t get hundreds of thousands of dollars over the 30 years of your mortgage.

Using the money for principal reduction would have meant the banks’ balance sheets would have looked a little worse — which, as Moran points out, is a perfectly fair outcome for banks that had just come close to destroying the world economy, especially since many of these underwater borrowers were destined to lose their houses and would never make those payments.

But Geithner didn’t do principal reduction. Instead, he did HAMP, which was just a way to temporarily lower borrowers’ monthly payments so they could stay in their homes. Geithner sold Obama on this plan, convincing him to renege on his election promise to support a “cramdown” on the banks, which would have saved homeowners:

https://www.propublica.org/article/dems-obama-broke-pledge-to-force-banks-to-help-homeowners

HAMP was full of the kinds of complex requirements and paperwork that the professional managerial class love, rules that made it almost impossible for homeowners to invoke HAMP and improve their payments. Meanwhile, the banks got “investor incentive payments” that let them take in public money even as they foreclosed on the public:

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/principal-reduction-alternative-under-the-home-affordable-modification-program

HAMP was a disaster. Almost no one managed to use it, and even among the lucky few who did manage to do so, many were tricked into foreclosure.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/30/government-program-save-homes-mortgages-failure-banks

This is the policy that Eberly and Krishnamurthy defend in their paper: rather than reducing debt, just temporarily restructure mortgage payments. One reason they defend this: it’s cheaper, and Congress didn’t allocate enough money to help everyone who needed principal reduction. But, as Moran points out, Geithner’s anemic response to the crisis caused Congress to claw back $225b of the money allocated to deal with it — enough to do $50k principal reductions for 4.5m households. Under Geithner, HAMP only spent $10b.

But of course, the US government didn’t need to pay the banks off to do principal reduction. They could simply order the banks to take a loss. That’s how lending usually works: lenders who originate bad loans have to eat them — they don’t get made whole by Uncle Sucker.

But when Eberly was working for Geithner, “federal officials convinced themselves this was impossible.” Rather than hold banks to account for their reckless speculation, Geithner announced that he was going to “foam the runway” for the banks, pureeing Americans’ homes to make the foam.

But Eberly’s tenure coincided with the banks’ rebound — by the time she went to work for Geithner, they were rolling in dough, posting massive profits. As @ryanlcooper@mastodon.social put it, “If you force them to eat a bunch of foreclosure losses, maybe a few hundred billion over several years, it probably wouldn’t have been that bad.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPLbnr1mxBs

Moran nails it here: “When a bad loan is made, it is both prudent and fair for the lender to bear the most responsibility. They are supposed to be wise stewards of their own capital. Instead, ordinary homeowners who did the least of any actor to cause the financial crisis ended up eating the losses.”

Eberly and Krishnamurthy claimed that Geithner’s policy would be efficient, and that it wouldn’t lead to mass foreclosures. As neoclassical economists love to do, they “proved” this using elaborate mathematical models. And, also in the grand neoclassical tradition, they didn’t bother to check whether their model was correct.

To quote Ely Devons: “If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

Here’s what Eberly and Krishnamurthy missed: the choice to foreclose wasn’t being made by the lenders, they were being made by the mortgage servicer, a kind of consequence-free middleman who made more money by foreclosing on homeowners, even if the lenders lost more money over the long term:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228125783_Why_Servicers_Foreclose_When_They_Should_Modify_and_Other_Puzzles_of_Servicer_Behavior_Servicer_Compensation_and_its_Consequences

Eberly and Krishnamurthy barely mention the existence of servicers, but another researcher was keenly aware of them: a law prof named Katie Porter, who delved into the servicers’ role in foreclosure in a report for the California AG:

https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/mortgage_settlement/01-report-waiting-for-change.pdf

Porter identified the servicers’ “dual track” approach to distressed mortgage borrowers: on the one hand, they slow-walked HARP-based changes to payments, and on the other hand, they raced to foreclose on those borrowers who were waiting for their payments to reset.

The servicers’ hunger to throw people out of their homes knew no bounds: they set up massive robo-signing boiler-rooms where low-waged employees forged deeds to plug the paperwork holes created by the high-speed, unregulated speculation on mortgages that precipitated the Great Financial Crisis:

https://www.reuters.com/article/robosigning-plea/ex-mortgage-document-exec-pleads-guilty-in-robo-signing-case-idUSL1E8ML0C120121121

Eberly knew about robo-signing, she knew about servicers, she knew about foreclosures. It was her job to know. But she still wrote her paper defending Geithner’s runway-foaming and all those ruined lives:

Principal reduction can be helpful, but it is a less efficient use of government resources, since it back-loads payments to households that cannot borrow against these future resources to support consumption today, and also because it is most helpful in reducing strategic default, rather than payment-distress-induced default,

This is just means-testing by another name, a fetish for separating the “deserving poor” from “moochers” (AKA “strategic defaulters”). The PMC loves means-testing, but only for poor people. As Moran points out, rich people like Trump use strategic defaults all the time:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html

Elite economists and finance ghouls convinced themselves that helping people stay in their homes would enable waves of crooked “strategic defaulting” but there’s no evidence this was ever widespread — rather, it was a fairy tale that justified mass foreclosure:

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27585/w27585.pdf

Eberly helped throw millions of Americans into the street in order to reward reckless banks, already wildly profitable banks, with even more profit. And far from regretting this, she went on to write elaborate justifications for the cruel policies she helped administer.

The historian Michael Hudson describes debt and debt cancellation as a key determinant of whether a given civilization survives. In every venture, producers have to borrow capital from lenders — farmers, for example, must borrow to pay for seed and fertilizer and labor. When the ventures are successful, the borrowers pay back the lenders.

But not every venture can succeed. There will always be blights, droughts, fires and other risks that can’t be fully mitigated. When failure occurs, borrowers can’t pay back creditors. If you farm long enough, you’ll eventually lose a crop, and have to roll over your debts next year. Eventually, you’ll owe so much that you can’t even make the interest payments.

In the absence of some structured, periodic debt cancellation — such as the Bronze Age tradition of Jubilee — creditors eventually end up controlling the work of the entire productive sector. When that happens, your society stops producing what everyone needs, and instead just makes the things that rich people want:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/08/jubilant/#construire-des-passerelles

A civilization can’t survive if all of its farmers are growing ornamental flowers for rich creditors’ villas instead of staple crops. It can’t survive if every productive worker is stuck in a dead-end job or a dead-end place because of medical or student debt.

Personnel are policy. Eberly has explained, in excruciating detail, exactly what policy she favors — policy that rewards reckless speculation by incinerating the life chances of everyday Americans. Appointing her to the Federal Reserve board would be a giant Fuck You from the Biden admin to every person who got their home stolen by a bank.

Tomorrow (Mar 7), I’m doing a remote talk for TU Wien.

On Mar 9, you can catch me in person in Austin at the UT School of Design and Creative Technologies, and remotely at U Manitoba’s Ethics of Emerging Tech Lecture.

On Mar 10, Rebecca Giblin and I kick off the SXSW reading series.

Image: Medill DC (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Timothy_Geithner_in_2011.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A bombed out neighborhood. Over the crumbling houses is the 'HOPE' wordmark from Shepard Fairey's Obama campaign posters. On the right is the grinning face of Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, colorized to match the Fairey posters. On the left is an ogrish, top-hatted capitalist figure, chomping a cigar and disdainfully holding aloft a single-family home between a gloved forefinger and thumb. He stands before a podium bearing the Citibank logo. The podium has a lever in the shape of a golden dollar-sign, which he is yanking with his free hand. He, too, has been colorized in the mode of the Fairey poster.]

[jovialbasementbouquetblr]

1957: VII Criticizing Party Leadership During "Hundred Flowers" Speak Frankly Campaign

More critiques of the Party and biting insights about its leadership of Chinese society during the “Hundred Flowers” compulsory speak out months before the big crackdown. Topics include criticism of the relationship between the Party and the masses; slandering the Party, defending counter-revolutionaries and criticism of the Party leadership over trade unions and other organizations in Chinese…

[tmc-consulting-club]

Thibaut-Marc CAPLAIN vs La mafia amiénoise

Madame, Monsieur, Afin de confirmer l’envoi à la Présidence de la République, vous devez cliquer sur le lien suivant : xxx Sans confirmation de votre part, le message posté sur le site sera effacé sous 72 heures. —L’outil Ecrire au PrésidentPrésidence de la République ========================================================================================================= Voici, pour votre…

[submissivegayfrenchboy2]

[lexlawuk]

Home Office Sponsor Licence Compliance Visits: Strategies for Success

For UK companies holding a Sponsor Licence, the prospect of a Home Office compliance visit can be a source of unease, especially when unprepared. In this article, our business immigration solicitors provide insights into handling these visits effectively. Our leading London Immigration Law Firm can prepare you via pre and post-licence mock compliance audits, including mock interviews with key…

[allthegeopolitics]

The New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld a school district’s policy Friday that aims to support the privacy of transgender students, ruling that a mother who challenged it failed to show it infringed on a fundamental parenting right.

In a 3-1 opinion, the court upheld a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by the mother of a Manchester School District student. She sued after inadvertently discovering her child had asked to be called at school by a name typically associated with a different gender.

At issue is a policy that states in part that “school personnel should not disclose information that may reveal a student’s transgender status or gender nonconfirming presentation to others unless legally required to do so or unless the student has authorized such disclosure.” [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @vague-humanoid

[night-dragon937]

I'm going to commit unspeakable acts of violence

[arcticdementor]

Members of the Democratic Socialists of America have quietly gained leadership posts in K-12 education to push anti-capitalist and anti-Israel views on youngsters across the US, according to a parental rights watchdog group. Parents Defending Education, a grassroots organization that backs the “restoration” of non-political schooling, has identified dozens of DSA members who have landed or sought top school board and teachers union positions in at least 15 states — from California to Kentucky and from New York to Texas. “The Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, has long had the goal of using the K-12 system as a way to proselytize to a captive audience of other people’s children,” Parents Defending Education outreach director Erika Sanzi told The Post. “Their anti-Jewish and anti-Israel messages in the K-12 context are not at all new but many more people have become aware of them since October 7th,” she added. “The DSA is poison in schools.”

…

Over the past decade, at least 26 DSA members have either won or sought school board posts — and at least six of those have held leadership positions, according to Parents Defending Education, which notes that its list is not “exhaustive.” One such example is in Republican-leaning Suffolk County, where Colin Palmer serves as the board president of the Riverhead Central School District. “[DSA members] advocate for dismantling capitalism, pushing for the Green New Deal, defunding law enforcement, implementing critical race theory, and supporting minors seeking gender surgery without their parents’ consent. Their goal is to push these topics on children as young as 5 years old,” the report says. One DSA member, Milwaukee Public Schools board official Missy Zombor, posted the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” on Oct. 22 of this year, according to a screenshot of her X account included in the report. Over the past decade, at least 26 DSA members have either won or sought school board posts — and at least six of those have held leadership positions, according to Parents Defending Education, which notes that its list is not “exhaustive.” One such example is in Republican-leaning Suffolk County, where Colin Palmer serves as the board president of the Riverhead Central School District. “[DSA members] advocate for dismantling capitalism, pushing for the Green New Deal, defunding law enforcement, implementing critical race theory, and supporting minors seeking gender surgery without their parents’ consent. Their goal is to push these topics on children as young as 5 years old,” the report says. One DSA member, Milwaukee Public Schools board official Missy Zombor, posted the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” on Oct. 22 of this year, according to a screenshot of her X account included in the report.

…

Additionally, the report finds at least seven major teachers’ unions that either have some links to or key members who have worked with the DSA. In Colorado, teacher and DSA member Bryan Lindstrom submitted a resolution to the Colorado Education Association, the largest union of educators in the state. The resolution proposed that the CEA affirm “that capitalism requires exploitation of children” and state that the way to “fully address systemic racism (the school-to-prison pipeline), climate change, patriarchy (gender and LGBTQ disparities), education inequality, and income inequality is to dismantle capitalism and replace it with a new, equitable economic system.” The resolution was approved with slightly tweaked language, but still stated that “capitalism inherently exploits children, public schools, land, labor, and resources” and was “in opposition to fully addressing systemic racism … climate change … patriarchy … education inequality and income inequality.”

…

In June 2021, Lindstrom ripped conservative uproar over the teaching of critical race theory, calling it “the new Red Scare” and vowing to espouse such teachings in his classroom. “I’m going on record now,” he wrote. “At the end of the day, it’s just my students and me in our classroom and we will be discussing race, class, and gender in my history classes, regardless of what laws and policies people want to pass. Critical race theory is a component of everything I do.”

…

In August, during the DSA’s 2023 convention, its governing body greenlit a resolution calling for more DSA candidates to run for school boards.  “The teacher movement is the tip of the spear of a revitalized labor movement and school board races are a clear way to build relationships with teacher unions by showing ourselves to be the strongest fighters for teachers and quality public education for all,” said the resolution, which emphasized backing “trans and queer rights, and to defending democracy” as well as countering “right-wing and neoliberal attacks on public schools.” A DSA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(@mitigatedchaos)

[undefeatednils]

Having political thoughts today...

It's not easy being red.

[utilitymonstermash]

Right now seems like when the next SJ event comes along that doesn't cut across the Democratic coalition / Harvard stakeholder population as much, it will be declared related to a core function. How can Harvard just go on when there's so much racism in society undercutting Harvard's diverse community? or something.

I would believe this more (but I recognize Harvard doesn't need me to believe, they need good PR right now and are already getting it) if there were personnel changes accompanying this change in policy. Take power from people who consolidated power in the 2013-2023 SJ boom, give power to folks who were ousted. A concrete step might be putting someone from FIRE on the "Corporation."

From the annals of the "decline of the 2010's SJ movement" - Harvard announcing that its adopting a stance of political neutrality in all public statements unless they directly relate to their mission, and reiterating a commitment to intellectual diversity and a commitment to debate and open inquiry:

The university and its leaders should not, however, issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function.

To succeed, the university cultivates an environment in which its members can research, teach, and learn. This is its core function. It commits itself to the values of free inquiry, intellectual expertise, and productive argument among divergent points of view. These values, proper to the university environment, require nurture, support and defense in order for members of the university to do their work

Combined with MIT ditching DEI impact statements I would say that the consolidation is in full swing.

[zvaigzdelasas]

Back in 2018, Kamala Harris and other Democrats labeled then-President Donald Trump’s wall a vanity project that wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Harris even went so far as to post online that the barrier was “un-American.” Now, as a candidate for president, her border security plan includes filling in strategic sections of the wall along the nearly 2,000-mile southwest border, given her endorsement of the failed bipartisan bill that she now says is the foundation of her border policy.[...]

“Vice President Harris believes in tough, smart solutions to secure the border, keep communities safe, and reform our broken immigration system,” Ehrenberg said. The border bill would have provided 1,500 more border personnel, upgraded technology and kicked off the “immediate resumption” of the border wall construction that was underway in 2021, according to its text. “A border wall is something that Vice President Harris supports, but only where it makes sense,” [...]

In 2023, the Biden administration sought to waive environmental laws to proceed with wall construction in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.[...]

“I want to see it finished,” said Border Patrol agent Art Del Cueto, who also serves as the vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, an agents union that has endorsed Trump.[...]

Del Cueto’s union supported the bipartisan border bill that is the basis for Harris’ border plan.

29 Sep 24

[batboyblog]

What Joe Biden has Done for LGBTQ+ People

I wanted to list out everything The Biden Administration has done for Queer people in the last 3 and a half years, but according to GLAAD it'd been 337 moves (and I noticed they missed a few things...) there was just no way to list every ground breaking first Queer person ever nominated to fill this or that job, every ally with a historic LGBT rights record nominated for a top job, every beautiful statement of support, every time he tried to get Congress to pass the Equality Act (support it!) So I've gone through and done my best to pick the ones I think were the most important, but everyone should check out the full list!

Day 1: Signs executive orders banning discrimination and ordering a full review of all federal agencies policies to better include and support LGBT people

Pete Buttigieg becomes the first openly gay person nominated and confirmed for a cabinet level post as Secretary of Transportation

Revokes Trump’s 2018 ban on transgender military personnel

Department of Housing and Urban Development implements LGBTQ protections in housing, becoming first federal agency to implement Pres. Biden’s executive order

First President to recognize and proclaim Trans Day of Visibility

Department of Justice Civil Rights Division issues an official memo that the Supreme Court's Bostock decision against LGBT workplace discrimination also applies to education through Title IX

HUD withdraws a Trump Administration proposed rule change, and reaffirms trans people's rights to seek shelters matching their gender identity

HHS announces the withdrawal of Trump Administration rules that allowed discrimination by healthcare organizations against LGBT people.

The State Department and later Homeland Security announce babies born to Queer couples overseas will be American citizens if one parent is American, in the past the child only qualified if they were genetically related to the American citizen parent.

The Justice Department files against a West Virginia law banning trans students from school athletics

Department of Veterans Affairs announces it will offer gender confirming surgery for transgender veterans. There are an estimated 134,000 transgender veterans in the U.S. and another 15,000 transgender people serving in the armed forces.

President Biden Signs a law making the Pulse Night Club a national memorial

The State Department creates an X gender marker for passports and other documents, allowing gender affirming identification for non-binary and intersex people for the first time.

The Census Bureau for the first time issues a Survey with questions about sexual orientation and gender identity

On the 10th anniversary of the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Veterans Administration announces that soldiers discharged for homosexual conduct, gender identity or HIV status qualify for veterans' benefits

Dr. Rachel Levine becomes the first trans person confirmed by the US Senate when she was nominated to be Assistant Secretary for Health, she also became the first trans flag rank officer when she was sworn in as a 4 star Admiral for her job as head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, his makes her the highest ranked trans person in government

Holds the first ever vigil in the White House for Transgender Day of Remembrance

HHS announces rule change to reinstate and expand protections against discrimination in the Affordable Care Act, including denying coverage for gender-affirming care.

Social Security Administration reverses a Trump Administration policy and allows benefits claims by surviving partners in same-sex relationships, whose partner died before marriage equality was legal

President Biden signs the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (a bill he helped originally craft in the Senate) which for the first time has grant programs dedicated to expanding and developing initiatives specifically for LGBTQ survivors of domestic violence

The TSA announces new technology and policy shifts to improve the customer experience of transgender travelers who have previously been required to undergo additional screening due to alarms in sensitive areas.

The Social Security Administration allows people to edit their gender and name on records for the first time without legal and medical documentation

The US Air Force announces it'll offer medical and legal aid to any personnel families affected by state level anti-trans youth bills.

Karine Jean-Pierre becomes the first Lesbian to serve as White House Press Secretary

on 50th anniversary of Title IX The Department of Ed strengthens protections for Students against sexual harassment and discrimination

Veterans Affairs announces survivor benefits now extended to partners from relationships before marriage equality was legalized in 2015

President Biden signs the Respect for Marriage Act into law enshrining protections for marriage equality for same-sex and interracial couples

The Department of Ed announces new rules around athletic eligibility under Title IX, declaring blanket bans on trans students violate the law and setting up strike standards for schools

The White House announced a suit of new protections for LGBTQ people, including a new job at the Department of Ed to combat book bans, a joint DoJ Homeland Security effort to combat violence and threats and HHS evidence-based guidance to mental health providers for care of transgender kids

President Biden signs an Executive Order directing HHS to protect LGBTQI+ youth in the foster care system, a rule they later passed requiring Queer foster children to be placed in affirming homes

The Biden administration joins families of transgender youth in Tennessee and Kentucky in petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review and reverse a circuit court ruling allowing a ban on mainstream health care to be enforced

President Biden Signs a EO expanding on past EO on equality and helping underserved communities

The Department of Education's Civil Rights office opens an investigation into the death of Nex Benedict. President Biden in his statement said: "Every young person deserves to have the fundamental right and freedom to be who they are, and feel safe and supported at school and in their communities. Nex Benedict, a kid who just wanted to be accepted, should still be here with us today. Nonbinary and transgender people are some of the bravest Americans I know. But nobody should have to be brave just to be themselves. In memory of Nex, we must all recommit to our work to end discrimination and address the suicide crisis impacting too many nonbinary and transgender children.”