Weekly Wrap Up

Photo by Liam Truong on Unsplash

“Part of how they make you obey is by making obedience seem peaceful, while resistance is violence. But really, either choice is about violence, one way or another.” ― Charlie Jane Anders, The City in the Middle of the Night

Its been a rough week, folks.

Any semblance of due process is quickly deteriorating in the US, where ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents in plain clothes are abducting people off the streets, often specifically targeting people with legal immigration status but who are critical of the current administration. The climate of fear is rapidly spreading across academic institutions and anticipatory obedience is commonplace. The University of Michigan is ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across campus, just the latest in a long list of universities capitulating to the administration’s unlawful demands to end DEI in and outside of the federal government. NYU cancelled a presentation by a Canadian doctor for fear of being targeted by the US president and Johns Hopkins University told their faculty not to intervene in potential ICE detainments on campus. Hundreds of international students from India who allegedly participated in pro-Palestine actions or shared or “liked” social media posts that are deemed anti-national got a letter from the administration telling them they had 24 hours to self-deport or they would be detained. The United States Disappeared Tracker is attempting to track people who are being detained without due process.

If you don’t think what is happening to people like Rumeysa Ozturk can’t happen to you, consider the fact that she was detained not because she did not have a legal reason for being in the US but because she expressed an opinion, a right that is fundamentally protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

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Weekly Wonder

You can nominate your pick for The Guardian’s invertebrate of the year. We are loving the clever cuttlefish 💜

Check It out

More than 10,000 federal employees were laid off last week from US Health and Human Services. Its easy to become numb as the frequency and scale of these kinds of announcements, but these are real people who were fulfilling an important mission, including supporting addiction services and community health centers across the US, monitoring infectious diseases and food safety, and overseeing health insurance programs to make sure they are not scamming subscribers. This will not make us more healthy and this will not make us more safe.

Perennial Reads

book nook

  • The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders (sci-fi, reluctant revolutionaries, and there are crocodiles, but hear us out, its a good book for our current times)

All Ears

Watch this

Rumeysa Ozturk, an international PhD student at Tufts University, was abducted by federal agents on March 25. She was likely targeted because she co-authored an op-ed critical of the university and has voiced support for Palestine. And we gotta call out the ICE agent cowardice, pulling up masks to hide their faces when they abducted Rumeysa. If you can’t publicly stand by your actions, this is a critical moment to stand against them.

…by the way

March 25th was Tolkien reading day and we can certainly get behind the quest for vanquishing Sauron.

Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

🙃 DOGE is making some big claims about improving government efficiencies but their claims don’t add up. Check for yourself - math may not be this crew’s strength.

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