Courage is contagious

Photo by Maksim Shutov on Unsplash

Hi everyone,

Before we get into our weekly post, we wanted to give our email subscribers a heads up that we will proactively segment out institutional email addresses (ex: .edu, .gov) to ensure that our newsletter does not cause anyone issues at work. What this means is that over the next week, we will remove folks with institutional emails from our weekly email list and only email folks who have subscribed with their personal emails, as much as we can tell by email addresses alone. 

We are an advocacy organization. We have never shied away from politics or controversy. Being focused on justice means pointing out injustice. Stating facts shouldn’t be controversial but these are not normal times. We recognize that in these challenging times, just getting our newsletter in your inbox can carry consequences. 

Please sign up to continue getting email updates to your personal email (sign up at the bottom of our website) and we will continue to deliver a weekly wrap up in your inbox, highlighting events and stories of the previous week, longer reads, book and podcast recommendations, and cool science discoveries. We will also continue to talk about the erosion of democracy, authoritarianism, the rise of right-wing ideology, and how all these interconnected trends are impacting science and people. 

Speaking of which, here are the highlights from the last week. There are moments of joy, amongst the despair. Enjoy.

take action

  • Call your representatives to push back on the executive action that is effectively a $100K bribe for international workers who want to work in the US and are seeking a H-1B visa. This issue goes beyond the tech industry and affects international faculty and some students and postdocs.

bookmark this

weekly wins

  • Judge ruled that the Trump administration fired probationary workers across federal agencies illegally

  • Federal judge ordered Trump administration to restore UCLA’s NIH grants.

weekly wonder

check it out

  • Justice for Trey Reed! A 21 year old black student was found dead under suspicious circumstances on the Delta State campus. Local authorities declared it suicide despite multiple inconsistencies but family has ordered an independent autopsy. #BlackLivesMatter

  • Free speech is under attack! In the wake of the horrific shooting of Charlie Kirk, universities are firing faculty who shared his views, in some cases his own words, when they chose to not mourn his death. Television networks are also enforcing a silencing policy, as Jimmy Kimmel’s show was cancelled (and is least for the moment reinstated). Fact check: not mourning does not equate to celebrating.   

more of this please

  • Examples of courage to draw upon when we need inspiration and reminder of our moral compass 

    • What feels like months ago but was just 6 days ago, the former CDC head Susan Monarez testified in front of Congress and shared the directives she received from RFK Jr., many to disregard science, and his disregard for the agency and staff he is charged with leading . “On August 25, I could have stayed silent, agreed to the demands, and no one would have known,” Monarez said. “What the public would have seen were scientists dismissed without cause and vaccine protections quietly eroded — all under the authority of a Senate-confirmed director with ‘unimpeachable credentials.’ I could have kept the office, the title, but I would have lost the one thing that cannot be replaced: my integrity.”

    • Kat Abughazaleh’s run for Congress is unconventional, full of empathy and righteous anger. That resonates for many. 

    • Scientists are running for office.

  • AHIP, an insurance group that includes many of the largest health insurers, announces it will continue to cover vaccines (COVID, flu, measles, etc.) despite shifting guidelines coming out of the CDC. Several states (WA, OR, CA, ME, VT, MA, CT, NY) have made COVID vaccines available without a Rx, following guidelines issued by doctors not political appointees. 

  • Acknowledging the hands that feed us - Narsiso Martinez’s art work aims to bring to light and dignify farm work. 

  • A broad coalition of faculty, staff, students, and unions are working together to push back against the Trump administration’s assault on higher education institutions.

Perennial reads

  • The Buttondown blog from Liz Neeley is great and especially resonant this week as an invitation to do some power mapping.

  • An essay from Anand Girdidharadas asks the question - what are we waiting for? As red lines are crossed on our sprint to authoritarianism, they become irrelevant, meanwhile less dramatic but equally important forms of authoritarianism are being normalized. Where is the collective action we need? 

  • Check out our short Q&A with Dr. Megan O’Rourke, who is an ecologist running for Congress in New Jersey. A little teaser:

What is unique about your campaign as a woman scientist?

To my knowledge, I would be the first female, Ph.D. STEM scientist in Congress. I think that’s a glass ceiling that needs to be broken. I also have deep knowledge of climate change and can work to depoliticize that issue because I can easily make it resonant for different groups who care about economics or science or the next generation or religion. Most politicians can’t go beyond their party’s talking points.

book nook

all ears

…by the way

🙃 Damn it, we truly can’t have nice things. Jerry of Ben and Jerry’s quit as parent company Unilever stifles freedom to speak openly about social issues.

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