The American K-12 Pipeline: Inequality and Injustice Start Here

The American education system promises equal opportunity for all. However, that promise is far from reality. The K-12 system, the foundation of this educational pyramid, is riddled with inequalities that create a segregated pipeline towards higher education and future careers. This report delves into the systemic issues within K-12 education and their far-reaching consequences.

Under a Trump-Vance Administration, we should expect these inequalities to widen, with more resources going to those who need it least--and fewer resources going to families and communities that  need it most. Furthermore, we should expect even less oversight of federal dollars for programs meant for working class communities that may or may not work, including charter schools, online education for kids, and exclusively online teacher education. This could further harden the US class system, making social mobility even more caste-like.  

Inequality in the K-12 System

Funding disparities plague the K-12 system. Wealthy school districts often boast smaller class sizes, newer facilities, and access to advanced coursework, while schools in low-income areas struggle with overcrowding, outdated resources, and a lack of qualified teachers. This uneven distribution of resources creates a significant achievement gap, leaving students from disadvantaged backgrounds unprepared for higher education.

Impact on Higher Education

The consequences of K-12 inequality ripple through the entire educational spectrum. Students from under-resourced schools are less likely to meet the admissions requirements for competitive colleges and universities. This disproportionately affects students from low-income families, limiting their access to prestigious institutions and the professional networks they cultivate.

• Community Colleges: Community colleges often serve as a steppingstone for students seeking to transfer to four-year institutions. However, the poor preparedness of students from unequal K-12 systems lead to lower completion rates at community colleges. 

• Regional State Universities: Regional state universities, known for their affordability, become less accessible to students who require extensive remedial coursework due to inadequate K-12 preparation.

• Flagship Universities: Flagship universities, the crown jewels of state university systems, become even more exclusive for students from working class backgrounds. The mission of these schools to educate folks from the state is no longer its exclusive or even primary goal.  International students who pay greater tuition, or serve as skilled academic labor, are favored.  

• Elite Universities: Elite universities, with their highly selective admissions processes, remain largely out of reach for those without the academic foundation provided by well-funded K-12 schools.

Regional, State, County, and Local Disparities

The quality of K-12 education can vary dramatically within a single state, county, or even city. Wealthy suburbs often have superior schools compared to their urban counterparts. Rural areas may face challenges in attracting and retaining qualified teachers. These regional and local discrepancies exacerbate existing inequalities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Demographic Changes

The United States is experiencing significant demographic shifts. The K-12 system needs to adapt to cater to an increasingly diverse student population with varying needs. This includes:

• Immigrant Populations: A growing number of students come from families where English may not be the primary language at home. Schools need resources to support these students and ensure their success.

• Social Class: Students from low-income backgrounds often have limited access to educational opportunities outside of school, further widening the achievement gap.

• Race and Ethnicity: Students of color are disproportionately enrolled in under-resourced schools, creating a system that perpetuates racial and ethnic disparities in educational attainment.

Impact on Employment Opportunities

The unequal K-12 pipeline has a direct impact on opportunities for gainful employment. Students who lack a strong educational foundation are more likely to enter low-paying jobs with limited upward mobility. This cycle of educational disadvantage translates into economic disadvantage, limiting opportunities for social mobility.

The Perpetuation of Poverty and Other Issues

Unequal access to quality education is intricately linked to a web of social issues. Poverty, near poverty, and mass incarceration are more prevalent among those with lower levels of education. Limited opportunities can lead to deaths of desperation, a term encompassing suicides and deaths due to preventable health conditions brought on by chronic stress. Conversely, those who navigate the unequal K-12 pipeline successfully are more likely to accumulate wealth, further widening the gap between the rich and the poor.

Related links:

The K-12 Pipeline for Global Elites: Inequality and Injustice Start Here

A People's History of Higher Education in the US?

Are the Epstein Files the Watergate of Our Time?

In 1972, what began as a bungled break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington’s Watergate complex evolved into the most consequential political scandal in American history. It wasn’t the break-in itself that brought down President Richard Nixon—it was the coverup. Lies, payoffs, destroyed evidence, abuse of executive power, and a relentless pursuit of secrecy sealed Nixon’s fate.

Half a century later, the Jeffrey Epstein files are on a similar trajectory. What began as a tabloid sideshow—one man’s grotesque crimes against underage girls—has expanded into a sprawling network of implications: elite universities, billionaire financiers, royalty, technocrats, and intelligence agencies. And just like Watergate, the defining features of the Epstein scandal aren’t only the initial crimes—they’re the coverups, the deflections, and the institutional complicity.

A Scandal that Unfolds in Chapters

The Epstein story didn’t start with his death in 2019, and it certainly didn’t end there. He was investigated as early as the 2000s yet shielded by a sweetheart plea deal in 2008 that allowed him to serve minimal time for crimes that should have resulted in a much longer sentence. That deal—engineered by powerful lawyers and signed off by then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta—was kept secret from his victims. It was only years later that investigative journalists, lawsuits, and survivors' voices pried open the narrative.

Now, like Watergate, the scandal is metastasizing. Documents are being unsealed. Names are being named. Flight logs, visitor lists, photographs, financial records—each leak peels back another layer of the rot.

Institutional Rot, From the Top Down

Watergate wasn’t just a story of Nixon. It implicated the Republican National Committee, the CIA, the FBI, the “Plumbers” unit, and a pliant media and political class that initially hesitated to challenge the president. In a similar fashion, the Epstein Files have exposed systemic failures: from elite prep schools and Ivy League universities to global charities, private equity firms, and even U.S. intelligence operatives.

Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell didn’t operate alone. They thrived within a network of institutional silence. Epstein was welcomed at Harvard, funded by billionaires like Leslie Wexner, and given extraordinary leniency by prosecutors. The failure of universities to sever ties or meaningfully investigate their own connections to Epstein even after his 2008 conviction raises profound questions about the moral and financial capture of higher education.

Who wrote the letters of recommendation for Epstein? Who invited him to donor events, to academic conferences, to think tanks? What projects did he fund, and what strings came attached?

The Coverup Is the Crime

Much like Nixon’s use of hush money and illegal surveillance, the most damning revelations around Epstein involve the lengths powerful people have gone to erase their ties to him. Redacted documents. Sealed depositions. Delayed FOIA requests. Lost visitor logs. Sudden retirements and vague institutional statements.

Corporate media, until recently, treated the Epstein case as either too salacious or too risky. ABC News famously shelved a major investigation in 2015. Several news outlets still soft-pedal the extent of his connections to tech giants, universities, and political figures across both parties. The deafening silence has often been more telling than what is reported.

Yet the momentum is building—slowly, relentlessly. Like the drip-drip-drip of Watergate, what seemed like isolated facts are cohering into a more damning pattern. Epstein wasn’t just a lone predator. He was a central node in a larger architecture of exploitation, enabled by elite respectability, money, and the hunger for power.

Higher Education’s Reckoning

The Higher Education Inquirer has been tracking how elite institutions have served not only as places of learning but also as sanctuaries of elite impunity. In the case of Epstein, this includes:

• Harvard University, which accepted millions from Epstein even after his conviction and granted him office space.

• MIT’s Media Lab, whose director Joi Ito resigned after revelations he solicited Epstein’s donations.

• The Rockefeller University, where Epstein sat on the board and mingled with researchers.

• Multiple academic scientists and economists, some of whom continued to associate with Epstein, take his money, or attend events at his private island.

These universities are not just incidental characters in this drama. They are complicit actors—providing legitimacy, laundering reputations, and perpetuating a culture of silence in exchange for funding and access.

Will There Be Accountability?

Watergate ultimately led to resignations, prosecutions, and a moment of institutional introspection. It also helped usher in reforms—some lasting, some temporary.

Will the Epstein saga yield the same? That remains to be seen.

Powerful institutions are betting on public fatigue. They’re hoping the files will dribble out slowly enough, redacted enough, buried behind other headlines. But history suggests that scandals like these don’t simply vanish. They fester. They resurface. And they eventually break through.

For the public, the Epstein Files are not just about one predator or even his elite network. They’re about a system that protects predators, buries truths, and sells out its integrity for money and access.

Watergate didn’t end with a break-in; it ended with the fall of a president.

The Epstein scandal may yet claim its own giants—if the truth is allowed to breathe.

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The Higher Education Inquirer will continue its investigation into the role of universities in the Epstein network. If you have information to share, reach out to us securely.

The Rich Life: Joy, Asceticism, Solidarity—and a Rejection of GDP Thinking

In a society obsessed with growth, speed, and accumulation, the phrase “the rich life” is most often used to describe an existence of luxury and exclusivity—curated vacations, designer goods, elite diplomas, and six-figure job offers. Elite universities in the United States, with their billion-dollar endowments and glossy marketing, have long sold students on this vision. Success is measured in metrics: earnings, endowment size, prestige rankings, and placement in the upper tiers of a system that quietly rewards exploitation.

But beneath the glittering surfaces lies a deeper poverty—a poverty of meaning, connection, and collective well-being. The GDP may rise, but so do depression, ecological collapse, burnout, and social fragmentation. In this context, the rich life must be reimagined. It cannot mean more consumption and more isolation. It must mean deeper joy, chosen simplicity, and solidarity with others. It must reject GDP as a measure of progress, and instead embrace a fuller, more humane vision of what it means to thrive.

Since World War II, Gross Domestic Product has been the dominant measure of national health and success. But GDP counts weapons manufacturing, fossil fuel extraction, and fast food sales as positives. It says nothing about equity, sustainability, or whether people have their basic needs met. It is a deeply distorted metric that treats all economic activity as inherently good—even when that activity is war, incarceration, deforestation, or cancer treatment. When universities follow this logic, they end up celebrating job placement in exploitative industries, increased student consumption, and rising tuition as signs of vitality. Entire institutions become addicted to a model of growth that quietly undermines the very conditions of human and planetary survival.

To understand what a truly rich life looks like, we might turn not to economic models but to psychological and philosophical ones. Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, often misunderstood and oversimplified, offers a more nuanced framework. At the base are physiological needs: food, water, shelter, rest. Above that are safety needs—security, health, freedom from violence. Next come love and belonging, followed by esteem and the need to be respected. At the top is self-actualization: the ability to live with purpose, creativity, and integrity.

In a society driven by GDP and status competition, many people are stuck in the lower tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy—working long hours just to meet their physiological needs, or trapped in precarity with no sense of safety. Even among the affluent, the higher needs—belonging, self-worth, purpose—are often unmet. Elite universities contribute to this problem when they promise that self-actualization will follow prestige, when in fact they often deepen student anxiety and isolation through competition and debt.

The modern economy creates the illusion of abundance while delivering profound scarcity—scarcity of time, attention, care, and community. That’s where asceticism comes in, not as a form of self-denial, but as a conscious disengagement from toxic excess. True asceticism is not about suffering. It is about choosing a life that centers intention over impulse, relationships over acquisition. It allows us to reclaim our attention, our agency, and our sense of enoughness. When you no longer define your worth by your salary or possessions, space opens up—for joy, for learning, for resistance.

The joy that emerges from this way of living is not found in consumption, but in connection. It’s the joy of a shared meal, a collective project, a moment of awe in nature. It is not fleeting or hollow. It’s grounded in the rhythms of real life. In resisting the culture of more, we make room for what actually nourishes us.

Solidarity is what makes this kind of joy sustainable. Without solidarity, simplicity becomes privatized and performative. With solidarity, it becomes transformative. Solidarity means recognizing that none of us can be truly free while others are suffering. It means organizing not only for ourselves, but with and for others—workers, debtors, the unhoused, the planet itself. It is in solidarity that we find the courage to say no to extractive systems and yes to mutual care.

Maslow’s model, when viewed through a collective lens, demands that we create conditions where everyone—not just the privileged few—can ascend the ladder toward self-actualization. That means addressing structural violence, not just personal healing. It means challenging the dominance of GDP and the institutions that promote it. And it means building systems that nourish every layer of our shared humanity.

The richest life is not the most expensive or exclusive. It is the most grounded, the most connected, the most free. It is a life where basic needs are met without destroying others’ ability to meet theirs. It is a life where safety comes from community, not surveillance. Where belonging is unconditional. Where esteem is earned not through domination, but through care. Where self-actualization is not an individual escape, but a collective unfolding.

Elite universities, with their resources and visibility, have a responsibility to shift the narrative. They must abandon GDP-driven metrics and begin teaching students how to live and act for collective well-being. That means investing in degrowth, sustainability, and solidarity—not in fossil fuels, consulting firms, and Silicon Valley pipedreams. It means embracing joy, not just success. It means returning to education as a path toward wisdom, not just wealth.

The rich life is here. It is in the soil, the story circle, the union hall, the community fridge, the silent meetinghouse, the protest march, the long walk at dusk. It is in every act that centers sufficiency over supremacy, care over conquest.

Let us stop measuring the wrong things. Let us live lives that matter. Let us be rich in what counts.

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Sources and Influences:
Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being
Jason Hickel, Less Is More
bell hooks, All About Love
Juliet Schor, Plenitude
David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything

We have met the enemy...

Class conflict has always been woven into the fabric of American higher education. The struggle over access, affordability, and control of knowledge production has long pitted economic elites against working-class and middle-class students, faculty, and staff. Since the 1960s, these tensions have only deepened, exacerbated by policy shifts that have served to entrench inequality rather than dismantle it.

The 1960s marked a critical turning point in the political battle over higher education. Ronald Reagan’s war on the University of California system while he was governor set the tone for a broader conservative backlash against public higher education, which had been expanding to accommodate the postwar baby boom and increasing calls for racial and economic justice. Reagan’s attacks on free tuition and student activism foreshadowed decades of policies designed to limit public investment in higher education while encouraging privatization and corporate influence.

Since the 1970s, economic inequality in the US has grown dramatically, and higher education has been both a battleground and a casualty in this ongoing class war. Today, the sector is experiencing a long-running meltdown, with no signs of reversal. The following key issues illustrate the breadth of the crisis:

Educated Underclass and Underemployment

The promise of higher education as a pathway to economic security has eroded. A growing segment of college graduates, particularly those from working-class backgrounds, find themselves in precarious employment, often saddled with student debt and working jobs that do not require a degree. The rise of the educated underclass reflects a broader trend of economic stratification in the US, where social mobility is increasingly constrained.

Student Loan Debt Crisis

Student loan debt has surpassed $1.7 trillion, shackling millions of Americans to a lifetime of financial insecurity. The cost of higher education has skyrocketed, while wages have stagnated, leaving many borrowers unable to pay off their loans. Rather than addressing this crisis with systemic reform, policymakers have largely chosen half-measures and band-aid solutions that fail to address the structural drivers of student debt.

The Role of Foreign Students in US Higher Education

The influx of international students, particularly from wealthy families abroad, has been used as a revenue stream for cash-strapped universities. While diversity in higher education is valuable, the prioritization of full-tuition-paying international students over domestic students, especially those from working-class backgrounds, reflects a troubling shift in university priorities from public good to profit-seeking.

Academic Labor and Adjunctification

Higher education’s labor crisis is one of its most glaring failures. Over the past several decades, universities have replaced tenured faculty with contingent faculty—adjuncts and lecturers who work for low wages with no job security. This adjunctification has degraded the quality of education while exacerbating economic precarity for instructors, who now make up the majority of faculty positions in the US.

Identity Politics and DEI as a Substitute for Racial Justice

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have become a central focus of university policies, yet they often serve as a superficial substitute for genuine racial and economic justice. Originating in part from efforts like those of Ward Connerly in California, DEI programs provide cover for institutions that continue to perpetuate racial and economic inequities, while failing to address core issues such as wealth redistribution, labor rights, and equitable access to higher education.

Privatization of Higher Education

Public funding for universities has declined, and in its place, privatization has surged. Universities have increasingly outsourced services, partnered with corporations, and relied on private donors and endowments to stay afloat. This shift has transformed higher education into a commodity rather than a public good, further marginalizing low-income students and faculty who cannot compete in a system driven by financial interests.

Online Education and the For-Profit Takeover

The rise of online education, fueled by for-profit colleges and Online Program Managers (OPMs), has introduced new layers of exploitation and inequality. While online education promises accessibility, in practice, it has been used to cut costs, lower instructional quality, and extract profits from students—many of whom are left with degrees of questionable value and significant debt.

Alienation and Anomie in Higher Education

As economic pressures mount and academic work becomes more precarious, feelings of alienation and anomie have intensified. Students and faculty alike find themselves disconnected from the traditional mission of higher education as a space for critical thought and democratic engagement. The result is a crisis of meaning that extends beyond the university into broader society.

The Power of Elite Universities

At the other end of the spectrum, elite universities continue to amass enormous endowments, wielding disproportionate influence over higher education policy and urban development. These institutions contribute to gentrification, driving up housing costs in surrounding areas while serving as gatekeepers to elite status. Their governing structures—dominated by trustees from finance, industry, and politics—reflect the interests of the wealthy rather than the needs of students and faculty.

The Way Forward

To avoid the full entrenchment of an oligarchic system, those who hold power in higher education must step aside and allow for systemic transformation. This means prioritizing policies that restore public investment in education, dismantle student debt, protect academic labor, and democratize decision-making processes. The fight for a more just and equitable higher education system is inseparable from the broader struggle for democracy itself.

As history has shown, real change will not come from those at the top—it will come from the courageous efforts of students, faculty, and workers who refuse to accept a system built on exploitation and inequality. The time to act is now.

The Mis-education of Global Elites

For generations, global elites have been positioned—socially, politically, financially—as the people best equipped to shape a better world. They have had the resources to eliminate poverty, curb climate catastrophe, restrain war, expand healthcare, reform universities, and make democratic participation meaningful. Instead, the world they have built is defined by widening inequality, ecological collapse, and a global crisis of legitimacy. Their failure is not accidental. It is the product of a profound mis-education: a system that trains elites not in stewardship or solidarity, but in domination, extraction, and self-preservation.

Across the United States, the U.K., Europe, and increasingly the Gulf States and East Asia, elite education has become a finishing school for rulers rather than a training ground for genuine public servants. These institutions—rich in endowment, selective in admission, steeped in prestige—construct worldviews that normalize inequity as efficiency, privatization as innovation, and austerity as necessity. Instead of interrogating the historical and structural forces that produce suffering, elite curricula often neutralize them, reducing political economy to management science and social justice to branding.

This mis-education manifests in global leadership failures. The same graduates who enter parliaments, presidential cabinets, central banks, multinational boards, and international NGOs routinely oversee policies that accelerate inequality and erode the public sphere. Many come from universities with unparalleled research capacity and moral rhetoric, yet preside over housing crises, medical debt catastrophes, and planetary degradation. They authorize wars but rarely experience them. They tout meritocracy while gatekeeping opportunity. They celebrate entrepreneurship while dismantling public goods. Their philanthropic initiatives—often built from profits derived through tax avoidance, monopolization, and labor exploitation—give the appearance of benevolence without altering the underlying systems of harm.

Carter G. Woodson’s warning in The Mis-education of the Negro echoes eerily here: “When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.” Global elites, educated into a narrow ideology that glorifies markets and hierarchy, do not need to be coerced into maintaining destructive systems—they do so voluntarily, believing themselves enlightened.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the corporate education complex itself. Elite universities produce the analysts who rationalize austerity, the managers who coordinate privatization, the consultants who reengineer public institutions to mimic corporations, and the financiers who define the metrics of success. They also cultivate the ideological insulation that shields elites from accountability. When their policies trigger chaos, the explanation is never structural, only technical: markets corrected, externalities emerged, populists disrupted stability. The mis-education of elites ensures they cannot see failure as their own.

Global institutions—from the IMF and World Bank to the UN and WTO—have mirrored this mindset. Their leaders, mostly trained in the same corridors of prestige, have promoted development models that prioritize capital mobility over community well-being, and foreign investment over local sovereignty. Even when faced with overwhelming evidence that structural adjustment, privatized healthcare, or financialization intensify human suffering, the elite worldview persists. The inability—or unwillingness—to imagine alternative systems is not an intellectual deficiency but the logical outcome of an education designed to reproduce power, not challenge it.

Meanwhile, those most affected by global crises—workers, migrants, debtors, students, the poor—are told to adapt, innovate, or sacrifice. They are bombarded with entrepreneurial rhetoric and resilience talk while their material conditions worsen. Political leaders lament social fragmentation but continue to funnel wealth upward. University administrators speak of inclusion while expanding administrative hierarchies and outsourcing labor. Energy executives promise transitions while drilling new pipelines. Tech CEOs warn about misinformation while building the infrastructure that spreads it.

The result is a world where the legitimacy of elites is evaporating. From Santiago to Paris, Lagos to Minneapolis, Delhi to London, mass movements are demanding accountability from institutions that have proven incapable of self-reform. The global backlash against inequality, authoritarianism, and corporate hegemony is not a misunderstanding—it is a recognition that the systems run by elites have failed.

If there is to be a better world, the mis-education of elites must be confronted directly. That means transforming the mission of universities from prestige accumulation to public purpose; replacing managerialism with democratic governance; centering histories of resistance rather than merely histories of empire; teaching economic justice instead of market worship; and training leaders who measure success not by shareholder value or rankings but by human flourishing.

Elites have long claimed exclusive expertise in solving the world’s problems. They have had centuries—and trillions—to prove it. They have failed miserably. A new generation of thinkers, activists, workers, and communities is already building the alternatives. Whether global elites choose to learn from them—or continue along their well-worn path of extraction and denial—will determine the next century.

For now, the record is clear: the institutions that shaped the world’s most powerful people were never designed to create justice. And they haven’t.

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Academic Sources

Baldwin, Davarian L. In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities. Bold Type Books, 2021.
Bourdieu, Pierre. The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power. Stanford University Press, 1996.
Giroux, Henry A. Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education. Haymarket Books, 2014.
Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Khan, Shamus Rahman. Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School. Princeton University Press, 2011.
Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. Oxford University Press, 1956.
Mkandawire, Thandika. “Institutional Monocropping and Monotasking in Africa.” UNRISD, 2007.
Piketty, Thomas. Capital and Ideology. Harvard University Press, 2020.
Saul, John Ralston. Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West. Free Press, 1992.
Sklair, Leslie. The Transnational Capitalist Class. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.
Stiglitz, Joseph E. Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited. W.W. Norton, 2017.
Woodson, Carter G. The Mis-education of the Negro. Associated Publishers, 1933.

Ivory Towers and Pharma Profits: How Higher Education Fuels Big Pharma’s Bottom Line

As public outrage grows over the astronomical cost of prescription drugs, a quieter but equally consequential dynamic demands scrutiny: the entanglement of higher education institutions with the pharmaceutical industry. Universities—especially those with medical schools and biomedical research centers—have become indispensable players in Big Pharma’s pipeline. While these partnerships often promise innovation and public benefit, they also raise troubling questions about academic independence, ethical boundaries, and the commodification of publicly funded science.

Medical Education: A Curriculum Under Influence

Medical schools are tasked with training future physicians in evidence-based care. Yet many institutions maintain financial ties with pharmaceutical companies that risk compromising the integrity of their curricula. Faculty members often receive consulting fees, research grants, and honoraria from drug manufacturers. In some cases, industry-sponsored materials and lectures are integrated into coursework, subtly shaping how students understand disease treatment and drug efficacy.

This influence extends beyond the classroom. Continuing medical education (CME), a requirement for practicing physicians, is frequently funded by pharmaceutical companies. Critics argue that this model incentivizes the promotion of branded drugs over generics or non-pharmaceutical interventions, reinforcing prescribing habits that benefit corporate interests more than patient outcomes.

University Research: Innovation or Outsourcing?

Academic research is a cornerstone of pharmaceutical development. Universities conduct early-stage investigations into disease mechanisms, drug targets, and therapeutic compounds—often funded by public grants. Pharmaceutical companies then step in to commercialize promising discoveries, assuming control over clinical trials, regulatory approval, and marketing.

While this division of labor can accelerate drug development, it also shifts the locus of control. Universities may prioritize research that aligns with industry interests, sidelining studies that lack commercial appeal. Moreover, corporate sponsors can exert influence over publication timelines, data interpretation, and intellectual property rights. The result is a research ecosystem where profit potential increasingly dictates scientific inquiry.

Case Studies: The University-Pharma Nexus in Action

Harvard University Harvard Medical School has faced scrutiny over the financial relationships between its faculty and pharmaceutical companies. A 2009 investigation by The New York Times revealed that more than 1,600 Harvard-affiliated physicians had financial ties to drug and medical device makers. The controversy sparked student protests and led to reforms requiring faculty to disclose industry ties and limiting pharma-funded materials in classrooms.

Harvard’s research enterprise is deeply intertwined with Big Pharma. Its partnership with Novartis in developing personalized cancer treatments—particularly CAR-T cell therapy—illustrates how academic science feeds into high-cost commercial therapies. While the treatment represents a breakthrough, its price tag (often exceeding $400,000 per patient) raises questions about the public’s return on investment.

Yale University Yale’s collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) on PROTACs (proteolysis-targeting chimeras) showcases the university’s role in pioneering new drug technologies. Under the agreement, Yale and GSK formed a joint research team to advance PROTACs from lab concept to clinical candidate. GSK gained rights to use the technology across multiple therapeutic areas, while Yale stood to receive milestone payments and royalties.

Yale’s Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI) saw an 850% increase in industry-sponsored trials between 2006 and 2019. To address concerns about equity, YCCI launched the Cultural Ambassador Program to diversify trial participation. While this initiative promotes inclusivity, it also serves the interests of pharmaceutical sponsors seeking broader demographic data for regulatory approval.

University of Bristol (UK) The University of Bristol has maintained a decade-long partnership with GSK, spanning vaccine development, childhood disease research, and oral health. GSK funds PhD studentships and undergraduate placements and collaborates on data integrity initiatives. While the partnership aims to improve global health outcomes, it also serves GSK’s need to secure early-stage innovation and talent.

Temple University Temple’s Moulder Center for Drug Discovery Research exemplifies the shift toward academic-led drug discovery. Pharmaceutical companies increasingly rely on centers like this to conduct early-stage research, reducing their own financial risk. As patents expire and blockbuster drugs lose exclusivity, pharma firms turn to universities to replenish their pipelines—often with taxpayer-funded science.

ETH Zurich (Switzerland) ETH Zurich has become a hub for synthetic organic and medicinal chemistry, attracting partnerships with major pharmaceutical firms. Researchers at ETH conduct foundational work that pharma companies later commercialize. This reflects a broader trend: the outsourcing of riskier, cost-intensive research to academic institutions, often without proportional public benefit.

The Dark Legacy of Elite University Medical Centers

Beyond research and education, elite university medical centers have long been implicated in systemic inequality and exploitation. As detailed in The Dark Legacy of Elite Medical Centers, these institutions have historically treated marginalized and low-income patients as expendable research subjects. The term “Medical Apartheid,” coined by Harriet Washington, captures the racial and class-based exploitation embedded in American medical history.

The disparities extend to labor conditions as well. Support staff—often immigrants and people of color—face low wages, poor working conditions, and job insecurity, despite being essential to hospital operations. Meanwhile, early-career researchers and postdocs, many from working-class backgrounds, endure long hours and precarious employment while driving the innovation that fuels Big Pharma’s profits.

Even diversity initiatives at these institutions often fall short, focusing on optics rather than structural reform. As the article argues, “The institutional focus on ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ often overlooks the more significant structural issues, such as the affordability of education, the class-based access to healthcare, and the economic barriers that continue to undermine the ability of disadvantaged individuals to receive quality care.”

Technology Transfer and Patents: The Profit Pipeline

Many universities have established technology transfer offices to manage the commercialization of academic discoveries. These offices negotiate licensing agreements with pharmaceutical companies, often securing royalties or equity stakes in exchange. While such arrangements can generate substantial revenue—especially for elite institutions—they also entangle universities in the profit-driven logic of the pharmaceutical market.

This entanglement has real-world consequences. Drugs developed with public funding and academic expertise are frequently priced out of reach for many patients. The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which allows universities to patent federally funded research, was intended to spur innovation. But critics argue it has enabled the privatization of public science, with universities acting as gatekeepers to life-saving treatments.

Ethical Crossroads: Transparency and Reform

The growing influence of Big Pharma in higher education has prompted calls for greater transparency and accountability. Some institutions have implemented conflict-of-interest policies, requiring faculty to disclose financial ties and limiting industry-sponsored events. Student-led movements have also emerged, demanding reforms to ensure that education and research serve the public good rather than corporate profit.

Yet systemic change remains elusive. The financial incentives are substantial, and the boundaries between academia and industry continue to blur. Without robust oversight and a recommitment to academic independence, universities risk becoming complicit in a system that prioritizes shareholder value over human health.

Rethinking the Role of Higher Ed and Medicine

Higher education institutions occupy a unique position in society—as centers of knowledge, innovation, and public trust. Their collaboration with Big Pharma is not inherently problematic, but it must be guided by ethical principles and a commitment to transparency. As the cost of healthcare continues to rise, universities must critically examine their role in the pharmaceutical ecosystem and ask whether their pursuit of profit is undermining their mission to serve the public.

The legacy of elite university medical centers is not just about innovation—it’s also about inequality. Until these institutions confront their role in perpetuating racial and class-based disparities, their contributions to public health will remain compromised.

Sources:

• The Dark Legacy of Elite University Medical Centers

• Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: Pharma and Digital Innovation in China

• Harvard Business School Case Study: Novartis and Personalized Cancer Treatment

• Yale Law School: Pharmaceutical Public-Private Partnerships

• GSK and Yale PROTAC Collaboration Press Release

• Yale Center for Clinical Investigation Case Study

• University of Bristol and GSK Case Study

• Pharmaphorum: Universities and Pharma Companies Need Each Other

• Chemical & Engineering News: The Great Pharmaceutical-Academic Merger

One Fascism or Two?: The Reemergence of "Fascism(s)" in US Higher Education

The Higher Education Inquirer is conducting an extensive investigation of the reemergence of fascism in US higher education.  The examination aims to: define and operationalize the concept of fascism, investigate the roots of American fascism since the 17th century, and chronicle the most important cases of fascism in US higher education today.  As part of a democratic process, we ask readers to be involved in the research and writing of this project.  

Reader Input

Additions and corrections will be made with input from readers of the Higher Education Inquirer.  Please add your comments in the section at the bottom. For those who wish to remain anonymous, you can provide feedback by emailing me at dahnshaulis@gmail.com. 

Definition(s) of Fascism(s)

The word fascism has been used by politicians and American writers on the Left and Right for generations.  It may not be possible to create a consensus of what fascism is, or how it appears in US society. This space is likely to be edited as more comments are received.  

*Laurence W. Britt, the author of Fascism Anyone, described 14 elements of fascism here. 

*Italian historian Umberto Eco described 14 elements of fascism here.

*Yale professor Jason Stanley explains "How Fascism Works" here.  

Origins of Fascism in US Higher Education 

US higher education was founded on the taking of land from indigenous people, and oppressing people of color for four centuries. Enslaved Africans and their descendants were part of the origin and continuation of elite American schools for two hundred years.  White, Protestant, males from elite backgrounds had most of the higher educational opportunities--and the names of robber barons and tobacco magnates (Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, Duke) became part of the elite pantheon.  Thorstein Veblen and Upton Sinclair provided a great deal of information on this. 

While there has been more democracy at times, people of color, women, and working-class folks have been excluded or discriminated against for all of US history.  The federal government (Department of Defense, CIA) and US corporations (particularly federal contractors) have also held great importance in the direction of higher education, servicing their most oppressive anti-democratic, colonial elements.  

In the 21st century, historians Craig Steven Wilder and others dug up the white supremacist roots of elite universities. In a zero-sum game, historically privileged groups and individuals may also feel aggrieved and oppressed when others succeed or are placed ahead of them in line.    

Propagation of Fascism in 2022 (Contemporary Examples in No Particular Order) 

This section will evolve with the help of reader comments.  Here are some preliminary examples of varying importance: 

Role in Mass Surveillance 

"Savage Inequalities" in the K-12 Pipeline 

Hunger, poverty, prostitution, and drug sales among college students 

Sexual assault of college students

Anti-intellectualism in America

Rise of Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA, Turning Point Action, and Students for Trump  

Turning Point USA's Professor Watchlist

Police State and Strong Military Supported 

Use of Propaganda and Disinformation to Oppress "Minorities" and Empower Big Corporations

Predatory Marketing and Advertising 

Legalization of Hate Speech in US Higher Education 

Book Burning and Censorship in US Society

Role of Corporate Power in Higher Education (e.g. Boards, Endowments, Contracts)

Role of Elite Families in Higher Education (e.g. Walton Family Foundation, Koch Brothers) 

Land Theft Through Gentrification and College Expansion 

Tax Avoidance by Elite Schools to Rob Public Coffers 

Colleges Colluding to Limit Financial Aid 

Role of Higher Education in Educating Reactionary Judges and Politicians

State-Sponsored Think Tanks to Support Elites and Oppress Others (e.g. Liberty Institute at University of Texas)

Bomb Threats Against Historically Black Colleges and Universities

End of Affirmative Action for African Americans but Continued Use of Legacies 

Reduction of Needs Based Grants and Scholarships 

Management Corruption, Robocolleges, and the Loss of Labor Power in US Higher Education 

Expenditure of Elite Endowment Funds to Fund Anti-Democratic Organizations

Role of NCAA Football in Promoting Oppressive Values (No Wages, Poor Safety, Sports Gambling) 

Role of US Universities in Supporting Human Rights Violators (e.g. Russia, People's Republic of China) 

Role of US Universities in Undermining Foreign Efforts in Democratization  

Use of "Credentials" as a Legal Form of Discrimination 

Non-Disclosure Agreements

Anti-Union Efforts in Higher Education

Student Loan Peonage, Declining Social Mobility, and the "Educated Underclass"

Related link: US Higher Education and the Intellectualization of White Supremacy

Related link: UT Austin President Eats Cake in a Pandemic (Austin Longhorn*)

Related link: Coursera IPO Reveals Bleak Future For Global Labor

Related link: Guild Education: Enablers of Anti-Union Corporations and Subprime College Programs

Related link: Maximus, Student Loan Debt, and the Poverty Industrial Complex

Related link: Community Colleges at the Heart of College Meltdown

Related link: The Tragedy of Human Capital Theory in Higher Education (Glen McGhee*)

Related link: Higher Education Inquirer: The Growth of "RoboColleges" and "Robostudents"

Related link: SLABS: The Soylent Green of US Higher Education

Dahn Shaulis

Higher Education Inquirer

Release All the Epstein Files

More than five years after Jeffrey Epstein’s suspicious death in federal custody, the full truth about his vast network of sexual abuse, elite privilege, and systemic protection remains locked behind closed doors. Despite high-profile arrests, mainstream media coverage, and multiple court battles, the U.S. government and key institutions—including major universities—have still not released the complete set of Epstein-related documents. The Higher Education Inquirer joins growing public calls: release all the Epstein files now.

This is not just about one man or even a circle of powerful friends. It is an indictment of a broader system—a grotesque synergy of patriarchy and neoliberalism—that enables elite impunity while systematically devaluing the lives of the vulnerable.

The Web of Secrecy

The known facts are damning enough. Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender with deep ties to academia, finance, royalty, and intelligence services, was allowed to operate with virtual impunity for decades. He funded elite universities like Harvard and MIT. He gained legitimacy through connections to figures like Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, and tech moguls. He was gifted a sweetheart plea deal in Florida in 2008, allowing him to avoid serious jail time despite credible allegations from dozens of underage survivors.

Even after his re-arrest in 2019, the system again failed: Epstein died in custody under circumstances that have never been credibly explained. Key surveillance footage went missing. Guards fell asleep. No high-ranking accomplices were charged—only Ghislaine Maxwell, who remains silent behind bars.

Court documents have trickled out—most recently in January 2024, when hundreds of pages from a defamation suit involving Virginia Giuffre were unsealed. But these documents were heavily redacted and incomplete. Names were obscured. The network remains only partially visible. The Department of Justice, the FBI, and several universities still withhold key information under claims of “privacy” and “national security.”

Whose privacy? Whose security? Certainly not that of the survivors.

An Indictment of Patriarchy

At its core, this is a story about the exploitation of women and girls, enabled by a patriarchal power structure that routinely protects the powerful at the expense of the powerless. Epstein's crimes were not hidden in a shadowy underworld—they were committed in mansions, on private islands, in Ivy League offices, and aboard private jets.

Many of his victims were teenage girls from economically precarious families. Some were Black, Latina, or Eastern European. They were groomed, trafficked, silenced, and disbelieved. Their trauma was commodified while their abuser was shielded by lawyers, donors, and university administrators.

To treat this merely as a “sex scandal” is to ignore the structural forces at work. Epstein's operation was not a fluke; it was a feature of a society that commodifies women's bodies, deifies the ultra-wealthy, and demands obedience from institutions that should serve the public interest.

A Neoliberal Failure

Epstein’s reach into higher education and finance is a symptom of neoliberalism’s rot: where ethics are subordinated to endowments, where philanthropy buys silence, and where universities compete for the favor of billionaires rather than serve truth or justice.

How did a man with no college degree and no scientific credentials end up with offices at Harvard and deep ties to MIT’s Media Lab? Why did major figures—Bill Gates, Alan Dershowitz, Larry Summers, Marvin Minsky, and others—accept meetings, flights, and funding without asking harder questions? And why have most of these institutions still not released full internal reviews?

Neoliberal higher education sold its soul for prestige and funding. By chasing Epstein’s money, it became complicit.

This is also true of elite media and political networks. Many journalists, editors, and executives knew about Epstein years before 2019. ABC News reportedly squashed a story in 2015. Powerful names pressured platforms and prosecutors. A “free press” operating under corporate control often becomes an accomplice to coverup.

What’s at Stake

By continuing to withhold the Epstein files, U.S. institutions deepen public distrust and prolong injustice. Survivors deserve full accountability. The public deserves to know who participated, who enabled, and who covered it up.

This is not about voyeurism or scandal-chasing. It is about transparency, justice, and systemic reform. We cannot begin to dismantle the structures that enabled Epstein without exposing them fully.

There is no legitimate reason for the government, law enforcement, or publicly funded universities to sit on thousands of sealed documents—especially when they may implicate individuals who still hold influence over public policy, education, and media.

Release Everything

We call for:

• The Department of Justice to release all non-classified documents related to Epstein, including client lists, flight logs, financial records, and communications.

• Universities like Harvard, MIT, and Arizona State to disclose all funding sources, correspondence, and internal reviews involving Epstein and his associates.

• All sealed court filings involving Epstein and Maxwell—unless doing so would endanger survivors—to be made public.

• An independent, survivor-led truth and reconciliation commission to oversee disclosure and redress.

The Fight Is Bigger Than Epstein

Jeffrey Epstein is dead, but the system that protected him is very much alive. It is a system built on patriarchal control, neoliberal corruption, and elite impunity. Releasing the files is a first step toward dismantling that system.

Until then, every redaction is an act of complicity. Every delay is a betrayal of justice.

Release all the Epstein files. Now.

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If you are a survivor of sexual violence or abuse and need support, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673). Confidential help is available 24/7.

University of California Academic Workers Strike For Economic Justice

This space was here to lend a voice to the 48,000 academic workers from the University of California system who started their strike on November 14th.  Graduate student workers remained on the picket line for nearly six weeks before voting yes to an agreement on December 23.        

This group of UC employees was not the first or the last collective of academic workers to strike, but their struggle has become a model for other academic union campaigns.  The Higher Education Inquirer has been in solidarity with this effort for economic justice, where unfair labor practices are commonplace and systemic.  

The outcome of the long University of California strike was a solid victory for democratic action--but not surprisingly, some of the most vulnerable workers received the least in return for their efforts. 

There were many takeaways--lessons learned--in this long fight--a fight that was years in the making--and that must continue. Imagine if adjuncts, students, rank-and-file workers, organized labor, and other related communities fought just as hard (and smart) to reduce homelessness, hunger, hate and violence, debt, and precarity.

Elite Universities and the Systematic Exploitation of Labor 

US mainstream media have rarely acknowledged the plight of non-tenured academic workers--who go by a number of titles. This precariat teaches undergraduate students and does much of the research at universities, including elite US universities, for modest wages and limited job security.  

While elite private and public schools have gained enormous power and wealth, many contingent academic laborers often struggle just paying their bills. Grad student workers have shared stories of living in their cars, commuting long distances, and enduring other hardships while working through school.

In order to get economic justice, academic workers have struggled for union representation and equitable labor contracts--with limited results.    

The original strikers consisted of four bargaining units with about 48,000 workers: 

*Academic student employees (teaching assistants/readers/tutors) UAW2865

*Graduate student researchers SRU-UAW 

*Postdoctoral scholars and Academic researchers UAW5810

 

Image from Fair UC

Workers versus Elites

At the first draft of this article (11-20-22), the union and their bosses, the University of California Regents, were far from a settlement.  We expected UC officials to engage in a variety of anti-union strategies despite claims that they were bargaining in good faith.  True to form, that's what happened. 

Mainstream local media attention has occurred, but few sources have given much thought to the history of politics, academic power, and wealth--and their links to poor labor conditions: long and irregular hours, low-wages, and wage theft at University of California campuses. 

Organized workers in the UC system have also had to fight systemic harassment and intimidation, systemic racism, and threats of deportation. In the not-too-distant past, UC workers claimed the UC system spent millions of dollars on union busting firms and employed "activist response teams" that included police officials and administrators to watch striking workers.  

Governor Gavin Newsom and the 18 Regents of the UC system represent the major political and economic interests of the State of California--and the adversaries of labor.  In this situation they have an enormous amount of power but were mostly invisible to the media.   

California History

According to University of California Santa Barbara labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein, about 10 percent of the UC's budget is funded by the State of California, down from more than 50 percent in its peak year, 1963.  Other elite universities have replicated this model.

Californians have also experienced growing inequality (including high rents and college tuition) for more than a half century, since the rise of Ronald Reagan (1967-1975) and the movement to reduce taxes and defund higher education. 

During Reagan's second term as Governor of California, a 1973 California Supreme Court ruling opened the floodgates for landlords to charge unaffordable rents. 

Proposition 13 (1978), which limited residential and commercial property taxes, added insult to injury. And Proposition 209 (1996) was a near fatal blow to equality and social justice in the Golden State. 

Labor and the UC System 

UAW Local 2865, the union of teaching assistants, graduate student instructors, tutors, and readers in the University of California system was formed in 2000.  UAW 5810, the union of postdoctoral scholars and academic researchers, was formed in 2008.

By 2018, UAW 2865 grew to majority membership statewide and won a new contract with new rights in several areas.  

In July 2021, the UC system boasted that it had grown to $168 Billion in assets. Four months later, 6,000 UC part-time lecturers prepared to strike for better wages and more stability. Median wages for the contingent lecturers were $19,000 a year. The settlement between the UC system and University Council-American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT) called for a 30 percent increase in wages over 5 years with promises of more stability.  

UAW 2865 has attempted to negotiate with the UC system--who for weeks offered concessions that would not even cover inflation. Worker salaries vary, but some make as little as $24,000 a year, in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, where housing is extremely unaffordable. 

Bargaining for a Fair UC document lists worker proposals and UC's proposals.  

The 2022 Strike

As the strike has developed, the system has employed a number of tactics, including divide and conquer actions and a number of appeals to the media and the public. We expect the mainstream media to side more with the system it serves rather than the people who do the hardest work but get the lowest pay.   

Initially, many senior faculty and other unions serving the University of California refused to cross picket lines in solidarity with the UAW strikers. 

Stanford University marching band spells out "UAW" during Stanford-Cal football game on November 19, 2022 at California Memorial Stadium.  Image courtesy Rafael Jaime, President of UAW 2865.  

Second week of the strike.  UC workers at the University of California, San Diego, November 21, 2022

 Week 3 of the strike.  UC workers at UCLA, November 27, 2022

On November 29th, the UAW 5810 gained a tentative agreement and received significant wage increases for postdocs and academic researchers--12,000 of the 48,000 workers.  Meanwhile, the UC system had made no additional concessions to lower status graduate student workers.    

On November 30, UC officials made few concessions to the graduate students. Student Researchers United (SRU) and UAW 2865 bargaining teams made major concessions, to include:

• Dropping dependent healthcare coverage completely
• Dropping the childcare subsidy from $6,000 per quarter to $3,300
• Dropping the base wage demand from $54,000 to $43,000 

Week 3 letter from UCSC4COLA to UC workers encouraging them to continue and informing them that they can expect pushback from a number of fronts.  

Fox News used the UC strike as a reason to attack liberal higher education and labor power, noting the layers of administrative bloat at elite universities, the salaries of tenured professors, and the schools' reliance on foreign students--but using an ahistorial, white supremacist frame. 

On December 1, strikers occupied the UC Berkeley Chancellor's Office, leaving the next morning.  

On December 2, one thousand UC faculty asked Governor Gavin Newsom to support the academic workers in winning their demands.

 

Week 4 of the UC Strike (Finals Week).  Hundreds of workers in Sacramento and sit-ins at two President's offices, December 5, 2022.  That night, police arrested 17 UC protestors in Sacramento, for trespassing.  

On December 5, the UK Guardian published an opinion piece by renowned labor historian and University of California, Santa Barbara professor Nelson Lichtenstein calling the UC strike "by far the largest and most important strike in the history of American higher education."  That night, 17 protestors were arrested at the University of California President's Office in Sacramento, for trespassing.   

On December 6, the UC strike received 6 minutes of attention from the PBS News Hour.   UC strikers began planning for a "long-haul" strike and would continue to withhold their labor (grading exams) as finals weeks ends.  At least 400 UC Faculty Senate members have also agreed not to break the picket line, leaving more than 30,0000 grades uncompleted.  

On December 7, 10 strikers were arrested after entering the office of UC Regent & Chair of the UC Investment Committee Richard Sherman demanding fair contracts.

On Friday December 9, the UAW unions and administrators agreed to mediation.  The Associated Press reported that the postdocs and researchers would not return to work until all the bargaining units had gotten an agreement.  NBC News (print version) highlighted the effects of the strike on disrupting the university's operations and hurting undergraduates, with the workers struggle buried in the article.  Other news outlets framed the story as a disruption causing stress to undergraduates.  

In week 5, the number of strikers were reduced as 12,000 postdocs and academic researchers crossed the picket line after reaching an agreement with the Regents the previous week.  Remaining strikers, who had received little attention from the Regents, vowed not to stop, preparing for a large event, the Regents Romp, at UCLA on Wednesday, December 14.  Workers continued to be arrested as they spoke out about their economic hardships.  

On December 16, the graduate student workers reached a Tentative Agreement (TA) with the University of California but remained on the picket line until a new contract was ratified.  

On December 23, the strike ended after the agreement with graduate student workers was ratified.  According to the LA Times, 68 percent of the graduate student researchers (SRU) voted yes to the agreement, with a vote of 10,057 to 4,640.  UAW 2865, the union of teaching assistants, tutors and other student academic workers, approved their agreement with 61.6 voting yes, 11,386 to 7,097.  For future workers, the gains were substantial, more than 50 percent over two years. Some workers, however, said the TA did not lift them out of poverty.  

Related links: 

Rank and File Action-UC (Facebook) 

Rank and File Action-UC (Twitter)

UAW 2865

UAW 2865 (Twitter) 

Student Researchers United-UAW (Twitter) 

UAW 5810 

UAW 5810 (Twitter) 

UCSC4COLA (Twitter) 

FAIR UC NOW 

Bargaining for a FAIR UC

Thousands of academics strike in California: how is research affected? (Max Kozlov, Nature) 

Historic Strike Launched at University of California (TYT) 

The University of California Strike Has Been 50 Years in the Making (Alissa Walker, Curbed)

From Master Plan to No Plan: The Slow Death of Public Higher Education (Aaron Bady and Mike Konczal, Dissent)

History of Rent Protections in California (No Place Like Home)

UC Davis students and employees to gather to protest against union busting (Hannah Strumwasser, The Aggie)

Labor Notes

The Power of Recognizing Higher Ed Faculty as Working-Class (Helena Worthen) 

Con Job: Stories of Adjunct and Contingent Faculty

University of California strike is massive example of how Golden State problems are warning to rest of nation (Chuck DeVore, Fox News)

Statement by UAW Bargaining Team Members at UCSC  

Student Workers on Strike at UCLA (Sarah Michelson, KNOCKLA)

Closed labs, cancelled classes: inside the largest strike to hit US higher education (Dani Anguiano, The Guardian) 

More than 1,000 UC faculty members urge Newsom, lawmakers to support striking academic workers (Debbie Truong and Mackenzie Mays, LA Times)

“We Sold Out the People Who Elected Us”: UC Bargaining Team Member Speaks Out About Union Concessions (Janna Haider, Left Voice)

The California academic strike is the most important in US higher education history (Nelson Lichtenstein, The Guardian)

Sit-In | UC Workers Strike enters 4th week with 50,000 walking out (ABC-10,  Sacramento, December 5, 2022)

UCSC academic workers focus on ‘long-haul strike’ as job action shifts to withholding grades, exams (Hillary Ojeda, Santa Cruz Lookout)