Right Wing Influencer Charlie Kirk Killed at Utah Valley University

Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University today.  The killer was not immediately caught. The Higher Education Inquirer has been covering Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA, since 2016.  Kirk has been a polarizing force in the United States, particularly on US college campuses. HEI hopes this event will not lead to further violence. Since its inception, we have urged for peace and nonviolence.   

Higher Education and Climate Change: Choppy Waters Ahead

For years, Higher Education Inquirer (HEI) has documented how the climate crisis intersects with higher education. The evidence shows universities caught between their public claims of sustainability and the realities of financial pressures, risky expansion, and—in some cases—climate denial.

Bryan Alexander’s Universities on Fire offers a framework for understanding how climate change will affect colleges and universities. He describes scenarios where institutions face not only physical damage from storms, floods, and wildfires, but also declining enrollments, strained budgets, and reputational harm if they continue business as usual.

HEI’s reporting on Stockton University illustrates this problem. Its Atlantic City campus was celebrated as a forward-looking project, but the site is highly vulnerable to sea-level rise. Projections show more than two feet of water by 2050 and as much as five feet by 2100. Despite this, the university has continued to invest in the property, a decision that raises questions about long-term planning and responsibility.

The problems are not only physical. HEI has reported on “science-based climate change denial,” where the language of research and inquiry is used to delay or undermine action. This type of denial allows institutions to appear rigorous while, in practice, legitimizing doubt and obstructing necessary changes.

Even the digital infrastructure of higher education is implicated. Data centers and cloud computing require enormous amounts of water for cooling, a fact made more urgent in drought-stricken regions. HEI has suggested that universities confront their digital footprints by auditing storage, deleting unnecessary data, and questioning whether unlimited cloud use is consistent with sustainability goals.

The federal safety net is also shrinking. FEMA cuts have reduced disaster relief funding at a time when climate-driven storms and floods are growing more severe. Colleges and universities that once relied on federal recovery dollars are now being forced to absorb more of the financial burden themselves—whether through state appropriations, private insurance, or higher tuition. In practice, this means students and working families will bear much of the cost of rebuilding.

Meanwhile, contradictions continue to pile up. Camp Mystic, a corporate retreat space that hosts gatherings for university-affiliated leaders, has become a symbol of institutional hypocrisy: universities stage climate conferences and sustainability summits while maintaining financial and cultural ties to industries and donors accelerating the crisis. These contradictions erode trust in higher education’s role as a credible leader on climate.

Climate disruption does not occur in isolation. HEI’s essay Shall We Pretend We Didn’t See It Coming...Again examined how higher education is entangled with a debt-driven economy vulnerable to collapse. With more than $1.7 trillion in student loans, heavy reliance on speculative finance, and partnerships with debt-financed ventures, universities are already positioned on fragile ground. Climate change adds another layer of instability to institutions already at risk.

Taken together, these trends describe a sector moving into uncertain waters. Rising seas threaten campuses directly. Digital networks consume scarce resources. FEMA funding is shrinking. Denial masquerades as academic debate. Debt burdens and speculative finance amplify risks. Universities that continue to expand without accounting for these realities may find themselves not only unprepared but complicit in the crisis.

HEI will continue to investigate these issues, tracking which institutions adapt responsibly and which remain locked in denial and contradiction.

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Sources and Further Reading

• Bryan Alexander, Universities on Fire (2023)

• Higher Education Inquirer: Stockton University and Climate Change

• Higher Education Inquirer: Science-Based Climate Change Denial

• Higher Education Inquirer: When Climate Change Dries Out the Cloud

• Higher Education Inquirer: Let’s Pretend We Didn’t See It Coming...Again

• Higher Education Inquirer: Climate Change Archive

• Wendy Lynne Lee, On the Kleptocene and Commodification of Life (HEI, 2024)

Tech on Lockdown

In 2025, consumers face a deepening dilemma: how much personal information they must surrender in order to simply participate in the digital economy—and how much risk of fraud, surveillance, and exploitation comes with it. The modern internet is locked down, not just by corporate firewalls, but by an endless cycle of demands for identification and the rising threat of scams.

The trade-off is stark. On one side, companies require increasingly invasive personal data for access to basic services. Signing up for a financial aid platform, an online class, or even a subscription news site often involves revealing Social Security numbers, bank accounts, or biometric data. Meanwhile, universities, retailers, and fintech companies justify these demands as “verification” or “compliance.” Consumers are told that without surrendering their information, they cannot belong.

On the other side, scammers are thriving. From phishing emails that mimic official communications to sophisticated AI-generated calls that sound like family members in distress, fraud is no longer just the realm of obvious spam. The same technology that enables secure payments and online enrollment also fuels deepfake schemes, identity theft, and financial ruin.

Caught in this digital chokehold, working-class families often pay the highest price. The poorest are more likely to rely on insecure devices, public Wi-Fi, or predatory fintech platforms. They are also more likely to be blamed when fraud occurs, accused of “carelessness” when in reality the system forces them into unsafe digital practices. Meanwhile, the wealthy and elite universities insulate themselves with private cybersecurity teams, exclusive networks, and legal firepower.

Higher education illustrates this divide vividly. Students applying for loans or grants must disclose enormous amounts of personal data—only to find themselves targets of phishing schemes or, worse, data breaches at the very institutions they trusted. The recent wave of ransomware attacks against universities, along with the growth of “robocolleges” that automate student services with minimal oversight, shows how fragile the system has become. The illusion of safety masks a reality of vulnerability.

The underlying problem is structural. Data has become currency, and consumers are forced to spend it in order to function. Yet once surrendered, it cannot be taken back. Every digital form filled out, every student portal login, every financial aid verification increases the exposure to fraud. The system tells us to “trust” while offering few protections when trust is violated.

“Tech on lockdown” means more than clamping down on personal devices. It means a society where access is conditioned on surrender, and where surveillance and scams thrive in tandem. Consumers must navigate between giving up their privacy or risking being locked out, between handing over sensitive information or falling prey to those who exploit it.

What Consumers Can Do

While systemic change is essential, there are some basic protective strategies individuals can adopt:

• Use multi-factor authentication wherever possible, especially on student loan and financial accounts.

• Limit use of public Wi-Fi for sensitive transactions.

• Monitor credit reports and financial statements regularly.

• Be skeptical of unsolicited emails, texts, or calls—even those that appear to come from trusted institutions.

• When possible, push institutions (including colleges) to explain why they require specific personal data and how they will protect it.

These measures won’t fix the structural issues, but they can provide some insulation while policymakers, regulators, and institutions continue to fall behind in addressing this growing dilemma.

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Sources

• Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024.

• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Internet Crime Report 2024.

• EDUCAUSE. Cybersecurity and Privacy in Higher Education, 2024.

• The Higher Education Inquirer. “Robocolleges: Higher Education’s Automation Experiment.” (2024)

• Identity Theft Resource Center. 2024 Annual Data Breach Report.

TuitionFit: Bringing Real Transparency to College Pricing

In today’s unpredictable higher education marketplace, TuitionFit, created by Mark Salisbury, offers something that colleges and universities have refused to provide—clear and honest information about what students actually pay. By gathering and anonymizing financial aid offers that students submit voluntarily, TuitionFit makes visible the hidden world of tuition discounting, where sticker prices are inflated but rarely reflect reality.

The statistics show just how broken and confusing the system has become. For the 2024–25 academic year, private nonprofit colleges awarded institutional grants that equaled 56.3 percent of the published sticker price for first-time, full-time undergraduates and 51.4 percent for all undergraduates. In other words, more than half of published tuition is an illusion. Despite average published tuition of $11,610 at public four-year in-state colleges and $43,350 at private nonprofit institutions, the real net tuition and fees that students pay is far lower. At public four-year schools, inflation-adjusted net tuition has fallen from $4,340 in 2012–13 to $2,480 in 2024–25, while net tuition at private nonprofits has gradually declined from $19,330 in 2006–07 to $16,510 in 2024–25. Families who see terrifying sticker prices often don’t realize that the average all-in, post-aid cost of a four-year degree is closer to $30,000.

These numbers also reveal deep inequities. At very selective private institutions in 2019–20, low-income students paid about $13,410 after aid, while wealthier peers often paid nearly $39,250. Such disparities are rarely explained by colleges themselves, who prefer to mask their discounting practices with vague averages and opaque award letters.

This is why TuitionFit is so important. Instead of navigating by distorted averages or marketing spin, students and families can see what peers with similar academic and financial profiles are actually paying. That knowledge provides leverage in negotiating aid offers and choosing institutions that will not leave them with crushing debt. In an era when sticker prices continue to climb while net prices quietly decline, TuitionFit brings clarity at the individual level.

The Higher Education Inquirer commends Salisbury and TuitionFit for providing a measure of transparency in a system that thrives on opacity. While it cannot by itself resolve the structural inequities of American higher education finance, it arms students and families with something they desperately need: the truth.

Campus Cops, A Critical History

Campus policing in the United States has a long and complicated history, one that cannot be understood apart from the larger culture of violence in the nation. Colleges and universities, far from being sanctuaries of peace, have mirrored the broader society’s struggles with crime, inequality, and abuse of power. The development of campus police forces is both a symptom of these realities and a contributor to them.

From Watchmen to Armed Police

In the early 20th century, many colleges relied on night watchmen or unarmed security guards to keep order. Their duties were limited: locking buildings, checking IDs, and responding to minor incidents. But as campuses expanded in size and complexity—particularly after the GI Bill opened higher education to millions—colleges began to formalize security forces. By the 1960s and 1970s, during an era of political unrest and rising crime rates, many institutions established their own sworn police departments with full arrest powers.

The rationale was simple: the surrounding society was becoming more violent, and colleges were not immune. Campus shootings, from the University of Texas tower massacre in 1966 to Virginia Tech in 2007, underscored the vulnerability of universities to extreme violence. Administrators and legislators justified campus policing as a necessary protection against a culture of guns, crime, and fear.

The Expansion of Campus Policing

Today, more than 90 percent of U.S. colleges and universities with 2,500 or more students have some form of armed campus police. Many operate as fully accredited police departments, indistinguishable from municipal counterparts. They are tasked with preventing theft, responding to assaults, and increasingly, preparing for mass shootings. This expansion reflects the broader American decision to deal with social breakdown through policing and incarceration rather than through prevention, education, or healthcare.

Yet the rise of campus police also brings deep contradictions. If colleges are supposed to be places of learning and community, what does it mean that they are patrolled by officers trained in the same punitive logics as city police? What does it say about the United States that students—especially students of color—often feel surveilled rather than protected?

Campus Coverups and the Protection of Institutions

Beyond concerns about over-policing, there is another side to the story: under-policing and coverups. Colleges have long been criticized for minimizing reports of sexual assault, hazing, hate crimes, and other misconduct in order to protect their reputations. Title IX litigation, Department of Education investigations, and journalism have revealed systemic patterns of universities failing to report crimes or discouraging survivors from coming forward.

Campus police departments have sometimes been complicit in these coverups. Because they report to university administrations rather than independent city governments, their accountability is compromised. The incentive to “keep the numbers down” and maintain the appearance of a safe, prestigious campus can lead to the suppression of reports. Survivors of sexual violence often describe being dismissed, ignored, or retraumatized by campus police who appeared more concerned about institutional liability than student well-being.

The Contradictions of Campus Safety

The dual role of campus police—protecting students from external dangers while shielding institutions from internal accountability—illustrates the contradictions of higher education in a violent society. Universities are expected to provide safety in a nation awash with firearms, misogyny, racism, and economic desperation. But instead of challenging these conditions, many campuses rely on armed policing, surveillance technologies, and public relations strategies.

The result is a paradox: campuses are policed as if they are dangerous cities, yet when crimes happen within their walls, especially those involving sexual violence or elite fraternities and athletes, those same crimes are often hidden from public view.

Toward a Different Model of Safety

Critics argue that true campus safety requires moving beyond reliance on police alone. Investments in mental health services, consent education, community accountability processes, and structural reforms to address gender violence and racial inequities are essential. Some advocates push for independent oversight of campus police, ensuring they are accountable not just to administrators but to students, staff, and the broader public.

If campus policing has grown because America has normalized violence, then reimagining campus safety requires confronting the roots of that violence. As long as universities remain more committed to protecting their brands than their students, campus cops will embody the contradictions of American higher education—part shield, part coverup, and part reflection of a society unable to address its deeper wounds.

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Sources

• Sloan, John J. and Fisher, Bonnie S. The Dark Side of the Ivory Tower: Campus Crime as a Social Problem. Cambridge University Press, 2011.

• Karjane, Heather M., Fisher, Bonnie S., and Cullen, Francis T. Campus Sexual Assault: How America’s Institutions of Higher Education Respond. National Institute of Justice, 2002.

• U.S. Department of Education, Clery Act Reports.

• Armstrong, Elizabeth A. and Hamilton, Laura. Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Harvard University Press, 2013.

What Classes Should Be Essential for Good Citizenship?

At the Higher Education Inquirer, we often ask: what is the purpose of education? Beyond workforce preparation, should our colleges and universities play a greater role in preparing students to be thoughtful, engaged citizens? And if so, what courses ought to be considered essential for that mission?

We want to open this conversation with four starting points—World Geography, World Religions, Philosophy, and Logic.

Why geography? Because in an interconnected world, understanding where people live, the resources they rely on, and the political boundaries that shape conflict and cooperation is fundamental. Without a sense of place, it’s easy to fall into provincialism and manipulation by those who would rather citizens not ask questions about global inequality, migration, or climate change.

Why religions? Because belief systems shape billions of lives across the globe. A class in World Religions offers more than a survey of faith traditions—it cultivates respect, empathy, and historical understanding. It challenges stereotypes, highlights shared values, and prepares students to navigate a pluralistic society.

Why philosophy? Because citizens should be able to ask questions about justice, democracy, ethics, and the human condition. Philosophy helps students think critically about values and institutions, rather than simply accepting them as given.

And why logic? Because the ability to evaluate arguments, spot fallacies, and separate truth from deception is indispensable in a world awash in propaganda, misinformation, and political spin. Logic provides tools for clarity of thought—tools that every citizen should have.

But are these four enough? Probably not. Civic literacy requires more than maps, scriptures, and reasoning skills. Should we also expect every citizen to study U.S. History, not as hagiography but as an honest reckoning with slavery, Indigenous displacement, labor struggles, and civil rights movements? Should Sociology be required, to examine inequality, race, and class? What about Economics, not just in its neoliberal form, but with an eye toward how capital and labor actually shape daily life?

Universities once argued that their general education requirements cultivated citizens, not just workers. Yet over the last half-century, as higher education has been reshaped by market forces, these aspirations have been diluted. Courses in the humanities and social sciences have been cut back, while students shoulder greater debt and are pressured into narrowly vocational programs.

So we turn the question back to you, our readers:

What humanities and social science classes should be essential for preparing people to be responsible, thoughtful citizens?

Is it time to revive a core curriculum of citizenship in an age of polarization, misinformation, and growing authoritarianism? Or has that ship sailed?

Send us your thoughts. The conversation begins with World Geography, World Religions, Philosophy, and Logic—but it won’t end there.

Trump's War on Reality

The second Trump administration has unleashed a coordinated assault on reality itself—an effort that extends far beyond policy disagreements into the realm of deliberate gaslighting. Agency by agency, Trump’s lieutenants are reshaping facts, science, and language to consolidate power. Many of these figures, despite their populist rhetoric, come from elite universities, corporate boardrooms, or dynastic wealth. Their campaign is not just about dismantling government—it’s about erasing the ground truth that ordinary people rely on.

Department of Defense → Department of War

One of the starkest shifts has been renaming the Department of Defense the “Department of War.” This rhetorical change signals the administration’s embrace of permanent conflict as strategy. Secretary Pete Hegseth, a Princeton graduate and former hedge fund executive, embodies the contradiction: Ivy League polish combined with cable-news bravado. Under his watch, diplomacy is downgraded, alliances undermined, and propaganda elevated to policy.

The Pentagon has been retooled into a megaphone for Trump’s narrative that America is perpetually under siege. Despite the promise of “America First,” decisions consistently empower China and Russia by destabilizing traditional alliances. The irony: many of the architects of this policy cut their teeth at elite think tanks funded by the same defense contractors now profiting from chaos.

Department of Education

Trump’s appointees have doubled down on dismantling federal oversight, echoing the administration’s hostility to “woke indoctrination.” Yet the leaders spearheading this push often come from private prep schools and elite universities themselves. They know the value of credentialism for their own children, while stripping protections and opportunities from working families.

Department of Justice

Justice has been weaponized into a tool of disinformation. Elite law school alumni now run campaigns against “deep state” prosecutors, while simultaneously eroding safeguards against corruption. The result is a justice system where truth is malleable, determined not by evidence but by loyalty.

Department of Health and Human Services

Public health has been subsumed into culture war theatrics. Scientific consensus on climate, vaccines, and long-term health research is dismissed as partisan propaganda. Yet many of the leaders driving this narrative hail from institutions like Harvard and Stanford, where they once benefited from cutting-edge science, they now ridicule.

Environmental Protection Agency

The EPA has become the Environmental Pollution Agency, rolling back rules while gaslighting the public with claims of “cleaner air than ever.” Appointees often come directly from corporate law firms representing Big Oil and Big Coal, cloaking extractive capitalism in the language of freedom.

Department of Labor

Workers are told they are winning even as wages stagnate and union protections collapse. The elites orchestrating this rollback frequently hold MBAs from Wharton or Harvard Business School. They speak the language of “opportunity” while overseeing the erosion of worker rights and benefits.

Department of Homeland Security

Reality itself is policed here, where dissent is rebranded as domestic extremism. Elite operatives with ties to intelligence contractors enforce surveillance on ordinary Americans, while elite families enjoy immunity from scrutiny.

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The Elite Architecture of Gaslighting

What unites these agencies is not just Trump’s directives, but the pedigree of the people carrying them out. Far from being the populist outsiders they claim to be, many hail from Ivy League schools, white-shoe law firms, or Fortune 500 boardrooms. They weaponize their privilege to convince the public that up is down, war is peace and lies are truth.

The war on reality is not a sideshow—it is the central project of this administration. For elites, it is a way to entrench their power. For the rest of us, it means living in a hall of mirrors where truth is constantly rewritten, and democracy itself hangs in the balance.

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Sources

• New York Times, Trump’s Cabinet and Their Elite Connections

• Washington Post, How Trump Loyalists Are Reshaping Federal Agencies

• Politico, The Ivy League Populists of Trump’s Inner Circle

• ProPublica, Trump Administration’s Conflicts of Interest

• Brookings Institution, Trump’s Assault on the Administrative State

• Center for American Progress, Gaslighting the Public: Trump’s War on Facts

The NCAA–DoD CARE Study Suspended: What’s Next for Concussion and CTE Research?

The Higher Education Inquirer is calling on both the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to explain the suspension of the Concussion Assessment, Research and Education (CARE) Consortium, the largest concussion study in U.S. history. Since 2014, CARE has sought to illuminate the effects of concussion and repetitive head impact exposure (HIE) on student-athletes and military service members.

A Decade of Groundbreaking Work

Funded through an initial $30 million “Grand Alliance,” CARE enrolled more than 53,000 athletes and cadets and tracked over 5,500 diagnosed concussions across more than two dozen universities and four service academies. Its successive phases—CARE 1.0 (acute effects), CARE 2.0 (cumulative impacts), and CARE-SALTOS Integrated (long-term outcomes)—provided unprecedented insights into how concussions affect recovery, cognition, mood, sleep, and overall well-being.

The CARE study generated more than 90 peer-reviewed publications, influencing safety protocols, athletic training practices, and public health debates in both NCAA settings and the U.S. military.

CTE and the Need for Decades-Long Research

The suspension comes at a critical moment. Concerns about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)—a degenerative brain disease linked to repetitive head trauma—are rising. Because CTE’s symptoms often surface decades after injuries, researchers emphasize that only long-term, continuous studies can reveal who develops CTE and why.

Pausing or dismantling CARE risks losing continuity in precisely the kind of data needed to connect the dots between adolescent or collegiate injuries and late-life neurodegenerative conditions.

Collateral Damage: Workers Left Behind

The disruption of CARE has already produced casualties beyond lost data. At the University of Michigan, one of the leading CARE sites, about two dozen research workers were abruptly laid off. Without union protections, they had little recourse. This underscores how fragile large research consortia can be—dependent not only on grants and institutional goodwill, but also on a workforce often treated as disposable.

These layoffs raise troubling questions: If the workers who made CARE possible are discarded without warning, what does that say about the broader commitment to athlete and cadet safety?

Outstanding Questions for NCAA and DoD

The Higher Education Inquirer is pressing for answers:

• Why was CARE suspended? Was this due to funding shortfalls, shifting priorities, or political pressure?

• Will existing data remain accessible? The CARE Consortium has been a vital contributor to the Federal Interagency Traumatic Brain Injury Research (FITBIR) database.

• What about the workforce? Why were employees terminated without protections, and what obligations do the NCAA, DoD, and participating universities have to them?

• What is the long-term plan for concussion research? Without decades-long studies, the risks of CTE and other late-life conditions will remain poorly understood.

Big Loss for Athletes

If CARE is permanently suspended, the consequences will extend far beyond academia. Athletes and cadets will lose a vital source of protection, science will lose irreplaceable data, and workers will continue to bear the costs of institutional indifference.

The Higher Education Inquirer urges the NCAA and DoD to clarify CARE’s future and recommit to the kind of decades-long research that brain science demands. Anything less is a betrayal—to athletes, to service members, and to the very workers who made this research possible.

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Sources

• NCAA. NCAA-DOD Grand Alliance: CARE Consortium. ncaa.org

• CARE Consortium. About the Consortium. careconsortium.net

• NCAA. NCAA and Department of Defense expand concussion study with $22.5 million. (October 31, 2018). ncaa.org

• U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command. Research Supporting a Lifetime of Brain Injury. mrdc.health.mil

• NIH. Concussion Assessment, Research, and Education Consortium (CARE) Study Data. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

FDT: Higher Education on the Frontlines of a Failing State

Universities have long been bastions of freedom, democracy, and truth. Today, they find themselves operating in a nation where these ideals are increasingly under siege—not by foreign adversaries, but by policies emanating from the highest levels of government.

The Department of War: A Symbolic Shift with Real Consequences

On September 5, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order rebranding the U.S. Department of Defense as the "Department of War," aiming to restore the title used prior to 1949. This move, while symbolic, reflects a broader ideological shift towards an aggressive, militaristic stance. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, appointed in January 2025, has been a vocal proponent of this change, asserting that the new name conveys a stronger message of readiness and resolve. 

Critics argue that this rebranding prioritizes optics over substance, with concerns over potential high costs and effectiveness. Pentagon officials acknowledged the financial burden but have yet to release precise cost estimates. 

Economic Instability and Global Alienation

Domestically, the administration's economic policies have led to rising unemployment, inflation, and slowing job growth. A recent weak jobs report showing a gain of only 22,000 jobs prompted Democrats to criticize President Trump's handling of the economy, linking these issues to his tariffs and other controversial actions. 

Internationally, Trump's policies have strained relationships with key allies. Countries like Japan, South Korea, and several European nations have expressed concerns over U.S. trade practices and foreign policy decisions, leading to a reevaluation of longstanding alliances. 

Authoritarian Alliances and Human Rights Concerns

The administration's foreign policy has also seen a shift towards aligning with authoritarian leaders. Leaked draft reports indicate plans to eliminate or downplay accounts of prisoner abuse, corruption, and LGBTQ+ discrimination in countries like El Salvador, Israel, and Russia, raising concerns about the U.S.'s commitment to human rights. 

Immigration Policies and Humanitarian Impact

On the domestic front, the administration's immigration policies have led to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of individuals, including those with Temporary Protected Status. Critics argue that these actions undermine the nation's moral authority and have a devastating impact on affected families. 

The Role of Higher Education

In this turbulent landscape, higher education institutions find themselves at a crossroads. Universities are traditionally places where freedom, democracy, and truth are upheld and taught. However, as the nation drifts away from these principles, universities are increasingly tasked with defending them.

Faculty and students are stepping into roles as defenders of civic values, ethical scholarship, and truth-telling. But without robust support from government and society, universities alone cannot sustain the principles of freedom and democracy that once underpinned the nation.

The current moment is a test: Can American higher education continue to serve as a bastion of truth and civic responsibility in an era where the country’s own policies increasingly contradict those ideals? Or will universities be compelled to adapt to a world where freedom, democracy, and truth are optional, not foundational?

The stakes could not be higher.

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Sources:

• "Trump Signs Order Rebranding DOD as 'Department of War'," Time, September 5, 2025. https://time.com/7314840/department-of-defense-name-change-department-of-war-pete-hegseth-trump/

• "Trump's Economic Disruption: The World Adapts," Council on Foreign Relations, May 2025. https://www.cfr.org/councilofcouncils/global-memos/trumps-economic-disruption-world-adapts

• "U.S. plans to ease human rights criticism of El Salvador, Israel, Russia," Reuters, August 6, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-ease-human-rights-criticism-el-salvador-israel-russia-2025-08-07/

• "Mass Deportation: Analyzing the Trump Administration's Attacks on Democracy," American Immigration Council, February 2025. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/report/mass-deportation-trump-democracy/

• "Protecting The American People Against Invasion," The White House, January 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-american-people-against-invasion/

• "Democrats blast Trump on the economy after weak jobs report," Politico, September 5, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/05/dem-jobs-opening-00546876

• "America is surrounded by enemies — that it created," The Japan Times, March 16, 2025. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2025/03/16/world/america-is-surrounded-by-enemies/

• "Ten Harmful Trump Administration Immigration and Refugee Policies," Human Rights Watch, February 20, 2025. https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/02/20/ten-harmful-trump-administration-immigration-and-refugee-policies

• "Chaotic showdown over Guatemalan children exposes fault lines in Trump’s deportation push," Associated Press, August 2025. https://apnews.com/article/immigration-unaccompanied-children-trump-deportations-guatemala-73c9fa9db57472c0c74e7584c9ebc9a2

• "Trump Renames DOD to Department of War," U.S. Department of Defense, September 5, 2025. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4295826/trump-renames-dod-to-department-of-war/

• "Trump's dramatic and destabilizing approach to the economy," PBS, August 2025. https://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/video/2025/08/trumps-dramatic-and-destabilizing-approach-to-the-economy

• "Protecting The American People Against Invasion," The White House, January 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-american-people-against-invasion/

• "Democrats blast Trump on the economy after weak jobs report," Politico, September 5, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/05/dem-jobs-opening-00546876

• "America is surrounded by enemies — that it created," The Japan Times, March 16, 2025. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2025/03/16/world/america-is-surrounded-by-enemies/

• "Ten Harmful Trump Administration Immigration and Refugee Policies," Human Rights Watch, February 20, 2025. https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/02/20/ten-harmful-trump-administration-immigration-and-refugee-policies

• "Chaotic showdown over Guatemalan children exposes fault lines in Trump’s deportation push," Associated Press, August 2025. [https://apnews.com/article/immigration-unaccompanied-children

LAVC Media Arts Faculty Stripped of Administrative Roles Amid Fraud Scandal (LACCD Whistleblower)

Faculty members in the Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC) Media Arts Department implicated in decades of fraud and misconduct have been removed from administrative positions, though they remain in teaching roles.

Over the summer, longtime department head Eric Swelstad, who had led Media Arts since 2008, was replaced as chair by Chad Sustin, a full-time professor of Cinema and Media Arts. The change followed a notification from the LACCD Whistleblower Movement to new Chancellor Alberto J. Roman, alleging that Swelstad falsely claimed membership in the Writers Guild of America – West for more than 20 years and used this misrepresentation in official LACCD promotional materials.

Sustin, a tenured faculty member since 2016 and a former Technicolor post-producer, now leads the department.

The reshuffling comes amid years of internal turmoil. In 2022, full-time cinema professor Arantxa Rodriguez resigned and was replaced by Jonathan Burnett as assistant professor. Rodriguez had previously been implicated in department infighting and, alongside Swelstad, was named as a co-defendant in a 2008 case alleging failure to provide advertised technical training and education. Burnett’s hiring bypassed longtime adjunct and former grant director Dan Watanabe.

Watanabe previously administered several Media Arts training grants, the last of which—ICT & Digital Media, LA RDSN—was reported as fraudulent in 2016. The 2013 grant proposal promised courses such as The Business of Entertainment, Advanced Digital Editing, Photoshop, and After Effects. Yet once funding was approved, The Business of Entertainment and Advanced Digital Editing were archived by LAVC’s Academic Curriculum Committee and Senate. Photoshop and After Effects were offered only minimally, with After Effects disappearing after 2015 and Photoshop shifting to online-only by 2017.

Students reported the suspected fraud to the State of California in 2016, prompting a review of the grant. Renewal applications submitted by Watanabe in 2018 and 2021 were both denied.

Grant Record (Denied Renewal, 2018):

• Project Title: ICT & Digital Media – LA RDSN (Renewal)

• Funding Agency: CCCCO EWD

• Grant Amount: $165,000

• Funding Period: Oct. 1, 2018 – June 30, 2019

• Project Director: Dan Watanabe

• Description: Proposed renewal of the Deputy Sector Navigator grant under the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, focused on curriculum development and alignment with universities and K–12 schools.

https://services.laccd.edu/districtsite/Accreditation/lavc/Standard%20IVA/IVA1-02_Grants_History.pdf

Despite this, Watanabe (who was also passed over for a full-time position at Los Angeles Pierce College) remains an adjunct faculty member slated to teach Cinema 111, Developing Movies – a field he reportedly last worked in twenty years ago. Arantxa Rodriguez and Eric Swelstad have both been scheduled to teach Fall 2025. Despite falsifying his credentials as a member of the Writer's Guild of America – West, and implying he was a Primetime Emmy Winner (he in fact was the director of a movie that received a local Los Angeles Emmy in the 1990s), he is slated to teach Cinema 101 and screenwriting core class Media Arts 129. Rodriguez will a remote History of Film Class. 

Reportedly the new full-time faculty in the department have started working to reverse the damage. Fall 2025 schedule includes Media Arts 112, Creative Sound Design Workshop. 

Left Forum: Critically Understanding Capitalism (Richard Wolff)

 

Google, Your Data, and the Debt You Didn’t Know You Owed (Glen McGhee)

Google is everywhere. Search, Maps, YouTube—they make life convenient and seem “free.” But convenience comes at a price: your behavioral data. Every click, pause, search, or location check generates a digital footprint that Google collects, analyzes, and sells.

This isn’t just data collection—it’s what Shoshana Zuboff calls behavioral surplus: data that goes beyond what’s needed to provide the service itself. Google doesn’t just need to know what you search; it wants your location patterns, click habits, watch time, and every little action that can predict what you might do next. That surplus becomes a commodity, sold to advertisers and used to train AI systems that keep you engaged—and profitable—without your permission or compensation.

What “Data Debt” Means for You

Think of it like this: every time you interact with Google, you’re contributing to a kind of informational debt. Unlike a normal loan, this debt is infinite and unpayable. You can’t erase your search history, reclaim your behavioral profile, or get paid for the value you generate.

Here’s how it affects you:

1. You’re Paying With More Than Money
   Your data is the real currency. That “free” Google Maps route? Paid for with your personal information, every time you move, click, or linger on a page.

2. You Can’t Opt Out
   Google and similar platforms are now essential infrastructure. Avoiding them often means social or professional exclusion. You’re effectively forced into the system to live a connected life.

3. More Companies Have Access to Your Data
   Recent antitrust rulings require Google to share some data with competitors. Instead of reducing extraction, this spreads your data around, giving multiple companies the ability to profit from your behavior.

4. You Get No Ownership or Share of Profits
   Unlike college athletes who can monetize their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), most of us generate value for Google with no control, no claim, and no legal recourse. You’re a perpetual unpaid shareholder in a company that never pays dividends.

5. Privacy Is Your Job
   The system shifts responsibility onto you. You have to manage settings, use privacy tools, and track policies—all while the structural extraction continues.

Why This Matters

This is not just about annoying ads or targeted videos. It’s about power. Google, and other platforms like it, are essentially operating as all-powerful debtors. They take your data, turn it into profit, and owe you nothing. Meanwhile, the system is structured so that you can’t negotiate, limit, or reclaim what’s taken.

The rare exceptions—like NIL rights for college athletes—show how unusual it is for people to profit from their own data. For the rest of us, extraction without reciprocity is the rule, not the exception.

What You Can Do

• Be conscious of your digital footprint: Every app, click, and interaction is part of your behavioral surplus.

• Use privacy tools: VPNs, ad blockers, and encrypted services can limit some collection.

• Advocate for structural change: Laws and regulations that return ownership or compensation for data are the only way to address the systemic imbalance.

• Support alternatives: Platforms that share revenue with users or operate without surveillance models are small but growing options.

The key takeaway: your data is valuable, and right now, you’re the unpaid creditor. Understanding the stakes is the first step toward regaining some control—or at least knowing what you’re giving away.

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Sources

• Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, PublicAffairs, 2019.

• Maurizio Lazzarato, The Making of the Indebted Man, Semiotext(e), 2012.

• Cory Doctorow, “Unpunishing Process,” Pluralistic.net, September 3, 2025. https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/03/unpunishing-process/

• U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, United States v. Google LLC, antitrust ruling, 2025.

• NPR, “What NIL Rights Mean for College Athletes,” 2023.

The Veritas Evasion: How Elite University Presidents Dodge Structural Critique

Across American higher education, labor rights have been under sustained pressure for decades. Adjunct faculty and contingent academic workers face precarious employment conditions, stagnant pay, and eroding protections. Yet when systemic critiques are raised, elite university presidents often reframe the discussion, narrowing structural problems into manageable, apolitical talking points.

Technocratic Deflection

Presidents frequently recast labor issues in neutral managerial terms:

• Union suppression = “workforce modernization”

• Adjunct exploitation = “budgetary flexibility”

• Student debt peonage = “innovative financing”

By reducing structural injustices to administrative concerns, they strip these issues of political and historical significance, making them easier to manage and harder to challenge.

The “Hands Tied” Defense

When confronted with inequities, presidents often insist:

• “Declining appropriations leave us no choice.”

• “Our boards demand fiscal responsibility.”

• “Market forces shape our decisions.”

This logic frames systemic oppression as inevitable, technical, and apolitical — a narrative that protects institutional power while masking the long-term consequences for faculty and students.

Vocabulary Capture

Elite leaders control the conversation through language:

• Critics say “union suppression”; presidents say “workforce modernization.”

• Activists say “racial exclusion”; presidents invoke “mission fit.”

• Students call it “robocolleges” or corporatization; presidents speak of “scaling access.”

By changing the words, they change the battlefield, making systemic critique appear radical, ill-informed, or irrelevant.

Evasion of History

Historical context is often sidelined:

• Universities rarely acknowledge their role in breaking faculty strikes or adopting corporate governance models.

• They deflect from the impact of elite endowments and funding structures in deepening inequality.

• Decisions that shape labor, access, and academic priorities are rarely recognized as part of a decades-long neoliberal project.

Case Studies

1. Columbia University's $221 Million Settlement

In a notable instance, Columbia University agreed to a $221 million settlement with the Trump administration, restoring previously cut federal research funding. While the university emphasized its continued autonomy in admissions and hiring decisions, the settlement included oversight on issues such as merit-based hiring and campus free speech. This move sparked backlash from faculty who viewed it as political interference in academic governance .

2. Harvard University's Response to Federal Pressure

Harvard University faced scrutiny from the Trump administration over alleged failure to combat antisemitism. In response, Harvard President Alan Garber pledged cooperation with federal demands but faced criticism for lacking a strong defense of academic independence. Administrative actions, including suspensions of pro-Palestinian programs, heightened faculty unease and raised concerns about potential political interference in academic institutions .

3. The 2023 Rutgers University Strike

At Rutgers University, faculty and graduate student workers participated in a strike demanding increased salaries, job security, and equal pay for equal work. The strike, involving over 9,000 staff members and 67,000 students, was suspended after a tentative agreement for across-the-board salary increases was reached. This action highlighted the growing mobilization of contingent faculty and the challenges they face in advocating for better working conditions .

The Veritas Problem

Elite institutions claim Veritas — truth — but their leaders practice selective blindness. They respond to criticism in managerial jargon, policing language, and rendering systemic injustices invisible within the institution.

Across campuses nationwide, the strategy is consistent: narrow the conversation, maintain the appearance of neutrality, and protect the interests of trustees, donors, and corporate partners — all while structural crises of labor, debt, and inequality continue unchecked.

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Sources:

• "Columbia agrees $221mn settlement with Trump administration" – Financial Times, August 2025

• "Harvard faculty organize amid anxiety university will capitulate to Trump" – The Guardian, April 2025

• "2023 Rutgers University strike" – Wikipedia, June 2023

Shifting the Burden: Labor, Capital, and the University in the US 1969–2025

Over the last half-century, the U.S. economy has undergone a profound transformation, one that has consistently shifted wealth, power, and risk from labor to capital. Nowhere is this transfer more evident than in the American university. Once celebrated as engines of mobility and knowledge, colleges and universities have become laboratories for the financialization of labor and the exploitation of debt, producing both highly educated workers and precarious employment. The story of U.S. higher education mirrors the broader trajectory of labor in the postindustrial economy: the erosion of wages, benefits, and job security, replaced by indebtedness, contingent labor, and privatized risk.

In 1969, union membership in the U.S. reached historic heights, covering nearly one-third of workers, and wages broadly tracked productivity. Universities, like other sectors, offered stable employment, pensions, and health benefits for faculty and staff. Students could pursue degrees without accumulating crushing debt. Yet this stability faced systematic challenges. Rising global competition, stagflation in the 1970s, and growing corporate influence over politics and law set the stage for a deliberate weakening of labor. Influential business leaders, inspired by the Powell Memo of 1971, invested in reshaping regulations, judicial appointments, and cultural attitudes to protect capital and undermine collective worker power.

The higher education sector became a testing ground for these strategies. Universities increasingly adopted anti-union policies, aggressively resisting faculty organizing. Tenured and tenure-track positions stagnated, while the majority of teaching staff shifted to contingent and adjunct roles. Adjunct faculty, who now comprise the majority of instructors at many institutions, are paid a fraction of full-time salaries and frequently lack basic employment protections. Retirement and medical benefits are often unavailable, leaving adjuncts dependent on precarious contract work while navigating an academic labor market that demands high productivity and expertise. Meanwhile, students are encouraged to shoulder growing tuition costs through loans, creating a generation of indebted graduates whose economic vulnerability mirrors that of the adjunct faculty teaching them.

This debt-driven model reflects a broader trend in U.S. labor. As real wages stagnated across most industries, households turned to credit cards, home equity loans, and student loans to maintain living standards. Medical debt and inadequate access to health insurance became commonplace, and pension security eroded as defined-benefit plans gave way to 401(k)s tied to volatile financial markets. Universities, simultaneously relying on contingent labor and student debt, became both emblematic and instrumental in this shift. They profited from a system that exploited the labor of instructors while binding students into decades-long financial obligations.

The 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic further exposed these structural inequalities. Wall Street recovered rapidly through bailouts and financial consolidation, while millions of workers—including adjuncts and early-career academics—experienced housing loss, unemployment, and financial insecurity. Universities, too, leveraged these crises to consolidate programs, increase online offerings, and further casualize labor. Inflation fears and budget shortfalls became convenient rationales for suppressing wages, cutting benefits, and delaying retirement security.

By 2025, a new wave of labor activism is emerging, both inside and outside the academy. Union drives at Starbucks, Amazon, hospitals, and universities reflect widespread discontent, yet union density remains below ten percent. Legal obstacles, from Janus v. AFSCME to state-level right-to-work laws, continue to suppress organizing. Capital, for its part, has adapted. Endowments, private equity firms, hedge funds, and sovereign wealth funds dominate sectors from housing to healthcare to higher education. Pension funds, once a safeguard for workers, have been financialized into instruments that profit the very institutions and executives who outsource or eliminate labor protections.

The consequences are stark. Since 1969, productivity has more than doubled, but real wages for most workers have barely changed. CEO pay has increased by over a thousand percent, while median worker pay stagnates. Household debt exceeds seventeen trillion dollars. Universities, which were once supposed to provide pathways to mobility, increasingly rely on adjunct labor and student indebtedness to function. Workers in both corporate and academic sectors are often left without reliable health coverage or retirement security, forcing them into perpetual economic vulnerability.

Higher education exemplifies the paradox of U.S. labor in the postindustrial era: it produces a highly credentialed workforce while exploiting its own employees and saddling students with debt. The burden of sustaining American capitalism—through longer hours, reduced benefits, and relentless indebtedness—has shifted decisively onto labor. Whether this growing discontent can coalesce into a new labor movement or whether capital—including universities—will continue to restructure society in its own interest remains one of the central questions of our time.

Sources
Gordon Lafer, The Job Training Charade (2002)
Michael Hudson, The Bubble and Beyond (2012)
Maurizio Lazzarato, The Making of the Indebted Man (2011)
Economic Policy Institute, State of Working America Data Library
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Historical Tables