Universities’ decisions in dealing with the 2008 financial crisis laid the foundation for the current financial and social crisis in higher education.
The tech arm of Trump 2.0 isn’t just reshaping government — it’s consolidating control over the data infrastructure that makes modern governance possible. By centralizing data flows and gutting public information systems, DOGE is building the machinery for a new era of authoritarianism.
Silicon Valley tech bosses often promote Universal Basic Income as a progressive solution to job losses caused by automation. However, by portraying such displacement as inevitable rather than socially determined, these proposals obscure the critical role that power structures and market dynamics play in shaping technological innovation. They also fail to address how automation further concentrates control over technology, production, and data.
Many unitary executive proponents argue that federal labor rights undermine presidential power. This position is simplistic and short-sighted: labor rights offer the executive a different, more valuable form of power – expanded state capacity – that is necessary for modern presidents to deliver on their political priorities. And they so do in a manner that is more democratically accountable than any of the likely alternatives.
For decades, the rules of international trade helped cement U.S. firms at the top of global value chains. Should Trump’s unapologetic embrace of tariffs be understood as part of a broader loss of faith in those rules among American policymakers? Or is it something else entirely — a bid to remake the relationship between capital and political power within the United States itself?
While debate over AI regulation in the United States has largely focused on safety, the future of AI progress will also be determined by market structure. To ensure continued innovation, policymakers must use antitrust tools to protect competition at all levels of the supply chain — from hardware and cloud infrastructure to models hubs and consumer applications.
Offshore jurisdictions don’t just hide wealth — they enable the climate crisis by shielding the fossil fuel industry from taxes, environmental regulation, and political accountability. The Caribbean’s role as a hub for regulatory havens underscores the deep entanglement between colonial extraction, global capitalism, and environmental degradation.
The history of Check It, a Black LGBTQ+ safety network in D.C., demonstrates that when the state criminalizes survival, community empowerment becomes the most vital form of resistance.
Amid growing federal attacks, public sector workers can’t count on the courts for protection. Instead, they should take inspiration from the trade unionists who organized before the passage of the National Labor Relations Act.
When students, staff, or faculty are accused of being associated or “aligned” with terrorist organizations, universities may be pressed to take immediate and harsh action, if only to quell media attention and appear compliant with this lawless Administration’s wishes. Universities must prepare for this possibility, learn about the underlying legal frameworks, and refuse to operate on the basis of fear rather than legal necessity or moral principle.
By purging African Americans from the federal workforce, the Trump administration does not merely aim to undermine racial integration; rather, it seeks to bring about the economic immiseration of Black communities, thereby ensuring the entrenchment of a Black American underclass.
Despite discouraging federal policy developments, unions remain well-positioned to protect workers and beat back Trumpism.
Trump’s recent attacks on the judiciary are best understood as an effort to lay the groundwork for a gradual shift in public opinion — to normalize the idea that defying court orders is not only acceptable but maybe even expected among his base.
According to recent judicial decisions, the state can criminalize homelessness, ban abortion, and restrict gender-affirming care, all in the name of public health, yet it cannot mandate vaccines nor pause evictions. How should we understand this asymmetry, and how might we realign public health jurisprudence with the pursuit of equality?
If endowments are fundamentally creatures of restriction, they are also in smaller measure creatures of interpretation and discretion. Universities should use what flexibility they do have to stand up for their programs, employees, and students – for the core constituents in a mission-driven environment – in this time of unprecedented assault.
