Jonathan Feingold

@jpygold

critical race theory should be on your syllabus.

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Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· 13d

It is this uncomfortable place—the recognition that universities might, in fact, be sites of antidemocracy—that motivated the Boston University Law Review’s 2025 Symposium on “The University and Democracy.” 🚨Incoming🚨 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

FOREWORD
THE UNIVERSITIES WILL NOT SAVE US
In the spring of 2024, thousands of university students joined campus protests
advocating for Palestinian human rights and calling on their institutions to divest
from Israel’s military assault on Gaza.1 The student action echoed historical
protest movements that universities routinely celebrate in their brochures,
monuments, and signage.2 Yet rather than embrace their students’ principled
activism, universities across the country deployed militarized force against their
own communities.3 From elite Ivies in the northeast, to large privates in the
Midwest, to state schools in Texas and California, administrators greeted
peaceful protest with discipline, smears, and physical violence.4
The campus repression coincided with an official country visit from Farida
Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to education.5 The
Special Rapporteur’s subsequent report documented violence and repression
directed at students on university campuses:

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· 19d

Useful 🧵on fascistic rhetoric like “communist” / “terrorist” deployed to consolidate power by turning centrists & liberals against their allies on the left. Precisely what Du Bois was explaining in 1958 — featured here in @drcbs.bsky.social’s “Black Scare/RedScare”

The octogenarian went on to argue that, because the primary aim of the United States was to preserve economic exploitation rooted in racial hierarchy domestically and abroad, it “invented witchwords” to criminalize those who struggled for an alternative society. . . . Today the word is communism.

The communist/revolutionist/scoundrel who believed in economic equality and Black liberation and as a fundamental menace to profit, property, and racial propriety, and was therefore criminal, subversive, and un-American. These narrations not only normalized capitalism, imperialism, and racism over and against socialism, self-determination and racial equality, but also dictated the distribution of rights, resources, life and death.

Cover of Black Scare / Red Scare by Charisse Burden Stelly

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· 20d

It's come to this. The people are standing up to protect Texas' public universities from their own administrators & government. *People’s Hearing on Protecting Ethnic and Women’s and Gender Studies in Texas Higher Education* Wednesday, August 12, 2026 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.

You are invited: The People's Hearing Threats to Diversity and Academic Freedom in Higher Education

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· 22d

the @aft.org @aaup.org @legaldefensefund.bsky.social complaint against Texas Tech is a banger. Apparently the word "systemic" is out because it will trigger the Regents. And oh yea, no reading Ta-Nehisi Coates. The fear these folks have of educated 20 year olds is something to behold.

In a meeting with a Texas Tech administrator, Member #11 was also asked to remove the word "systemic" from the "Pedagogy" class syllabus. Specifically, member 11 was asked if they were "able to say the same thing without saying 'systemic barriers.' The adminstrator clarified, "That word, that one is going to be a trigger word for them [referring to the board of regents]."

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· 22d

Derrick Bell’s ‘95 “who’s afraid of critical race theory” unrivaled in its display of piercing wit and unapologetic humor. Intended for authors of the Bell Curve but could so easily apply any number of bylines in today’s leading presses. racism.org/articles/law...

Finally, Dr. Herrnstein and Mr. Murray may have feared that, even if they were to convince a reluctant America of blacks' superior intelligence and ability—much of which has been smothered by racial discrimination—that reality may have opened the question for many whites as to whether they had not been similarly disadvantaged on the basis of class. Such a long-overdue revelation could well spark serious political unrest and perhaps a rebellion.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· 23d

Texas public universities have become walking lawsuits waiting to happen. Here's A&M selectively purging course content about racism & the LGTBQ+ community. If only there were a national panic about free speech crises on campus. www.chronicle.com/article/thes...

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· 26d

The refrain to superior “culture” always brings to mind this 1949 testimony from DuBois. Here in @drcbs.bsky.social’s classic Black Scare, Red Scare. @beaubaumann.bsky.social @evanbernick.bsky.social @adamserwer.bsky.social

When William Edward burghardt de bois testified before the us house committee on foreign relations on August 8, 1949 in opposition to the military assistance bill, the historian and vice chairman of the council on African affairs presented an invaluable assessment of the connection between capitalism, racism, imperialism and war. “Why in gods name do we want to control the earth? Is it because of our success in ruling men? We want to rule Russia and we cannot rule Alabama.”

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· 28d

incoming and i am so excited to read them all.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· 29d

hahaha. apparently lee jussim and social science have not heard of donald trump, the supreme court, ice, the state of florida, pete hegseth, harvard university, jd vance, the DOJ, banks, convenience stores, X, yale university or the united states.

Implicit Bias and Racism
Recent Social Science Finds Little or No Anti-Black Discrimination
Some studies find small anti-Black biases, some find no bias at all, and some find pro-Black biases
Lee Jussim
Jul 02, 2026
∙ Paid

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jul 7

11th Circuit holds 2-1 that Florida's "Stop Woke Act" is unconstitutional as applied to higher ed. Upholds lower court injunction. Trump appointed judge Lagoa dissents, would hold that legisltors can control professor speech in university classrooms.

That is not to say that universities, and even sometimes state governments, cannot exercise ordinary employee management, make ordinary curriculum decisions (like which majors or courses to offer), or otherwise ensure competent academic instruction. But there is nothing ordinary about the authority Florida seeks here. The level of control that Florida demands—total—would be inconsistent not only with our Nation’s traditional constitutional protections for academic freedom, but also with the doctrines Florida cobbles together to support its suppression of disfavored viewpoints.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jul 7

roughly 50% of K-12 students live in a state that's outlawed accurate teaching about U.S. history, racism, gender . . . papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

image of map from CRT Forward tracking project.

https://crtforward.law.ucla.edu/map/

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jul 6

as Yale's President & Tustees consider colluding with Trump, I am forced to admit my own mistakes. Apparently the folks who run elite universities were we're not ambivalent, but instead opportunistic. bravo to the students, faculty and community pushing back. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Ambivalent Advocates: Why Elite Universities Compromised the Case for Affirmative Action Jonathan P. Feingold* ABSTRACT “The end of affirmative action.” The headline is coming. When it arrives, scholars will explain that a controversial set of policies could not withstand unfriendly doctrine and less friendly Justices. This story is not wrong. But it is incomplete. This account masks an underappreciated source of affirmative action’s enduring instability: elite universities, affirmative action’s formal defenders, have long been ambivalent advocates. Elite universities are uniquely positioned to shape legal and lay opinions about affirmative action. They are named parties in affirmative action litigation and objects of public obsession. Yet schools like Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—embroiled in litigation now before the Supreme Court—avoid the facts and theories that would buttress their own race-conscious programs against predictable lines of attack. As a result, affirmative action’s formal advocates enable the case against affirmative action. In this Article, I examine how common institutional dynamics disincentivize elite universities from marshaling the most compelling case for their own policies. The consequences transcend discrete legal disputes. Affirmative action debates have long comprised sites of contestation over what, if anything, is necessary to overcome America’s legacy of white supremacy. When universities understate the case for affirmative action, they do more than compromise their own modest interventions. They also enable a resurgent right-wing campaign to discredit antiracism as the new racism and antiracists as the new racists.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jul 1

while "leaders on the right resisted a peaceful transfer of power" and embrace Nazism, many on the left think America is a hypocritical and racist place. [kudos to Rick Kahlenberg and the folks at Progressive Policy Institute for this master class in both-sides-ism.]

In addition, young Americans have grown up in an age of rising illiberalism on the political right and left. They have witnessed leaders on the right who have resisted the peaceful transfer of power, and articulated a disturbing vision of an America defined mostly by blood and soil. Meanwhile, on the left, many suggest it is acceptable to shout down speakers; that racial and ethnic identities are more important than a shared American identity; that America is defined less by the vision enunciated in 1776 than by white supremacy and the importation of enslaved people in 1619; and that America is more often a force for evil than good in the world. Finally, America’s education system has become so focused on particular identities, “global citizenship,” and careerism that it has failed to convey to young people the extraordinary nature of their civic inheritance. Young people of privilege, facing intense pressure to attend certain schools, secure plum jobs, and adopt certain opinions, lose sight of how fortunate they are to live in the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. Our schools and colleges dwell so heavily on negative aspects of the American story that an astonishing four in 10 Gen Z respondents are more likely to describe the Founders as “villains” than as “heroes.”

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jun 29

finally writing the full chapter that explains why academic freedom requires a deep commitment to DEI & realized Texas is now this hypothetical. Only took 1.5 yrs. tldr: MAGA U and Multiracial U both have values; but only one has an academic freedom problem. lpeproject.org/blog/why-aca...

Leiter suggests that the AAUP supports DEI Statements because “diversity” aligns with the organization’s values, and that the AAUP is willing to sacrifice academic freedom to further that goal. To press this point, Leiter imagines a fictional university that adopts a MAGA “pro-American” policy that rewards “teaching, research, and service that respond to the needs of Trump’s America and its allies.” Surely the MAGA policy would undercut academic freedom, and since DEI statements and pro-America statements both advance “extramural social goals,” the two policies must stand or fall together.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jun 16

I hope folks understand that MAGA's war on DEI is inseparable from Trump's assault on birthright citizenship. Exh A: Goldwater Inst. new report urging Arizona to ban "DEI" in higher ed. Wondering what the offending curriculum includes? Japanese Americans' fight for citizenship.

In the list of required readings for the course, there are only two that could plausibly be considered “founding documents”: the U.S. Constitution (which appears in only one section of the course) and the Declaration of Sentiments from the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention. Almost every other reading comes from specialized anthropological studies, including “‘I’m American, not Japanese!: The Struggle for Racial Citizenship among Later-Generation Japanese Americans” and “Replicate, Facilitate, Disseminate: The Micropolitics of U.S. Democracy Promotion in Bolivia.” Revealing the course’s leftist orientation, one module covers “anthropology’s role in American Empire Building,” requiring students to read excerpts from Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jun 12

these DOJ complaints against med schools are obvi morally bad bc they're laden with anti-Black animus. but they're also legally stupid. it's literally been decades since CA schools consider applicant race as a factor in admissions.

DOJ finds that uc davis medical school considers race in admissions.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jun 11

City Journal is such a silly racism mill. Were we living in 1968 their headline would’ve read “[big bad foundation] is funding a resistance against segregation academies.” My goodness one would hope so.

The Mellon Foundation Is Funding a Resistance Against Civics Schools
Meeting minutes show the American Association of University Professors is trying to undermine civic leadership schools.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jun 10

This is an interesting test of sorts that I wrote about a couple years ago. As recently as 2024, MAGA's segregationist politics were outpacing SCOTUS's own appetite. I don't actually think the SCOTUS votes have changed even if MAGA's own appetite has grown. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The “end of affirmative action” is the beginning of this story. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), the Supreme Court struck a near fatal blow to race-consciousness. Many institutions have since pivoted to “race neutral alternatives.” This is a natural turn. But one that faces immediate headwinds.

The same entities that demanded Harvard pursue racial diversity through colorblind means have sued public high schools for doing just that. These litigants assert a “right to inequality”—a theory that would pit the Equal Protection Clause against equality itself. Even if normatively jarring, a right to inequality might seem a natural extension of SFFA and decades of conservative caselaw hostile to remedial reform.

That sentiment is understandable. But it misreads the caselaw and overlooks a striking irony. The Supreme Court’s fifty-year war on affirmative action culminated in SFFA. But the same caselaw that precipitated affirmative action’s demise fortifies the constitutional case for colorblind remedies—the precise conduct a right to inequality would preclude. To enshrine such a right, sitting conservative Justices would have to abandon their own principles and precedent. This includes longstanding disregard for theories of equality that center groups and outcomes--both of which animate the right to inequality lawsuits. This means that conservative litigants, should they prevail, would benefit from concerns long associated with progressive causes. One corresponding question is whether a right to inequality--because it attends to group-based impacts—could re-empower racial justice advocates to challenge colorblind policies that conservative Justices have long shielded from legal scrutiny.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jun 4

new draft for anyone who felt the DNC autoposy might've missed something or feels the university distrust narrative a bit misses the mark. w @isaackamola.bsky.social. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

MAGA’S BLUE STATE STRATEGY: HOW DEMOCRATS AND UNIVERSITY LEADERS HELPED THE REACTIONARY RIGHT WEAPONIZE ANTISEMITISM AGAINST HIGHER EDUCATION JONATHAN FEINGOLD* & ISAAC KAMOLA** CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 102 I. THE BLM BACKLASH .......................................................................... 108 II. FROM “CRT IS RACIST” TO “DEI IS ANTISEMITIC” ............................. 111 III. THE DEMOCRATS OBLIGED ................................................................. 116 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................... 130

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jun 4

precisely why it's so unserious for anyone to support an institutional neutrality that means taking no sides on "controversial" topics. newrepublic.com/article/2100...

Basically, these professors say, anything deemed offensive to the Trump administration, which could thereby put federal funding to the university at risk, can elicit unwanted attention from Penn’s Office of General Counsel. Faculty in the School of Medicine even told me that efforts to urge Congress to preserve science funding were suppressed by Penn administrators. The pursuit of science, they were effectively told, is now categorized as partisan politics. (Penn’s Office of General Counsel declined my requests for an interview.)

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jun 3

well i guess now we know how he has all that time for the second gig...as acting archivist of the united states. the whole America 250 website is a wild ride. america250.org

Photo of Marco Rubio, Secretary of State next to photo of Marco Rubio, Acting Archivist of the United States on America 250 website.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jun 2

Kudos to the students, parents, and educators who said we’re gona show up if you do. www.masslive.com/education/20...

Trump’s ed secretary again cancels visit to a Mass. school, this time ahead of protest
Updated: Jun. 02, 2026, 10:37 a.m.|Published: Jun. 02, 2026, 9:31 a.m.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jun 1

Trump trans military ban "appears to be driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender." -DC Circuit with searing words upholding injunitton against Trump / Hegseth trans military ban.

In this litigation, the government has not attempted to
defend or provide any factual basis for these disparaging
characterizations of American citizens. Indeed, the
government has not contested that the Plaintiff-Appellees who
are currently serving (and who have collectively earned more
than 80 commendations) have served honorably and pose no
threat to national security, even though they happen to be
transgender and have suffered from gender dysphoria.
Instead, the government contends that this case is solely
about whether, pursuant to the Hegseth Policy, the military can
disqualify persons from military service because they have
gender dysphoria, a mental health condition. But the record
shows that the purpose of the Hegseth Policy is to target
applicants and servicemembers who express what the
Administration believes is a “false gender identity,” and the

Policy goes far beyond disqualifying persons currently or
recently suffering from gender dysphoria. Some of those
disqualifications are completely unexplained and have no
reasonable justification. The sharp contrast to the Mattis
Policy, adopted in the first Trump Administration, which
allowed servicemembers who were transgender or who had
suffered from gender dysphoria to remain in the military,
appears to be driven by the bare desire to harm a politically
unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender. As
such, at this preliminary stage, I conclude that the Hegseth
Policy is both arbitrary and based upon animus, and for those
reasons the Policy violates Plaintiff-Appellees’ constitutional
right to equal protection of the law.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· Jun 1

i think we've reached the point where we need not sanitize the obvi that these dudes are throwback 1920s segregationists with a fondness for eugenics. "anti-diversity" doesn't really say the loud part out loud. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/u...

Hegseth Strikes Female and Black Navy Officers From Promotion List
The defense secretary’s decision to block the officers’ promotions appears driven by his anti-diversity stance rather than based on merit.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· May 28

elite law schools are no less ensared in this than the big law firms they cater to. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/o...

It is a fiction to think that a legal landscape organized around the principle of concentrating power and profit can operate to the benefit of our democracy. It is a fiction to think that a few well-intentioned pro bono hours can compensate for the rest of the work that we do. It is a fiction to think that individual actors can compensate for the drift of a system that works tirelessly to entrench those in power. And it is a fiction to think that lawyers can still be carrying out, as Samuel Adams observed, “one rule of justice for rich and poor” when the real-world impact of the legal industry is anything but.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· May 27

another court win for DEI & university researchers v. Trump. in another case that the researchers had to bring because their university (here UC) wasn't fighting back. bravo to the UC Berkeley team who spearheaded the litigation. cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/op...

The panel affirmed the preliminary injunction with respect to the DEI Termination Class. The panel held that the DEI Termination Class is likely to succeed on the merits of its First Amendment claim, where the agencies selected particular grants for termination regardless of the programs through which they were funded, and made decisions to terminate based only on the recipients’ perceived expression of DEI, DEIA, or environmental justice viewpoints. Because the agencies’ termination of grants was aimed at the suppression of viewpoints with which the government disagrees, it likely violates the First Amendment.

The panel affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s preliminary injunction ordering the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities to reinstate University of California (UC) research grants that the agencies had terminated pursuant to certain Executive Orders, and remanded.

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· May 22

this exchange bw @janainelson.bsky.social & @nhannahjones.bsky.social captures, with precision, why pro-democracy movements will not prevail unless they are self-counsciously and outspokenly anti-racist movements. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/m...

“It needs to be emphasized again and again: What is happening is an assault on democracy, and they’re using the easiest vector, which is anti-Black racism, because it’s the easiest thing you could do, the laziest thing you can do,” Nelson said. “They are cementing absolute minority control because they do not represent a majority of this country. And when they — if they — get away with the heist, we will be locked out of multiracial democracy for at least a generation.”

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· May 22

Wondering you to democratize your university & protect the sector from authoritarians? Gota read this new piece from Dave Pozen & @danielhemel.bsky.social. Great roadmap for any blue state that wants to lead the charge 👋 @govpritzker.illinois.gov papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Recent campus controversies have resurrected an old set of faculty and student demands. In response to crackdowns on protests and attacks by the Trump Administration and allied state politicians, a chorus of critics has called on institutions of higher education to “democratize.”1 Echoing the arguments of student activists in the 1960s, these critics insist that more “shared governance” is needed for universities to protect free speech and academic freedom, rebuild trust within their communities, and fend off threats to their mission.2 “At a time when autocracy is rising nationwide,” a representative student editorial contends, it is all the more important for universities to “respond with democracy.”3

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· May 21

Had not realized one of the chat group leaders was a law student. Nor that it took student pressure to force FIU’s leadership to act. Nor that FIU was harsher towards students who protested ICE. What a mess. Also this chat group is part of Charlie Kirk legacy folks were fired for criticizing.

FIU suspends former campus Republican leaders for 2 years over racist group chat

Jonathan Feingold@jpygold· May 19

Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther hits prime time. They are targeting the Gaza Flotilla. One of the most pernicious weapnizations of antisemitism we’ve seen. Very bad for anyone who cares about any form of dissent. www.state.gov/releases/off...