Copy

What We're Watching:

Graduate Student Unions


Graduate student workers at many universities are renewing or amplifying calls for better working conditions, higher pay, and more involvement in decision-making processes. Many groups are moving to unionize, further complicating delicate relationships between campus stakeholder groups and university administrators.

As pushes for unionization unfold, we are seeing inter-organizational cooperation with groups such as United Auto Workers and with established graduate student unions amplifying the voices of emerging movements.
  1. Over 10,000 University of California graduate students submit intent to unionize.
  2. MIT graduate students signal intent to formally unionize.
  3. Hamilton College diversity workers seek to unionize after graduate workers in the school's admissions office voted to unionize one month prior. 
  4. The Student Worker Collective at Dartmouth College pen an open letter to the school's administration and Columbia University's student workers come to an agreement with the administration after almost ten weeks of striking. 
  5. Indiana University rejects a request from nearly 1,600 graduate student workers to hold a union election. 
  6. Wesleyan University student workers hold public demonstrations as part of ongoing efforts to unionize.
  7. MIT graduate students vote to unionize, approving the move by a 2-to-1 margin. 

Fired Princeton Professor Fights Back


On Monday, Princeton University's board of trustees voted to fire tenured professor Joshua Katz, citing the president's earlier recommendation and a review of a sexual misconduct investigation of which Katz was the subject. 

The next day, Katz penned an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal claiming the school "fed him to the cancel culture mob." Katz argued that the decision was made disingenuously and that his previous public criticisms of the school's "antiracist demands" were the actual cause of his dismissal, while the decade-old sexual misconduct offense was merely a cover.

 
Quick Reads:
COVID-19 in Higher Ed:

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact university campuses, we will continue to monitor coverage around emerging trends
  • One recently fired University of Michigan staffer is suing the school over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all students, faculty, and staff. 
    • MLive - 909 engagements
       
  • A Cornell University professor published a research letter claiming the school's safety protocols including masking and vaccine mandates were ineffective in limiting COVID-19 spread on campus. 
    • Trending Politics - 124 engagements
       
  • The Iowa state senate recently voted to approve House File 2298 which will prohibit vaccine requirements for university students. The bill needs Gov. Kim Reynolds' signature to become law. 
    • Iowa Capital Dispatch - 124 engagements

Trending topics by % increase

Buildings and Monuments: 
  • May 18 | Twitter | Jeff Jacoby | 134 Retweets: "The @WashingtonPost published an essay calling for George Washington University to be renamed because its namesake owned slaves. But only someone blinded by wokeness would deny that Washington was a towering hero of liberty."
  • May 20 | Alamo City Guards | 234 Engagements: "The Baylor University Board of Regents voted Friday to rename a campus quadrangle and relocate a statue of a slave-owning former university president more than a year after a university-commissioned report recommended the changes."
Amateurism: 
  • May 18 | Twitter l Mike Rodak | 610 Retweets: "Saban: We were 2nd in recruiting last year. A&M was first. A&M bought every player on their team. Made a deal for name, image and likeness. We didn’t buy one player. But I don’t know if we’re going to be able to sustain that in the future because more and more people are doing it"
  • May 19 | Twitter l Stewart Mandel | 40 Retweets: "NIL attorney Mike Caspino: "Having worked with (A&M's collective), everything Jimbo Fisher said is 100 percent correct and true. He didn’t violate any bylaws if you keep the collective separate (from the school). A&M and their collective are just very good at what they do."
Campus Safety: 
  • May 24 | Twitter l Craig Nason | 13k Retweets:Columbine survivor here. My oldest son just finished his first year of college. This is America. There is no end in sight for the steady cadence of mass gun violence we seem unwilling to ever address. A reality my peers could not have imagined on our worst day in April 1999."
  • May 24 | Twitter l Jasper Scherer | 631 Retweets: "With @GovAbbott confirming 14 children and one teacher were killed in Tuesday's shooting at a Uvalde elementary school, this is now the 4th-deadliest school shooting in modern U.S. history, behind only Virginia Tech (2007), Sandy Hook (2012) and Parkland (2018)."
Financial Misconduct: 
  • May 22 | Twitter l David Sirota | 256 Retweets: “Why is it good that we tell teenagers they have to take on a lifetime of debt to get a higher education? Why is this good for anyone other than lenders and the politicians those lenders bribe?”
  • May 19 | ABC | 271 Engagements: "Two men convicted of buying their kids’ way into top universities will stay out of prison while they appeal their cases in the college admissions bribery scheme, a Boston judge ordered Thursday. Also Thursday, another judge ruled that a woman who worked for the mastermind of the scheme and took online classes for students to boost their admission prospects won't serve time behind bars."

Trending topics by total volume

Cost of Attendance: 
  • May 18 | Twitter l Occupy Democrats | 8.8k Retweets: "BREAKING: Billionaire Mark Cuban comes out in support of Joe Biden’s proposal to cancel at least $10,000 in student loans per borrower and calls for ensuring that universities no longer charge “ridiculous” fees. RT IF YOU SUPPORT BIDEN’S PROPOSAL"
  • May 12 | CBS | 4.2k Engagements: "We will end up funding about 30,000 individuals to go to college or trade school in the city of Chicago. Over the next decade. That makes this the largest scholarship program in the country."
COVID-19: 
  • May 25 | FOX | 6k Engagements:Dozens of cultural and educational institutions spent millions in taxpayers dollars from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package to fund programs pushing social and climate justice.”
Campus Safety: 
  • May 24 | Twitter l Gabrielle Perry | 217 Retweets: "QUICK FACTS: The VA Tech shooter had been sexually harassing women on campus for months prior to the shooting. School did nothing. Sandy Hook shooter murdered his mama immediately before the event. UT Austin shooter stabbed his mama and wife to death the night before."
Amateurism: 
  • May 19 | Twitter l Elijah Simmons Fan | 253 Retweets: "The schools with the best NIL right now are : Texas, Texas A&M, Miami, USC, Tennessee. All schools who have sucked for a while, but have the resources and tradition to be GREAT. THATS why Saban doesn’t like it. Don’t get it twisted .."

Trending universities/colleges by % increase

NYU: ▲Commencement
  • May 19 | The Hollywood Reporter | 33.4K Engagements: “Taylor Swift Delivers NYU Commencement Address: “My Mistakes Led to the Best Things in My Life.” After being awarded an honorary doctorate of fine arts, the superstar singer-songwriter offered words of encouragement to students while also reflecting on the highs and lows of her career.”
Virginia Tech: Athletics ▲Campus Safety
  • May 24 | Twitter | Giffords | 376 Retweets: “t's now reported that 18 children and three adults are dead in Uvalde, Texas. This is now the third deadliest school shooting in US history after Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech. No one policy can save every life. But Texas's current laws aren't even trying to save any. #txlege”
Texas A&M: ▲Athletics
  • May 19 | ESPN | 16.4K Engagements: “Alabama coach Nick Saban singled out Texas A&M for "buying" its top-ranked signing class and threw a spotlight on the unintended effect of name, image and likeness rights on recruiting during an event with local business leaders Wednesday night in Birmingham.”
  • May 19 | Twitter | Ari Meirov | 3K Retweets:Texas A&M HC Jimbo Fisher just fired back at Nick Saban for saying they "bought" recruits. Fisher calls Saban a "narcissist" and says he won't take his call. "We built him up to be this czar of football. Go dig into his past."”
University of Alabama: ▲Athletics
  • May 23 | Alabama Athletics | 4.5K Engagements: “Ashley Priess-Johnston has been named the head coach of The University of Alabama gymnastics program, UA Director of Athletics Greg Byrne announced Monday. Johnston will be formally introduced at a press conference on Friday.”
  • May 18 | Twitter | Billy Liucci | 292 Retweets: “The accusations are bad enough, but super ballsy of Nick Saban to walk around repeatedly saying his program has never bought a player. Dude acts as if he doesn't have folks who have worked for him at LSU and Bama scattered all over college football.”  

Trending universities/colleges by total volume

Yale University: ▲Free Speech
  • May 21 | Twitter | | Ian Millhiser | 5.6K Retweets: “I can't believe that this needs to be said, but the states of Texas and Florida using their sovereign authority to target companies for their speech is actually a bigger threat to the First Amendment then a bunch of Yale students protesting someone.”
  • May 20 | Twitter | Duty to Warn | 1.2K Retweets: “Elon Musk tweeted that Yale Medical School was “the epicenter of the woke mind virus attempting to destroy civilization.” Who hates academics and experts? Fascists, Communists, Nazis, and authoritarians of all stripes. Elon Musk is very, very dangerous.”
Texas A&M: ▲Athletics
  • May 19 | ESPN | 6.8K Engagements:Jimbo Fisher delivered a fiery rebuttal to Alabama football coach Nick Saban's comments from Wednesday night that Texas A&M "bought every player" in its vaunted 2022 recruiting class, calling Saban's comments "despicable" numerous times in a quickly assembled 9½-minute news conference.”
Harvard: Discrimination ▲Cost of Attendance 
  • May 23 | Twitter | Elizabeth Warren | 574 Retweets: “Proportion of Harvard students who borrow federal money to go to school: 2%. U. of Delaware: ~55%. Grambling State: ~90%. By using his power to #CancelStudentDebt, President Biden will help the people who’ve been hit the hardest by our broken system.”
  • May 20 | Twitter | Senator Ted Cruz | 108 Retweets: “We should be working together to end the kind of blatant discrimination Harvard is practicing. The Supreme Court has a chance to start the process. 🚨Read my op-ed in @NRO with @RepSteel in the link below🚨”
NYU: ▲Commencement
  • May 19 | The Inquirer | 29.5K Engagements: “Jillian Robredo is one lucky Swiftie as she got to see Grammy Award-winning pop star Taylor Swift at the New York University graduation ceremony. Robredo, one of the graduates at the said commencement, was along with the crowd in cheering when the singer entered the stadium, as seen on Robredo’s Instagram Stories today, May 19. Swift was in the ceremony to receive an honorary degree of fine arts from the university.”
For more information about Canary, email us at

hello@legendlabs.com
Copyright © 2021 Legend Labs, All rights reserved.

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.