It’s a pity that isn’t a default option 
Yes! I prefer OpenDyslexic for anything technical or when I am proofreading something very important. I don’t have any learning disabilities/challenges, but the readability of that font is very good. I wish all my law textbooks had been in that font way back when. They were often tiny times new roman.
“Tradition must give way to safety”? What BS.
BS indeed. Cowardice too.
Viet Thanh Nguyen, who teaches there, and is author of The Sympathizer:
“a swarm of on- and off-campus groups attacked Tabassum. They targeted her minor, resistance to genocide, as well as her pro-Palestinian views and “likes” expressed through her Instagram account.”
I am disgusted and angered by this failure of courage and commitment on the part of the administration. I have a hard time believing that if a Jewish student was receiving similar threats, that the university would back down. Our core principles of always seeking truth and justice, being open to free speech and fair-mindedness, and being creative thinkers would have prevailed. USC has considerable security forces, connections to the LAPD and the Governor for the National Guard, wealthy connections of many kinds. The speaker could have delivered her speech via video or had it distributed as text. There could be ten minutes of silence during the time she would have given her speech. During her speech, those who opposed her could have booed, turned their backs, walked out, and expressed their free speech rights. None of these options have so far been offered or can happen.
University presidents have been forced to resign for being supposedly insufficiently against anti-Semitism. Students from Vanderbilt and Pomona have been expelled and arrested for protesting for Palestinians. Now this. It’s very clear where the force of censorship, silencing, and intimidation has fallen.
USC has disgraced itself. I am out of town for the commencement, but if I were present, I would refuse to attend the commencement and announce it. I don’t know why any faculty member would attend the commencement and endorse this failure by the administration to support its student and to stand for academic principles.
Wait, so resistance to genocide is a problem? We should be pro-genocide? Or is it only certain genocides that are OK? They are all torqued up about so-called “white genocide.” But this is an issue.
Relevant to this topic, a fairly damning critique of the state of affairs, and first hand testimony by the always (rather often(?) insightful Sabine Hossenfelder -
Her hot take on autism was … not great.
Haven’t seen that one, but good to know - from what I’ve seen of her presentations I’d probably confine “always” here to some-value of “physics”
Except when it comes to trans people… then, she can just STFU.
Yep, that too. I had forgotten about that.
Oh, and capitalism…
Sounds like it’s okay then to go back to knowing nothing at all about this person and their content. 
She’s decent on physics topics. But i fear she suffers from physicists’ disease, where the assumption is “i know physics, so everything else is so simple and obvious!” (Narrator: “It’s not. It never was.”)
It seems to be a common affliction from other fields too… engineering and psychology seem to be fields that attract that nonsense.
It’s how we know it in medicine, mostly due to Linus Pauling and his rather infamous trail of woo. But absolutely true, anybody who knows a lot about one field can pretty easily fool themselves into thinking they know an equally large amount about another, despite having spent years studying one, and only doing a quick Google search on the other. Something I have to be alert to about myself!
I came here with that video link copied, ready to post.
I’m not a listening type (auditory processing issues) but this is worth watching from beginning to end.
ETA: thanks guys, for the info that outside of physics she’s not a role model at all.
Came here to say this, she’s marked red in Shinigami Eyes for a reason.
Agreed, her questionable takes in other areas aside - (of which I wasn’t previously aware either), I shared the video because it rang very true to experiences with academia that my peers (self included) have had.
It really seems that powerful, entrenched institutions - when confronted with an existential challenge (like the late-20th-century defunding of education), just tend to become corrupt and predatory. Maybe that’s simply an example of survivorship bias (non-corrupt institutions died out). Of course, there have always been corrupt strains in these power-structures, but I can’t shake the feeling that the current world, having tilted strongly towards an ascendant market fundamentalism, has reduced all pursuits to an economic functionalism that doesn’t always bring out the best in us.
This reminds me a bit of when my alma mater decided to hand over the beloved, storied student run college radio station to the state wide public broadcaster. There was no notice given, just a dictate that between 5am and 7pm, their station would not broadcast GPB programming, with the evening hours given over to their own broadcasts. The digital broadcast was split into several, including what was on the main station, and then the student-run station on the second digital channel. It was enraging…
In other university news…
Prof. Jodi Dean writes:
I am moved and grateful by the outpouring of solidarity I’ve received since I was suspended from teaching. Among the letters sent in my behalf is the one from Dana Naomi Mills, a peace activist in Tel Aviv. She’s given me permission to post it.
Dear President Gearan,
I hope this finds you well, in these turbulent times, and Happy Passover, if you, like me, are marking this holiday.
I worked as an academic for 20 years, holding positions in institutions including Tel Aviv University, University of Oxford (from which I also obtained a DPhil), NYU, Bard College and University of Amsterdam. I came across Prof. Dean’s work, and then met her in person. Both encounters have been transformative for me.
I was shocked and saddened to hear that Hobart and William Smith Colleges have relieved Prof. Dean of her teaching responsibilities due to her writing on the Israeli attacks on Gaza while claiming that her views might make students feel ‘unsafe’. This is a dangerous, volatile and undemocratic decision that has grave consequences for academic freedom and freedom of speech generally. I implore you to revoke this decision.
Like all Israelis, I was shocked deeply by the October 7 attacks. I have family lives in the South of Israel and I have many friends and comrades who were directly affected. Like many Israelis I also know some of the families of those taken hostage to Gaza. I know these attacks were shocking to Jews worldwide. These attacks are not without context; Israel’s occupation of Palestine, including a 17 year long siege on Gaza, cannot be erased when discussing these matters, including safety of Jews in Israel- Palestine and abroad. The case discussed in the ICJ regarding the crime of genocide (South Africa vs. Israel) is a watershed moment internationally.
Silencing critique of Israel will not make Israelis safer, nor will it make Jews in the diaspora safer. We, Israeli defenders of human rights, are shocked by the actions of our government, and know well that they won’t end without international pressure. Allowing this ruthless military assault to go unchecked is not only horrendous for Palestinian safety; it damages us Jews and Israelis, too. No one is free until everyone is free.
…
Shutting down debate on real- world politics by expelling academics is a dangerous precedent. Weaponizing questions of safety (and by extension, antisemitism-- Jewish safety) while silencing critique of Israel is dangerous in its own right and makes Jews around the world unsafe.I am writing this to you as I am willing to speak out publicly on behalf of Prof. Dean, to connect to any student who might wish to speak with me; I would be very happy to have a correspondence or conversation on zoom about freedom of speech and Israel/ Palestine.
In 2020 I published a biography of Rosa Luxemburg, an activist and thinker both Prof. Dean and myself turn towards for inspiration. Prof. Dean wrote warmly and generously of the book; an endorsement that meant a lot to me. Luxemburg is famous for having written: ‘freedom is always and exclusively the freedom for the one who thinks differently’. I am asking you to consider this statement in the context of our times, revoke the decision considering Prof. Dean’s teaching responsibilities and return her immediately to your classrooms, especially this Passover, the Holiday of Freedom.
Please feel free to be in touch, connect me to anyone who has relevant queries, or pass on my contact to anyone who wishes to have an open conversation with an Israeli who is saddened and horrified by how her country’s actions are used to silence important voices and shut down debates.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Dana Mills
Tel Aviv
