iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

To me, the authors are pointing to the way our structures create a world where econ award winners work at a select number of institutions and not necessarily saying the winners are the "best" economists. They highlight some of this argument here.

Screenshot of working paper which reads: From one perspective, a shared methodology is a scientific benefit. When economists
working on different subjects use the same techniques, their results can be compared and
built upon, allowing readers to judge work well outside their own area. On this reading, the
concentration documented above is part of how that standard is set: the institutions pro-
ducing most of the field’s recognized work also establish the toolkit that the rest of the field
adopts. Because that toolkit travels, economics has extended beyond its traditional concerns
with markets and prices into crime, family structure, discrimination, and institutions, and
now ranges more widely in subject than any other social science.
But there is an alternative, less favorable view. If the institutions producing most of
the field’s recognized work also set its methodological standard, then meeting that standard
becomes the condition of entry. The institutions that set the standard therefore shape what
the field produces. On this view, work using an unfamiliar approach is hard to place or
recognize, and findings that disagree with the main tenets of the field are rejected rather
than studied as special cases that may yield new knowledge—winsorized away as if they have
nothing to teach us. The wide range of topics is consistent with this reading as well: when
the method is shared, novelty comes from the subject rather than from the approach.

Screenshot of working paper which reads: The two readings are hard to separate because they agree about the published record and
disagree about the unpublished one. Both expect the papers we observe to be methodolog-
ically uniform. They differ over the work that could have appeared but did not, and over
the work that was published and ignored when it could have helped us improve economic
well-being—whether such analysis was set aside because its methods were inadequate to the
question, or because its issues and methods were unfamiliar to the people judging it. The
published record cannot decide between them.
Absent further evidence, it is reasonable to expect that both effects are at work: shared
methodology has pluses and minuses, with some ideal point where marginal benefit equals
marginal cost. Has the rising concentration of awards in economics gone beyond the point
where the shared methodology brings the best advance in knowledge, has it reached that
point, or will more concentration produce more gains in knowledge in economics? The
divergence of economics from all other fields, including social sciences, natural sciences,
engineering, and mathematics, makes it hard to dismiss the interpretation that the costs
have moved beyond the benefits. On either reading, the data establish that economics has
moved against a trend in every other discipline we examine and that the divergence has
widened rather than narrowed.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Finally a proper working paper for this study that produced one of the most astounding figures I've ever seen. Basically economics is different from every other field, empirically. This paper looks at the concentration of university affiliations for award winners. www.nber.org/papers/w35875

Figure 2 from the paper: institutional concentration of university affiliation at time of award correlated with institutional concentration of phd granting university. Economics is the most concentrated of any field.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I read the ending and I wanted to koolaid man through a wall!!

Screenshot of article which reads: To restore a functioning and
pluralistic democracy in the United States, reversing over a decade of
democratic backsliding in the world’s oldest democracy, the thing to
“fix” is not polarization. Polarization is the country’s immune response
to an unpopular, antidemocratic, and intentionally divisive faction grabbing for disproportionate power to the detriment of national success,
reputation, and democratic self-government. Tamping down that immune response only allows this minority faction to have greater control.

Screenshot of article which reads: But the fury of the argument shows the importance of the outcome.
When we focus on polarization as the problem, the solution is for ev-
eryone to quiet down and be “civil”—an outcome that benefits those
who are willing to grab as much power as they can without concern
for legality or civility. When we see the problem for what it is, the
solution is to defend the most robust social progress in American his-
tory—progress that has already been codified into law and enjoyed
by everyone alike. U.S. democracy needs leaders who are willing to
defend those rights and voters who are willing to hold accountable the
leaders who will not defend them. It does not need everyone simply to calm down.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

One more time for the cheap seats in the back!

Screenshot of article which reads: Democrats
and Republicans in the 1950s could agree on many things, as long as
they also agreed that Jim Crow oppression in the American South was
acceptable and that women belonged in the home. Once they started
disagreeing about these things, and especially once they were no longer
the only people allowed in the room, U.S. politics became significantly
more contentious. Not everyone wanted to peacefully extend power to
previously marginalized groups.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Oh, was there conflict when people previously wanted civil rights extended to include them?

Screenshot of article which reads: As the electorate has grown
to include men of color, women, and the poor, it has become more plural-
istic. Contemporary America, for all its flaws, has grown to be a diverse
democracy that continually manages a vast array of opinions, identities,
and cultures. That pluralism is a central reason for the vibrancy and in-
novation of American cultural, intellectual, and political power.
But each of these steps was the result of political and cultural con-
flict. As every new group of Americans was enfranchised, a powerful
political movement opposed it. This opposition was often violent, com-
ing both from the state and from individual citizens who believed that
the ascendant group needed to be put back in its place. Much of this vio-
lence endures today. When marginalized groups have spoken out (often
in a nonviolent manner) against the violence perpetrated against them,
they have often incurred further anger and violence.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

"The current level of political animosity is exactly what one would expect to see if an extremist faction attempted to rescind the hard-earned rights of the vast majority of the country’s citizens." There are not enough exclamation points to convey how I felt reading this paragraph

Screenshot of article which reads: From this perspective, the “both sides” frame falls apart. The prob-
lem is not that the parties are divided. The problem is the existential
threat that a reempowered ethnonationalist strain poses to pluralistic
U.S. democracy writ large. The current level of political animosity is
exactly what one would expect to see if an extremist faction attempted
to rescind the hard-earned rights of the vast majority of the country’s
citizens. The only way to re-oppress most of a country is to use anti-
democratic and authoritarian tactics. And the only way to oppose those
tactics is to push back as a population and clearly reject them. This is
the argument happening in the United States, and its pathology is not
anger—it is the movement to undermine a generation of rights.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

"In other words, the people who are the most 'polarized' in the U.S. electorate are those who are racist and sexist, and those who oppose racists and sexists."

Screenshot of article which reads: These numbers are relatively similar between Democrats and Repub-
licans, which often leads political pundits to claim this is more evidence
of “polarization,” and that both sides are equally to blame. However,
a closer look tells a more interesting story. The people who are most
likely to vilify and dehumanize their partisan opponents are Republicans
who are high in racism and sexism and Democrats who oppose racism
and sexism. The people who are least likely to vilify and dehumanize
their political opponents are Republicans who are low in racism and sex-
ism. One explanation for these patterns is that those Republicans who
are racist and sexist vilify and dehumanize Democrats because they see
the Democratic Party as a party of racial minorities and women; and
Democrats who score low in racism and sexism will vilify and dehu-
manize Republicans because they consider Republicans to be racist and
sexist. In other words, the people who are the most “polarized” in the
U.S. electorate are those who are racist and sexist, and those who op-
pose racists and sexists.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

You have to accurately assess the problem to create proper solutions

Screenshot of article which reads: Partisan polarization is not the greatest threat to American democracy.
It is a vivid and identifiable symptom of the real threat. And it is a popu-
lar frame because it blames no one. But because political polarization is
a symptom, and not the root of the problem that ails us, “fixing” polar-
ization will not restore American democratic health.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Writing something where I will be liberally citing @lilymasonphd.bsky.social's latest and realizing that I can't cite every single thing I would like to because then I'm just reprinting her work. So, I've gotta thread about it instead. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

Screenshot of the article website. Title is: Polarization Is Not the Problem. Author is Lilliana Mason. Journal is the Journal of Democracy, Volume 37, Number 4, October 2026. From Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Remember that this type of targeting reliably follows a hyperfocus on "Communism" in schooling www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Screenshot of this column which reads: Defenders of political repression during the Red Scares pushed the need to have an expansive understanding of Communism. Senator Joseph McCarthy, in an interview with U.S. News & World Report in 1953, explicitly stated that he was going to target “Communists and Communist thinkers” (emphasis added) within education. This perspective trickled down to everyday people. For instance, in Priests of Our Democracy, Marjorie Heins described how one academic’s building superintendent told FBI agents that the “frequent interracial gatherings” at the apartment showed his “communist inclinations.”

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"calling on schools to strengthen instruction on the history and human toll of communism and socialism, and to ensure students understand the principles of liberty underlying America’s constitutional system" Now, where have I seen ideas like this before? Oh! www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Screenshot from my column which reads: As several characters in the classic 1980s movie Clue proclaim, when it came to the Red Scares, “Communism was simply a red herring.” Charisse Burden-Stelly, in her 2023 book, Black Scare/Red Scare, skillfully outlines how Blackness, particularly Black radicalism and the fight for racial justice, became synonymous with Communism and the dreaded moniker of being “un-American.” This scapegoating strategy meant that faculty members could be fired for being a current or former member of the Communist Party or for such transgressions as advocating as a member of a labor union, fighting for racial integration or being Black or homosexual.

Screenshot from my column which reads: And so, the U.S. House of Representatives devoting precious time to passing bills “denouncing the horrors of socialism,” colleges firing or suspending faculty and staff because of their speech, and students getting grabbed off the street for writing opinion pieces seem like relics of the past.

Yet these events are part of our current, dangerous escalation in repression.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Never beating the allegations linkedin

Screenshot of article which reads: Nature has not identified anyone who has admitted paying for such titles, but according to the NAAI’s website, for instance, fees range from $30 annually for a ‘student affiliate’ position to a $600 initiation fee to become a full member. The site also advertises a virtual PhD programme for $10,000 and a virtual postdoc programme for $2,000. In exchange, members receive a suite of digital deliverables, including a “verifiable digital membership card” and an official certificate designed to be shared on platforms such as LinkedIn.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A lot of universities will be facing big deficits and looking to cure what ails them. I just want them to be thoughtful about it.

Screenshot of article which reads: At the same time, new job-focused majors may not be sustainable — and can even backfire. Dominique Baker, an associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Delaware, pointed to the rise in computer-science degrees in the 2010s. At the time, they seemed like the best way to secure a high-paying salary after graduation, she said. But with the rise of generative artificial intelligence, computer-science jobs are increasingly hard to find, and enrollment in such programs is falling significantly.
“When you tie the viability, the financial viability in particular, of an institution really tightly to jobs creation on that scale,” especially as a four-year institution, she said, “you have to be really careful, because you can find that in 10 years that program that you poured all your money into — worthless.”

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

There are legitimate reasons to doubt pangram assessments, especially for people for whom English is not their first language. So I've mainly been going off what the Provost admits to doing, which is using AI as an assistive device and then not disclosing it, even though outlets require that.

Screenshot of article which reads: The questions raised by The Dartmouth’s reporting extend to Schnell’s scholarship. Four academic journals and repositories that published Schnell’s work this year require authors to disclose use of generative AI, with some barring AI-generated material from being presented as an author’s own work. In two of the four papers reviewed by The Chronicle, Schnell disclosed AI use; in the other two, he did not, but they were flagged by Pangram as substantially AI-generated.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Making all my past decisions seem extra amazing

Screenshot of syllabus which reads: September 17
Can a Utopia Exist?
Le Guin, U. K. (1973). The ones who walk away from Omelas. HarperCollins.
Jemisin, N. K. (2020). The ones who stay and fight. Originally published in Til Black Future
Month. Reprinted in Lightspeed Magazine. https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-
who-stay-and-fight/ [Access at the link]
Scott, J. C. (1998/2020). Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition
have failed. Yale University Press. Introduction, Ch 1, and Ch 9.

Supplemental Readings:
Mandeville, B. (1714). The fable of the bees: Or, private vices, publick benefits. [Read only the
poem, pages 4 through 12]

Scott, J. C. (1998/2020). Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition
have failed. Yale University Press. Ch 10

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

If higher ed focuses solely on ROI to rebuild trust, same thing will happen

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The media plays too critical a role in public policy for us to ignore these realities

Screenshot of article which reads: Reporters’ own experience could play a role. Baker and several colleagues looked at the alma maters of reporters at major newspapers who wrote about student loans. Half attended either a public flagship or an Ivy Plus institution. Nationally, just 8 percent of students enroll at these types of colleges.

Screenshot of article which reads: Just two journalists in Baker’s sample, collected over a 15-year period, went to a community college. (The reporter and editor of this article are both graduates of top-ranked liberal-arts colleges.)

At the same time, local reporting on higher education, likely to give more ink to hometown colleges, has dried up, the victim of newspaper consolidation and bankruptcies. What local coverage remains often focuses more on the university as a sports team than as an academic institution.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I already have 2 different things I need to update to cite this.

Screenshot of article which reads: The attention to a coterie of elite universities isn’t confined to campus protest — and it persists despite the number and breadth of institutions in the United States. When The Chronicle examined higher-education coverage in five major national newspapers since President Trump’s inauguration, we found that a single institution, Harvard, with a student body of just over 30,000, got 251 mentions. The country’s 15 largest colleges, with nearly 944,000 students between them, received 297 combined.

Screenshot of article which reads: At times, that attention simply mirrors news developments, like the barrage of investigations and lawsuits the Trump administration has lodged against Harvard. Other times, the university and its brethren serve as proxies for colleges more broadly.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Well, does seem like there are other things one could focus on www.thegazette.com/news/regents...

Screenshot of article which reads: The regents, she said, would rather de Castro prioritize other center activities this fall, including an “America 250 Speaker Series.” Although the center canceled plans for 2026-27 courses — given it hasn’t yet hired a permanent director or any faculty to teach 12,000 undergraduates by 2028, as now required by state law — it still is inviting speakers to campus this semester, beginning this week with Todd J. Zywicki.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I have spent a year (a career?) exploring our understanding of the cultural mission of higher education in relationship to its economic mission. I think some of us have let the pendulum of our focus swing too far so that these types of moves surprise policymakers, analysts, and researchers.

Screenshot of article which reads: An authoritarian government interested in encroaching on higher education cares more about the cultural mission of the institution than its economics. Jason Stanley, an expert on authoritarianism and fascism, notes that authoritarians focus on culture because higher education is a haven for “critique and dissent.” Authoritarian governments may use the institution’s finances, most often its funding, to force the institution to do something it wants, but the economics are the means, not the goal.

Screenshot of article which reads: As an example, even with no evidence of a Title VI violation at Brown, the whistleblowers said repeated attempts by career DOJ attorneys to close the cases were ignored. All the while, the federal government halted millions of dollars in research grants that the institutions had already won. Makes sense given that an official made clear that “the goal is compliance, but pulling money is the tool.”

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Turns out, lots of people have studied how higher education works under dictatorship. Curious how these points echo so many of our current travails.

Screenshot of article which reads: Hungary is not the first country to experience this coup d’université. The conclusion to an incisive collection of essays, appropriately titled Universities Under Dictatorship (Penn State University Press), notes that gaining control of higher education was “a vitally important goal for every dictatorship” they studied. The dictatorships profiled in the essays, from Germany to Spain to Poland to Russia, used multiple pathways to exert power over universities: coercing institutions to adjust research and teaching topics to align with the government’s preferred ideology; expelling faculty, staff and students; gaining additional control over who can access higher education; replacing university leadership with people who agree with the government (thus reducing institutional autonomy); and reducing access to international colleagues and institutions.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I am sympathetic for folks and I want us to focus on colleges that educate the vast majority of students in the US

Screenshot of article which reads: The trend does not negate the fact that college is a big expense, and families feel squeezed by the cost, especially as consumer prices continue to rise.
“It’s not like you pay for college in isolation,” said Dominique J. Baker, an associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Delaware. “You still have to put food on the table and pay for housing, so if people feel like they don’t have enough money for those parts of their life, then college can seem too expensive to handle.”

Screenshot of article which reads: Still, Baker said families shouldn’t be scared off by the sticker prices at a handful of elite schools when there are thousands of good colleges at all price points. Focusing on schools that cost six figures, she said, gives the wrong impression of higher education costs. But it can be useful in helping people better understand pricing.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Y'all thought I was joking this weekend but look at these pictures! I would love to live here. www.bhbooks.com/pages/info

Gorgeous stately light blue fireplace with gold accents, with a stack of books beside it. Bookcase to the left and a chair in front of that. Classy but comfortable.

Darker almost slate blue painted room with bookcases all along the wall bursting with books. 2 wall sconces with shades that match the ligh ceiling light fixture. Cute window and a chair off to the side.

Light blue bookcases with so much gorgeous molding flank the entryway to another room that's done in a Georgian red. You can see bookshelves in the red room with sconces. There is picture frame lighting above the blue bookcases.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Appreciate David giving me the chance to muse. These ideas come from work on a larger project (I've read A LOT on this, from how the field of economics developed to histories of universities under dictatorship to sociology on metrics to polisci on democracies and backsliding to so much philosophy).

Screenshot of article which reads: “In general,” Baker said, conservative states have a vision for colleges and universities “around job creation and indoctrination.” And they have become savvier, learning how institutions are really organized and “how to hit higher ed where it hurts.”

At the same time, she said, “you can’t work at indoctrinating other people and not indoctrinate [yourself]. I really do think they were shocked at how few people signed up for their civic centers. They genuinely believe students hate the class options available to them and are dying for these new revisionist versions of history,” and they don’t know what to do when only a handful of students show up.

Screenshot of article which reads: Instead, Baker told me, “the blue-state vision for higher ed right now, in general, [is] job creation only. At its most fundamental, most Democratic administrations of states are thinking that the No. 1 priority of college is around the labor market.” That’s good for what Baker calls their “bipartisanship fetish,” because if both sides agree it’s all about jobs, it feels like there’s a chance for collaboration.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Counting up pubs and talks for a thing and I'm over here all

Meme adjusted for my situation that shows 3 text messages from one sender. Texts read: Full tonite eye emoji. Full tonite queen with two question marks. Then full tonite eye emoji again.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Now, where do I get these big bucks to do analysis with no controls and "visual inspection" standing in for any significance testing

Screenshot of article which reads: The Committee discussed inviting an academic to present on dual-class stock. It considered only two names — Yale Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and REDACTED and chose Sonnenfeld because he would support their project. Indeed, in Lakhani’s AI chats, he initially asked for “peer reviewed journals,” which produced nothing by Sonnenfeld, an outspoken proponent of dualclass structures who is not peer-reviewed on the subject. Lakhani apparently found Sonnenfeld through self-guided research and then asked the chatbot “what Sonnenfeld will say about the value of dual class structure in tech firms….” Given Sonnenfeld’s public stance, the chatbot generated supportive material.

Screenshot of article which reads: The Committee paid Sonnenfeld [redacted] and he presented on April 5 — just 18 hours after learning Cloudflare’s name — without analyzing any terms of the Recapitalization or the Founders’ personal incentives. Sonnenfeld’s analysis of the supposed outperformance of dual-class companies consisted predominantly of a Bloomberg Terminal comparison of average, equal-weighted annualized returns for single- and multi-class companies.

Screenshot of article which reads: Among other failings, he (i) ran no controls (for firm-size, industry, etc.); (ii) ignored survivorship bias from firms that went bankrupt or were acquired during his measurement window; and (iii) never tested his correlations for statistical significance. Not an economist, statistician, or “an applied math person,” Sonnenfeld relied almost exclusively on “visual inspection” instead of any statistical analysis. Lakhani did not know whether Sonnenfeld could show outperformance if these errors were corrected.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Here's a secret, you don't have to be a kid or have kids to go to the free kids day at the US Open

Sign for the 2026 Arthur Ashe Kids' Day sign in bright yellow and purple

Side of a Ralph Lauren and US Open baseball cap

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

The facts as alleged are a damning indictment of HHS OCR, DOJ OCR, the political appointees they report to, OMB, and the presidents and boards of every university that made an agreement with the federal government.

Screenshot of disclosure which reads: The Task Force’s investigations into alleged antisemitism on university campuses weremarked by extraordinary procedural irregularities, predetermined outcomes without factual orlegal support, and disregard for Title VI’s legal requirements and the First Amendment to meetthe political mission of the Task Force. Ms. Van Erem and other DOJassignees’ repeatedly warned that funding suspensions lacked legal basis and that evidence didnot support findings of violations at Brown, yet HHS insisted on extracting a voluntaryresolution agreement to satisfy political stakeholders. In the cases of Columbia and Harvard, nocomplete investigation was conducted: the Columbia investigation involved a brief review ofdraft findings prepared by others, and Harvard never underwent a full investigation before theuniversity sued. HHS officials pressed forward with its politically mandated effort to disgorgeenormous amounts of money from the universities under the pretext of rooting out antisemitism,including extreme settlement demands and coercive funding freezes.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

1) Brown had the legal cards and didn't play them. 2) HHS OCR Deputy admits there's no Title VI violation but there's no way they can officially declare that. 3) Northwestern enters the chat! Cornell's investigation has already been mentioned a few times as well.

Screenshot of disclosure which reads: The DOJ team pushed back, pointing out that Brown attorneys knew they had “veryfavorable cards” because of facts uncovered in the investigation.77 Additionally, any agreementwould duplicate the existing VRA between Brown and ED OCR.78 Ms. Van Erem said, consistentwith the regulations, that forcing a VRA “is not the legally correct thing to do. The legally correctthing is to send a notice of no violation. That’s what we have recommended."

Screenshot of disclosure which reads: Shieh admitted that there was “not a Title VI violation” at Brown but said that “there’s noway we’re going to get a letter of no violation cleared.” Since Shieh stated that formalizing afinding of no violation was impossible, the team asked what remedial requirements should be in anew VRA, given that findings evidenced only two potentially relevant incidents to which Brownhad taken prompt steps in response. Shieh admitted that he did not know what the scope of theVRA should be. Ms. Van Erem asked: “These questions are coming from the same place. If wecan’t find a problem, how are we supposed to put [in recommendations to remedy non-existent violations]?"

Screenshot of disclosure which reads: Shieh acknowledged that the team had done a good job convincing the front office thatthey should move on from Brown, but unspecified “stakeholders” had “approached the TaskForce” demanding action. As the meeting ended, Shieh also informed the team that thosestakeholders also wanted to open a compliance review into Northwestern.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Me and my friends have been saying this

Screenshot ofwhistleblower disclosure which reads: Shieh explained that the initial plan was for Harvard to be the first example, but whennegotiations broke down, officials tried to make Columbia the example.71 “If Columbia [doesn'tsettle], nobody knows what is going to happen next. Maybe Brown,” Shieh continued.72 When Ms.Van Erem pressed again about issuing a notice of no violation for Brown, Shieh bluntly declined,saying that no action would be cleared on investigations until the findings against Columbia wereresolved.73 Ms. Van Erem therefore concluded that the Administration’s plans were rooted inefforts to extract settlements through example rather than address violations of Title VI.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I feel more justified everyday in being so outraged by Brown signing that agreement. I can but cannot believe universities are still considering agreements as I type this.

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: Ms. Van Erem suggested sending Brown a closure letter reflectingthe team’s conclusion that there were no Title VI violations at Brown, noting such action mightrestore credibility to the investigations. Shieh conveyed the higher ups would never accept thatresult because “everything is sequenced.”70 Ms. Van Erem understood this comment to againreflect that the investigations and Title VI enforcement actions were not proceeding according tostandards and regulations but instead were coordinated by the “higher ups” based on political, not legal, strategy.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Basically, whatever you think of the actions it took, Brown reacted promptly to any alleged incident of antisemitism and HHS could find no evidence that would rise to the level of a Title VI violation.

Screenshot of the whistleblower disclosure which reads: Based on the facts at that time [the DOJ assignees] could not substantiate a violation. Indeed, witnesses,including a Jewish student leader, multiple rabbis, and faculty member from the medical school,described Brown’s consistent, proactive responses to any allegations of antisemitism.66 One Jewishwitness even stated that the campus was a great place to be Jewish. Investigators commented thatthe interviewees “did not seem coached; they seemed prepared and earnest.”67The team’s conclusion was unequivocal: meeting the deliberate indifference standardrequired to find a Title VI violation by the institution would be extremely difficult at Brown. Infact, Hyams agreed: “This case sounds pretty difficult to establish deliberate indifference.”68 Whenthe investigative summary was sent to the Task Force, even Keveney recognized that it looked likedeliberate indifference would be difficult to establish at Brown.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Again, that's the current Chief Counsel of the FDA Sean Keveney

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: In light of Harvard’s unwillingness to settle with the Trump administration, Shieh nameda key weakness with the Task Force’s approach: “The problem the Task Force is going to have iswhat is the limiting principle...it can’t be right that billions of dollars can be pulled for anything.”61While Shieh appeared to have at least a moment of pause regarding the integrity of theinvestigations and enforcement actions, others in leadership disagreed. Shieh said that when heraised this issue with Keveney, Keveney responded, “That’s DOJ’s problem,” reaffirmingconcerns that the investigations were being used for the purposes of harassingand intimidating institutions, not for the purpose of legitimately responding to Title VI violations.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Reviewing the "HHS OCR and ED OCR joint factual findings" for the Title VI case at Columbia, they found a whole host of issues (even though they had about 5 minutes to review it). Ultimately, some were removed but not all.

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: In her first comment on the draft Ms. Van Erem noted: “I have been given limited time toreview this, but I could (and think we should) look more carefully at each of these allegations ifgiven more time. My main concern is that a lot of these paragraphs involve protected [firstamendment] speech, and this document should not imply that those incidents are the basis of aTitle VI violation.”51Ms. Van Erem also identified numerous false statements, allegations of actions andprotected speech that would not be considered harassing conduct under Title VI, such asparticipating in a protest or writing an open letter, and allegations that were framed as facts butwere supported solely by publicly available litigation complaints or news articles.52 Suchinformation without any investigation, corroboration, or review of the institution’s response tocomplaints was insufficient to form the basis of findings of Title VI violations.

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: On April 15, HHS OGC provided extensive comments identifying legal issues with thedraft letter issuing factual findings based on First Amendment protected speech and the need toensure that the legal standard applied focused on Title VI’s standard of pervasive harassment andthe university’s deliberate indifference.56 Ultimately, some of the findings that were explicitlyabout protected speech were removed, though some discussion where OGC identified legal riskwas kept in.The rushed review of the factual findings letter constituted abuse of authority, a potentialviolation of Title VI regulations, and potential violation of the Administrative Procedure Actthrough arbitrary and capricious enforcement ungrounded in investigative factual findings.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I guess this is why it was so clear this was all in bad faith

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: The DOJ assignees repeatedly pushed back on having Middle East studies professors whowere not connected to complaints of antisemitism on the witness interview list, but leadershiprefused to take them off. While the DOJ assignees were ultimately successful at reducing thenumber of those faculty members they had to interview, the assignees still felt the mandate toconduct the interviews seemed like an attempt to intimidate those professors and was rooted inIslamophobic assumptions that Middle East Studies professors would harbor antisemiticviewpoints rather than any actual evidence of complaints about antisemitism. Furthermore, [Ms.Van Erem and her colleagues] suggested opening investigations into allegations of anti-Muslimbias on certain campuses to demonstrate integrity and consistency in enforcement of Title VIviolations, but these proposals were not pursued by leadership.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

The email update the higher ups and we get this. Sort of a bat signal to all of the attorneys that, actually, they need to be keeping contemporaneous notes of every meeting from now on.

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: Keveney then entered the room and tersely declared, “Now you will see angry Sean.” Inhis state of announced anger, he said that the attorneys should come to him in person if they neededany questions answered. Adding to the chilling environment, Keveney signaled for the attorneysnot to take notes during the meeting, implying that he did not want them to create a written recordreflecting doubts and questions about the investigations and funding rescission. At one point, helooked at Ms. Van Erem and remarked that her notetaking was making him nervous, promptingher to drop her pen. Curiously, Keveney asserted that the DOJ attorneys’ jobs were not to providelegal advice or make legal determinations. This behavior left the attorneys feeling intimidated andconfused about their assigned roles.

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: Keveney additionally asserted that the funding suspensions were unrelated to any Title VIviolations, and that the White House Domestic Policy Council would determine the legality offunding decisions.44 This statement again called into question the basis and legality for the fundingsuspensions and their use as tactics to drive settlement. Following this meeting, [Ms. Van Eremand her colleagues] understood they were expected to do as instructed and not raise legal questions.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

That email also included this about Harvard

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: It's also my understanding that HHS is working with Harvard’s counsel to reach asettlement. We also want to clarify that the HHS OCR investigation is not beingused as a basis in negotiations with Harvard, given we also have not had a chanceto analyze the likelihood or extent of a violation at Harvard. If these fundingdecisions and settlement negotiations are based on or reference the HHSinvestigations, our team should be consulted about the extent and nature of violations we are seeing.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Might be the clearest evidence we have that the university settlements/agreements were quid pro quo to get investigations stopped (I'm a policy expert, not a lawyer, so don't trust me on that). Also that list of violations in the final screenshot is a doozy.

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: That afternoon, days after HHS expanded its investigation from Columbia’s medicalschools to the entire university, Shieh announced that Columbia appeared ready to settle. Shiehsaid that because Columbia might settle, the OCR team did not need to issue a Title VI finding.Shieh further explained that if Columbia settled, the investigation would end.36 He then orderedthe DOJ assignees along with several OCR attorneys and HHS OGC attorneys to focus on BrownUniversity, including expanding the compliance review from the medical school to the entireuniversity, following the same blueprint as with Columbia.37these directives reflected a predetermined, outcome‑drivenapproach to enforcement rather than a fact‑based investigative process. staff wereencouraged to invert the standard sequence of investigation, compliance review, and legal analysisand instead work backward from desired settlement terms, including provisions not directly tiedto substantiated Title VI anti‑harassment or antisemitism violations, to generate proposed findingsthat would support those terms.

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: the government’s authority to terminate contracts “forconvenience” and “for not satisfying purpose” was inappropriately invoked or threatened toincrease leverage on universities to accept settlement terms favored by the government. Thisconduct constitutes (1) abuse of authority, by using investigative and procurement tools to coerceacceptance of policy conditions untethered to statutory violations; (2) gross waste of federal funds,by diverting resources away from cases—some of which were nearconclusion—to settlements not grounded in substantiated violations; (3) gross mismanagement,by departing from investigative sequencing and quality controls as required by regulation; and (4)potential violations of law, rule, or regulation, including a) violation of implementing regulationsof Title VI, b) arbitrary decision making in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act,38 andc) fraudulent inducement where proposed findings were signaled absent a factual basis.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

This is the federal government the AAU would like universities to work with. Got it. Keveney was the HHS Acting General Counsel. He is currently Chief Counsel of the FDA.

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: Keveney additionally said he believed Harvard would settle because they are “over abarrel.” The proposed Harvard settlement terms, which Keveney showed Ms. Van Erem briefly onhis computer screen, were extraordinary and included MOUs with police, installing a provost tooversee curriculum, ending DEI programs, placing endowment money in trusts the governmentcould seize, and investing in programs in Israel. There was no information to indicate thesesweeping enforcement terms corresponded to any specific findings of Title VI violations.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Now what is happening with Shieh's license to practice the law? (This is a rhetorical question.)

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: Later that day, in a private conversation with Ms. Van Erem , Shieh admitted hedid not think the facts surfaced through investigation to date would justify a finding of a Title VIviolation at the medical schools.32 He explained that his solution was to expand the investigationsto the entire universities in order to substantiate a finding. Shieh asserted that the investigationcould be completed in 45 days by only reviewing and investigating the most severe of theallegations. The DOJ assignees objected to that timeline, noting that Title VI requires acomprehensive review of allegations to determine if the conduct was severe and pervasive, andalso review of the university’s response to determine whether it was appropriate and effective. Theattorneys further noted that 45 days was wholly insufficient to adequately review the volume of data necessary to meet the evidentiary standards to substantiate a Title VI violation.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

The facts, as alleged, are that HHS OCR couldn't find evidence of Title VI violations at Columbia medical school (as alleged in the New York Post article). Instead of closing the investigation, they expanded it to the entire university, in order to go on a hunt for evidence.

Screenshot of whistlenlower disclosure which reads: In this meeting, the DOJ assignees asked questions about the investigation into Columbia’smedical school that was spurred by the New York Post article and initiated on March 7, 2025. The[DOJ assignees] were aware that the HHS OCR staff who had initiated the investigation noted thattheir efforts were not bearing much fruit thus far, and HHS OCR staff acknowledged in the meetingthat there may not be much evidence of Title VI liability at the med schools. The DOJ assigneeslearned that, rather than close the investigation, HHS had instead decided to expand it beyond themedical schools.27 This was one of the first major indications to the DOJ assignees that theinvestigations were not grounded in law or fact.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

And people want to tell me the media doesn't play a role in education policy!

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: On March 28, 2025, before the HHS assignment began, the assigned DOJ attorneysreceived a memorandum about the Title VI investigations informing them that the investigationswere “based on a New York Post article that alleged anti-Semitic activities at numerous medicalschool commencement ceremonies.”22 The article described protests that included protectedexpression such as students shouting “Free Palestine” and students wearing Palestinian flags orkeffiyehs.23 It was not unheard of for news reporting coupled with additional evidence to lead theDOJ to initiate further scrutiny of potential statutory violations, but opening an investigation basedon a single article was highly unusual. The DOJ attorneys reasonably expected based on their yearsof experience that any enforcement action would follow, and ultimately be substantiated by,rigorous investigation.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Good explanation of why the large-scale cancelations were not appropriate enforcement actions even if there were Title VI violations (of which DOJ has never provided evidence)

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: Only after determining that voluntary compliance cannot be secured may DOJ considerenforcement, which then triggers strict procedural safeguards such as notice, an on the recordhearing, Attorney General approval, a report to Congress, and a remedy “pinpointed” to thespecific noncompliant program.14 Premature, categorical funding suspensions short-circuit thesestatutory and regulatory protections and violate the regulations as explained above. An animatingprinciple of Title VI is voluntary compliance, as the statute itself requires that “no such action shallbe taken until the department or agency…has determined that compliance cannot be secured byvoluntary means,” 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1, and DOJ regulations obligate officials “to the fullestextent practicable” to seek recipients’ cooperation and provide assistance to help them complyvoluntarily, 28 C.F.R. § 42.106(a); see also 28 C.F.R. § 50.3(I)(C).

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Issues with the investigations into Brown, Columbia, and Harvard

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: The disclosure describes different concerns in the three university matters. At Brown, theinvestigative team conducted extensive witness interviews and document review and concludedthat the evidence did not support a Title VI violation because the university had respondedpromptly and effectively to the few incidents identified; nevertheless, leadership refused topermit a notice of no violation and instead sought some form of settlement or resolution despiteacknowledging the absence of a legal basis for doing so. In the context of the Columbiainvestigation, Ms. Van Erem and her colleagues observed findings of discrimination and relatedfunding actions advancing on an accelerated timetable before adequate factual development andlegal review were completed, including reliance on allegations that were unsupported, based onnews reports or litigation filings, or that implicated protected First Amendment activity.

Screenshot of the whistleblower disclosure which reads: Regarding Harvard, DOJ attorneys raised concerns that extraordinary funding freezes andsweeping proposed settlement terms—including provisions affecting curriculum, governance,endowment funds, and other matters—were being pursued before any completed investigationhad established Title VI violations and without a demonstrated connection between the proposedremedies and substantiated findings of unlawful discrimination.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

The same as what the ProPublica and Chronicle investigation found with UCLA

Screenshot of whistleblower disclosure which reads: According to the disclosure, senior officials at DOJ and HHS departed from longstandinginvestigative practices designed to ensure due process, accuracy and legal compliance. Ms. VanErem and her colleagues encountered compressed timelines to conduct investigations thatcompromised the ability to ensure that findings were justified and accurate. For at least some ofthe investigations, there was little to no factual predicate justifying opening them. When theyasked questions, raised legal concerns, or sought to document their objections, they weresometimes admonished and their concerns were often disregarded. Taken together, thesecircumstances led the attorneys reasonably to believe that certain enforcement outcomes hadbeen determined before the relevant evidence was collected and evaluated.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Gotta schedule a break in writing stuff so I can read this new working paper from Zach and Jesse zacharybleemer.com/wp-content/u...

Screenshot of title page. Title of working paper is: The Meritocratic Consensus and Stratification in
Higher Education
Authors are: Zachary Bleemer and Jesse Rothstein
Working paper published: August 2026
Abstract
American colleges and universities are highly stratified by pre-college academic achieve-
ment, family background, and institutional resources. We study the meritocratic con-
sensus in American higher education: colleges that high-testing students (who are
generally also from high-income families) attend spend dramatically more on instruc-
tion than do those that enroll lower-testing students. Stratification by test scores has
been largely stable since the 1960s, but the stratification of instructional resources has
risen sharply since 1970 at both private and public institutions. Non-academic admis-
sions criteria like athletics, legacy, and affirmative action are second-order in deter-
mining the allocation of students to universities. Potential economic justifications for
the positive association of instructional expenditures with student prior achievement
– q-complementarity between achievement and resources, convex social returns to
high human capital, and incentives to invest in learning prior to college – have lit-
tle empirical support. Resource stratification across universities has not increased in
the past decade, largely due to increased public funding of universities that enroll
lower-testing students through financial aid programs like California’s CalGrant, but
stratification within institutions is now rising swiftly.
JEL Codes: I23, I24, N32, Z13

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