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Mary Waters

@marywaters.bsky.social
2.6K followers 747 following 38 posts

Social scientist, demographer at Harvard. I study immigration, disasters.

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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Jill Lepore writes about Harvard's appalling embrace of AI. She doesnt even mention that on the advice of McKinsey they also decimated the college's writing program. But who needs to teach writing when AI can do it for you? Jill asks "has Harvard lost its mind?" www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
thecrimson.com
Artificial Education | The Harvard Crimson
Machine conversation is not free. It comes at the cost of our common life together as teachers, learners, and researchers, colleagues, mentors, and friends.
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Tim Dickinson @timdickinson.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
we're at the "they're arming unaccountable masked men with electric torture gloves" stage of fascism
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
This is important work.
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Elizabeth N. Saunders @profsaunders.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
There have been a lot of scary moments. Some of them were overblown at the time, esp. in Trump 1.0. @mchorowitz.bsky.social and I wrote a series of "don't panic" pieces on why war with North Korea and Iran was not likely despite all the threats. E.g from 2019: 2/ goodauthority.org/news/war-wit...
goodauthority.org
War with Iran is probably less likely than you think
Last week, an attack on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman raised tensions between the United States and Iran […]
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
This article by Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social is brilliant. Democrats can win on immigration and most Americans do not want the cruelty of ICE. newrepublic.com/article/2059...
newrepublic.com
How the Democrats Can Play Offense on Immigration
Typically, Democrats run for the hills when immigration comes up. But as two blue-state governors are showing, the winning play is actually to confront ICE and MAGA xenophobia head on.
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Law and Society Association @lawandsociety.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Our February #LSAMemberSpotlight is Board Trustee @asadasad.bsky.social, @stanfordsoc.bsky.social Asst Professor and author of Engage and Evade: How Latino Immigrant Families Manage Surveillance in Everyday Life. (@princetonupress.bsky.social) Learn more about Prof Asad here! bit.ly/LSAAsad
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Where we are: 1. With the action in GA, the FBI has been mobilized as part of the plan to steal the 2028 election. And the DNI being on the scene is beyond ominous. 2. After bring chaos and illegality and killings to MN, the ICE assault on that city and others will continue with minimal changes.
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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 27/01/2026
Happening now*: Maine religious leaders are staging a protest at Sen. Susan Collins' office, demanding she "use her power to end funding to ICE and put an end to their campaign of terror." *It may have just ended — the video cuts as police arrived. www.facebook.com/watch/live/?...
Clergy standing in a hallway praying and singing as part of a protest.
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
It's not quite the most pressing issue at the moment, but the American people absolutely have a right to know the names of the federal officials who shot and killed a man peacefully protesting, who was on his knees, prone in the street when they shot him in the back.
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ashley fairbanks @ziibiing.com · 27/01/2026
my expectation of democratic senators is that they find 1/10th of the bravery of your average 70 year old lutheran lady following ICE around mpls in her subaru crosstrek
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G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · 24/01/2026
Reminder: All it would take to end the murder of American citizens by an untrained government goon squad is 16 Republicans in Congress voting with Dems to defund ICE (or 23 to impeach and remove Trump — 3 in House & 20 in Senate). That’s it. 23 Americans can vote for the public and end all of this.
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CNN @cnn.com · 17/11/2025
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Harvard University should sever ties with Larry Summers, the school’s former president and one of its most prominent faculty members to hold Summers accountable for his intimate friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. cnn.it/4oLRqEo
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
When we wrote our book on children of immigrants in NY we said they would inherit the city. Tonight one of them did! m.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1U...
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Ric Bayly @eatinginamerica.co · 27/10/2025
RFK setting the U.S. #DietaryGuidelines? Uh, dead brain worm, likely eaten; recs raw milk, red meat, #saturatedfat for health; eats “a ton of vitamins”, no unprocessed fruits or veggies; ate so much tuna & perch his blood had 10x mercury limit and caused memory loss. EatingInAmerica.substack.com.
AI generated RFK, Jr. being licked by cows, favored sources for his raw milk and saturated fat. The cows are saying "I have raw milk..." and "I have lots of saturated fat..."
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
This post and podcast from the substack Eating in America is on the giant Food and Drug Administration loophole that allows the food industry to put toxic food on our plates without oversight or even our knowledge. Its really outrageous. substack.com/@ricbayly/no...
substack.com
Ric Bayly (@ricbayly)
Today’s podcast and post on Eating in America is about the giant Food and Drug Administration loophole — even Secretary of Health RFK, Jr. is upset about it — that allows the food industry to put toxi...
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
Eating in America is a great new substack on our food system and environment, from what is in the food we eat to what is being done to keep it safe and healthy. You can read Eating in America and subscribe at eatinginamerica.substack.com
eatinginamerica.substack.com
Eating in America | Ric Bayly | Substack
Eating in America is for you and your family. We look closely at what is in our food, who's making it safe and who's making it not safe, and the changes that are taking place in our food system, cultu...
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Pam Herd @pamherd.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Translation for non-scientists. The major funder for cancer research in the world is now only funding proposals that score in top 4 percent. They’re funding roughly 2/3 fewer proposals than they had in recent years. I suspect the funding line has actually never been this low.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
Two Naval Academy faculty members have resigned, and 18 more have taken early retirement. One was offered a place of honor at the annual dedication parade. He declined, telling the academy’s superintendent:
He cited a line all incoming students had to memorize when he began his studies there 55 years ago: “Where principle is involved, be deaf to expediency.”

“No matter what you have done before,” he wrote, “your legacy will be that of a careerist who banned Maya Angelou but retained Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf.’”
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Pope Francis was a good man. I had the honor to meet him at a Vatican conference on climate change. He led the way on two issues I care deeply about: support for migrants and addressing climate change. The world feels even heavier today without his leadership.
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
I also signed this brief. It is an excellent summary of the research on the benefits of birthright citizenship.
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 16/02/2025
Our paper on the politics of Census Bureau technology argues that Clinton's radical downsizing of the federal workforce led to a loss of expertise that had taken decades to build, massive outsourcing to the private sector, and an explosion of costs. academic.oup.com/jah/article/...
Graph of executive branch employment , showing massive decline in the 1990s.
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 14/03/2025
Bernie Sanders: "If you do nothing, you sit back and say, 'it's gonna be terrible.' And that's right. A shutdown will be terrible. But our job is to put the onus on the Republican president, the Republican House, the Republican Senate, the people who control the govt"
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M.A. Program in International Migration Studies at CUNY @gc-migration.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
📌 Please join us for the next Immigration Seminar Series event, on TU 3/18, 4:15-6:15pm EST, with Prof. Mary Waters, who will talk about "Climate Change and Migration: Challenges and Opportunities." You can attend the talk in person at the CUNY Graduate Center or online. Register: bit.ly/MaryWaters
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
One of my earliest memories is of being very sick with the measles when I was 5 years old in 1963. My mother told me it was right before the vaccine was available. In 2025 a child has died from measles and others are suffering because of ignorance and deliberate anti-science propaganda. Shameful.
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The Lincoln Project @lincolnproject.us · 26/02/2025
Democrats: Empty libraries, gymnasiums, lecture halls, anywhere. Book the space and dare these pathetic House Republicans to show their faces. Share this if you agree.
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Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Today, “Pope Francis issued a major rebuke Tuesday to the Trump administration’s mass deportation of migrants, warning that the forceful removal of people purely because of their illegal status deprives them of their inherent dignity and ‘will end badly.’” apnews.com/article/pope...
apnews.com
Pope rebukes Trump administration over migrant deportations, and appears to take direct aim at Vance
Pope Francis has issued a major rebuke to the Trump administration’s mass deportation of migrants. He warned that the program to forcefully deport people purely because of their illegal status deprive...
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Just spitballing, but things that could happen today: *Court injunction protecting USAID *Dems demand hearings on Musk's role *Someone introduce articles of impeachment *Dem officeholders go to USAID offices with USAID workers *Refuse to conduct any more Senate confirmations until this is resolved
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Adam Kinzinger @adamkinzinger.substack.com · 03/02/2025
Dear Democratic Leaders: here’s a free idea, send members of congress into the buildings where Elons people are and see what they’re doing. Dare them to stop you. Do something
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Rick Wilson @therickwilson.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
1/ OK, Democratic members of Congress in the US Senate. It’s time for some tough love. I am aware your pollsters and consultants tell you things like “the American people want us to work together” and “ focus on prescription drug prices in the economy.”
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
In a functioning democracy, a President who pardoned a mob that assaulted the Capitol while trying to overturn the election, and who then fired the prosecutors who put them behind bars, would be removed from power.
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
This guide to sabotaging fascism in the workplace tells me faculty have been preparing for this their whole lives, especially training in faculty meetings. Some of the advice:
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Craig Johnson @cajohnson-craig.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
This is what standing up to ICE looks like
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
I am begging the national media to start taking this seriously. Stop buying the claims that the framing of "temporary" or "pause." They are altering the review processes of federally funded scientific research from merit-based peer review processes to political screening by ideologues.
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Bart Bonikowski @bartbonikowski.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
As we’ve seen repeatedly since 2015, the US media & political leadership are wholly incapable of adequately handling creeping authoritarianism. Normalizing at every turn, taking the “high” road, engaging in pathological bothsidesism. They continue believing it couldn’t happen here. It’s happening.
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
Just felt an earthquake in Cambridge MA. I havent felt anything like that since I lived in Berkeley CA
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
The brilliant Theda Skocpol on what to do next. newrepublic.com/article/1905...
newrepublic.com
How to Take Heart From What Really Worked in the First Resistance
Marches and lawsuits are fine, but the real wins over MAGA last time were powered by grassroots activists pushing from thousands of districts across the country.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
The assault on NIH is a test for how the national media covers the Trump admin: Trump is shutting down medical research! That is easy to communicate. Will they treat it as a 5 alarm fire in a way that forces the government to respond, or will they downplay & caveat it?
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 03/01/2025
My graduate student Saul Ramirez has been studying people who have been deported to Mexico. He has a terrific op ed in today's LA Times. www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...
latimes.com
Opinion: Why Trump's plan to deport millions will fall far short of what it promises
Many of the immigrants removed from the United States inevitably come back, driven by connections here and risks in their countries of origin.
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
I have a new article just published on climate migration in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. It is available here www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Preparing for climate migration and integration: a policy and research agenda
In this paper I review recent research on climate migration, including estimates of the numbers of future migrants owing to climate change. I introduce a typology of climate migration including str...
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 20/02/2024
Turning this around, here are free speech problems with universities that Fire has ranked in its top 10 for free speech. Texas A&M: donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-demise... Michigan Tech: donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-survei... Florida State: donmoynihan.substack.com/p/an-assault...
donmoynihan.substack.com
The demise of academic freedom in Texas
Two cases in quick succession shows how politicization has broken Texas A&M
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 28/01/2024
I have been a professor at Harvard since 1986, through the presidencies of Derek Bok, Neil Rudenstine, Larry Summers, Derek Bok (again), Drew Faust, Larry Bacow, Claudine Gay, and Alan Garber. I knew them all. Only one of them was an asshole. Summers.
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 05/01/2024
I have not seen posts from Harvard faculty weighing in on Claudine Gay so for what it is worth, here is one faculty opinion. I have been a professor here since 1986. She was, by far, the very best dean of Arts and Sciences we have ever had. She was fair, collaborative and yet decisive. 1/n
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 22/12/2023
This is the best analysis of what is happening at Harvard. This is part of an orchestrated movement against higher education by operatives on the right.
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Mary Waters @marywaters.bsky.social · 05/10/2023
The Pope's new encyclical on Climate Change is terrific. I hope it makes a difference. www.vatican.va/content/fran...
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