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Mo Torres

@motorres.bsky.social
1.7K followers 348 following 784 posts

sociologist: cities, political economy, race/racism umich.edu/~motorres

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Mo Torres @motorres.bsky.social · 1h
Why is it currently 85 degrees in Ann Arbor?
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Michael Yarbrough (he/him) @mwyarbrough.bsky.social · 3h
well this sure seems like the kind of headline you see in a healthy society
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 4h
We’ve seen schools do this before. If this one-year party suspension doesn’t turn into a permanent ban, then it’s just a message to fraternities that they have true impunity. That even the worst, most violent behavior will result in a temporary slap on the wrist.
apnews.com
Cornell suspends fraternity parties for rest of academic year amid sexual assault controversy
Cornell University is suspending parties and other social events at fraternity houses for the rest of the academic year.
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Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
A new piece from me, a provocation really: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
The "Nerd Circuit": Creating a New Court for Regulatory Challenges
<span> <p><span>In recent years, opponents of new Executive Branch initiatives have developed a standard playbook for tying up those initiatives in court:
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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 10h
Reading research and news article led me to: "The reason that I kept being reminded of ISI’s past work is that the general purpose of these new centers and programs—fighting polarization—ultimately ties back to ISI’s goals of prioritizing and privileging conservative ideals."
Screenshot of article which reads: One of the foremost scholars in the United States on political polarization, Lilliana Mason, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, published an exceptional article earlier this month wherein she noted, “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.” She went on to explain that “when we focus on polarization as the problem, the solution is for everyone 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 history,” Mason said.Screenshot of article which reads: Vanderbilt University historian Nicole Hemmer wrote that “the polarization of U.S. politics was a deliberate project: over the past fifty years, right-wing activists within the GOP labored tirelessly to move the party to the right.”
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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 10h
"We should be asking ourselves: When is civility useful and when is it a canard for oppression? When is anger a detriment and when is it a righteous tool?" www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
insidehighered.com
What’s Wrong With Civility?
Civility can be a tool of engagement. But history has shown it can also be used to oppress the powerless.
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Anna R. Haskins @annarhaskins.bsky.social · 7h
Postdoc at ND at the Initiative on Race & Resilience! apply.interfolio.com/190347
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Greenb3ar @greenb3ar.bsky.social · 21h
Okay the best political ad of the year is here from LA-DSA
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REBRAC - Rede Europeia de Brasilianistas de Análise Cultural @rebracweb.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
PhD studentship, University of Amsterdam, about Brazil’s Cerrado. "Join an interdisciplinary research team exploring how small-scale farmers and traditional communities can foster nature conservation, sustainable production & territorial justice" Apply by 29 October werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...
werkenbij.uva.nl
Vacancy — PhD in NWO Project CERRADO
Looking for a PhD position to contribute to environmental justice in Brazil’s Cerrado? Join an interdisciplinary research team exploring how small-scale farmers and traditional communities can foster ...
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Silky @silkyweineck.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
It's here! An entire volume dedicated to Derek Peterson's commencement speech and the unhinged reaction to it. Proud to have written the introduction. disobediencepress.com/sing-for-pro...
disobediencepress.com
Sing For the Pro-Palestinian Student Activist - DISOBEDIENCE PRESS
“SING FOR THE PRO-PALESTINIAN STUDENT ACTIVISTS.” A Commencement Speech and the Fight to Protect the Freedom of Expression Editor, Rebekah Modrak Publication date:  November 19, 2026252 pagesPaperback...
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Ilhan Omar @ilhanmn.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.
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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
This eventual outcome has long been obvious to any good-faith observer of the right's supposed concerns about free speech. Me in 2017: www.insidehighered.com/advice/2017/...
Weaponizing Free Speech
By targeting the comments of presumably left-wing professors, the right is using free speech as part of their long-term strategy of delegitimizing higher education itself, writes Victor Ray.
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William Lawrence @wewill2026.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
There's so much good stuff we need to build: Housing, Schools, Vehicles and Transit Infrastructure. But data centers are sucking up all the available capital investment and crowding out everything else. It's time to reevaluate our national priorities.
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Soraya Nadia McDonald @soraya.press · 10/10/2026
"Michel’s great virtue is his persistence,” said Haynes Miller, an M.I.T. professor emeritus of mathematics who is close to Dr. DeGraff and who says his friend is not an antisemite. 'He doesn’t give up. If he sees an injustice he will attack it.'"
nytimes.com
The Controversial Class That M.I.T. Is Paying a Professor Not to Teach (Gift Article)
Michel DeGraff, a vocal pro-Palestinian activist, can’t be easily fired because he has tenure. But he has been kicked out of his department.
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Sarah Florini @florini.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
The loss of 200 year old trees is significant anywhere. But in the Sonoran desert, a delicate ecosystem that can be quite harsh, their loss is devistating.
azfamily.com
200-year-old Arizona tree cut down in minutes during federal raid on anti-border wall protest
For more than two months, protesters occupied a stand of cottonwood trees in the San Rafael Valley to block construction of a second border wall in southern Arizona.
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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Brown University’s widget shows that the energy costs of the Iran war have just passed $1,000 per household iranwarcost.watson.brown.edu
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Karen Benjamin Guzzo @karenguzzo.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
I get such a kick reading something & seeing my friends’ & colleagues’ work cited or seeing them quoted. Having smart friends & colleagues doing good, impactful work is so cool.
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
New Fed estimates of wealth by age are out. Under-35 wealth dropped 23% over these three years www.wsj.com/economy/affl...
wsj.com
Affluent and Older Americans Got Much Richer in Postpandemic Years
A Federal Reserve study found overall median net worth rose 2% between 2022 and 2025.
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Mo Torres @motorres.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
I was stunned the first time I visited. One of the most beautiful cities in the US easily
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Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
It's actually not complicated. You end homelessness with safe, dignified housing people can afford.
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Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Also: the cruelty inflicted on the unhoused is a barometer of the state violence we're willing to tolerate.
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Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
It's World Homeless Day, and I'll just say: Homelessness isn't some great unsolvable mystery. People are homeless because they don't have homes. This suffering persists not for lack of solutions, but because enormous wealth and power are invested in maintaining the very structures that produce it.
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Mei 🪽 @meidotwav.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
treat your body like a data center. consume as much water, art and literature as possible. upset local municipalities with your existence.
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Mo Torres @motorres.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Related sentiment from the Association for Human Mathematics: "Releasing over 700 files at once is not a demonstration of scholarship, but a demonstration of power. We urge mathematicians to discontinue their work with OpenAI and to return to a vision of science that centers human understanding."
ahmath.org
Statements — AHM
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Mo Torres @motorres.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
thinking about my qual methods class next semester: these statements could be an interesting way to introduce students to interview coding...
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Mo Torres @motorres.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I liked Enrico Fatighenti's comparison to peer review on this: "Do you want the approval of the mathematical community? A badge of legitimacy? Then give us something that is actually readable and verifiable. If not, we should simply ignore it."
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Mo Torres @motorres.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
"100+ reactions to 100+ solutions"
proofsandprompts.com
100+ reactions to 100+ solutions
“Many of us are grappling with OpenAI’s announcement on 6 October. We feel that it is useful to have an updating snapshot of the community’s gut feeling.”
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Mo Torres @motorres.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
an immeasurably rich archive (developing in real time) of mathematicians responding to this week's announcement from open ai: "If OpenAI wanted to destroy the mathematical community, this would be a great way to go about it."
But I think it’s important to focus on the big picture. If OpenAI wanted to destroy the mathematical community, this would be a great way to go about it. Open problems are a resource that the mathematical community developed over decades or even centuries. The value they have is the value we have given them. They provide structure, a yardstick for progress and long-term goals. The advent of AI was always going to be a seismic shock, but this huge dump of papers is a tsunami that we have no time to prepare for. It’s clear that OpenAI will happily wash away our community’s structures to further their financial interests.

There is a long list of mathematical structures and norms that OpenAI seems to be intent on damaging. By refusing to name the authors of their papers, they imply that mathematics is no longer a human endeavour. They don’t submit their results to journals, which both implies that the norms of the mathematical community are defunct and makes it impossible for the community to digest their results. OpenAI haven’t shared fundamental information about how the problems are selected or the failure rates of their attempts. This information should be a necessary requirement for any serious scientific discussion of their tools. And of course there is the basic financial injustice that their hugely valuable models learned to reason by copying the very reasoning that our community made available for free through the Open Access movement.
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Elizabeth Wrigley-Field @wrigleyfield.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Saw an awesome talk by @robertmanduca.bsky.social yesterday building on this work to look at racial disparities. This whole line of work is so good.
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854
Taxing Entrepreneurial Wealth: Evidence from
Norway, 2021-2025
Marius A. K. Ring
WORKING PAPER 35854|
DOl 10.3386/w35854
ISSUE DATE October 2026
Whether imposing higher taxes on business owners adversely affects business activity by constraining investment and inducing capitalist flight is a central question in the ongoing debate on how to tax the ultra wealthy. To shed new light, I exploit a series of related Norwegian reforms during 2021-2024 that increased dividend tax rates, removed migration-related capital gains tax loopholes, and nearly doubled the effective marginal tax rate on business wealth. These reforms spurred international debate and, allegedly, an "exodus" of Norwegian billionaires (Financial Times,
2023). While I document clear effects on migration, these responses are concentrated among the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution and mostly confined to 2022 and 2023. My results indicate that at most 100 individuals left due to the reforms. I find no evidence of significant outmigration or reduced inflows of startup founders or inventors. I estimate that absent any outmigration, wealth tax revenues would have increased by 75% from 2021 to 2024. Reform-driven outmigration lowers the revenue gain to 71.5%. My findings further show that outmigrating owners' firms remain economically active and do not reduce investment. In a broader set of analyses, I examine whether business outcomes are affected, regardless of whether owners outmigrate, since firms may reduce investment both due to liquidity constraints or distortions to owners' savings decisions. I compare firms owned by Norwegian individuals subject to the wealth tax with firms owned by foreigners and other tax-exempt entities. By merging historical ownership data from Orbis with the Norwegian shareholder register, I perform these analyses on both Norwegian and foreign-domiciled firms.
Across settings, I find no evidence that Norwegian-owned firms pay out more dividends or invest less after the reforms,…
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Mo Torres @motorres.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Really excited for Joy Rohde's forthcoming history of computational governance from the Cold War: "We can design and deploy systems that replace humans. We can also design and deploy systems that preserve human agency and serve public benefit. Our AI future is not fixed or beyond our control."
fordschool.umich.edu
People of the Machine: Q&A with historian Joy Rohde
Today’s generative AI companies promise systems that will surpass human capabilities—and often portray that future as inevitable. Public policy historian Joy Rohde argues that these promises echo a lo...
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Alex Wenzel @alexwenzel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The Cornell community has floated abolishing the Cornell Police Department. We should take it seriously, especially if you think that survivors should have the option of going to the police instead of their schools. I feel strongly about this too, because something people don't understand is that universities at this point are essentially total institutions. For a lot of students, their schools are not just schools.
They're their landlords, their employers, their source of health care, their gym, their coffee shop, the arena where they attend concerts. It leaves survivors with almost no real options. If you can't trust your school and your school systematically discriminates against sexual-assault survivors, where is left for you to go?
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Chalkbeat @chalkbeat.org · 06/10/2026
For decades, some Boston students have traveled to suburban schools through Metco. New research finds strikingly large benefits years later.
bit.ly
How a school integration program transformed students’ odds of graduating college
For decades, some Boston students have traveled to suburban schools through Metco. New research finds strikingly large benefits years later.
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Mo Torres @motorres.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Online we're told endlessly that everyone has outsourced every possible task to AI tools. I've started making it a habit to glance at people's screens when I'm out working in coffee shops and every time it's the same thing: people reading PDFs, typing in Word, making PowerPoints, emailing, texting.
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Ben Green @benzevgreen.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Algorithmic Realism: Data Science Practices to Promote Social Justice comes out today! I wrote this book with the mission to transform data science and AI into fields that genuinely work in service of the public interest. I hope that you’ll join me! mitpress.mit.edu/978026205570...
A photo of the cover of the book Algorithmic Realism by Ben Green.
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mathletic.bsky.social @mathletic.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I liked Ted Chiang's take on it from a couple years ago initiative.humanities.princeton.edu/news/2025/in...
Everyone should think carefully about using generative AI simply because the technology is built on environmental destruction, labor exploitation, and IP theft. College students should think extra carefully about it because, even if those other issues were magically resolved, using generative AI is largely incompatible with the purpose of education. In the talk I gave, I said, “When you’re a student at a university, you should think of yourself as an athlete in training, and the job you’ll do after you graduate is the sport you will compete in. You don’t know specifically which sport you will play, and neither do your professors. What your professors do know is that strength training will help you. That’s what essay writing is; it’s strength training for the brain. Using ChatGPT to write your essays is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you are never going to improve your cognitive fitness that way.” Let me expand on that. Building strength requires exertion; if anyone offers you an exercise program that involves no exertion at all, you know it’s not going to be effective. The improvements that come from doing cognitive exercise are not as rapid as those that come from physical exercise, but they are just as real. Writing an essay is hard because it forces you to use your brain in ways you haven’t before, and that is precisely why it’s useful. Your job is not to turn in completed assignments; it’s to learn how to think. Turning in completed assignments can help you learn how to think, but only if you’re the one who completed them.
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Mo Torres @motorres.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
"We don’t need to wait for answers from University officials to determine how implicated the facility will be in nuclear weapons research. The history of university partnerships with national security agencies provides clear links between national security research funding and militarized research."
michigandaily.com
UMich’s Los Alamos partnership threatens research enterprise
For at least a year, the University of Michigan’s administration has been trying to convince a skeptical public that its plan to build a $1.25 billion computing facility with Los Alamos National Labor...
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Yet another brilliant piece by @katemanne.bsky.social. "Education is, in the end, an individualistic and shallow response to a deep and structural problem. And it mistakenly identifies false beliefs rather than bad desires as the problem."
katemanne.substack.com
They Didn’t Want Consent
On the fallacy of educating men not to rape
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Lisa Wade @lisawade.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I made the same case for the impossibility of reforming historically White, generally wealthy fraternities a while back. (Hey TIME, I pitched you a follow up. Check your inbox.)
time.com
Why Colleges Should Get Rid of Fraternities for Good
'Reform is simply not possible'
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Mo Torres @motorres.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
This is awesome news. Congrats to you and to Duke!
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 03/10/2026
It’s weird to see so many higher education leaders beat their chests about “the decline of trust” from the public while refusing to acknowledge the conservative movement organizing to destroy it. Imagine someone stabbing you repeatedly while you complain about not having enough blood to bleed out.
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 03/10/2026
Higher ed leaders are doing "decline of public trust" discourse in order to avoid talking about all the things they've done to undermine their institutions, including exploiting contingent faculty labor, attacking student protest, and underfunding the humanities
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Drafting the Past @draftingthepast.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
We picked some of our favorite nonfiction history book covers in recent memory. See what made our list and why, and tell us what you would add! www.draftingthepast.com/12-history-b... #booksky
draftingthepast.com
12 History Book Covers We Love
The covers of history books don't always stand out for their design, but these do.
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Louis Römer @lromeranth.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Essentially this view reduces higher education to a talk show
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Cornell AAUP @cornellaaup.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The Cornell AAUP Chapter is outraged by the sexual violence that was committed at Chi Phi in 2024. We call for the community to come together on Monday, October 5 at 4:30pm in Ho Plaza, to stand in support of the survivors of sexual violence. Our full statement is here.
We are outraged by the continued culture of misogyny and by the continued pervasiveness of violence against women at Cornell and at universities and colleges across the country. We are outraged that so many women at Cornell have reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact. 

We are deeply disturbed by Cornell University administration’s response and communications to the community, initially in 2024 and now. Cornell administrators point community members to resources, but do not exercise leadership in creating space to process the harm, the outrage, and to change the culture of misogyny. In moments of crisis such as this, we need leaders, not administrators. 

The Cornell administration’s responses reveal its failure to understand and respond appropriately to actual harm and threats to safety on campus. It has used its internal communications to issue elaborate accusations, and it has imposed excessive discipline against students for political protests where there was no threat of harm or violence. And yet, when it comes to sexual violence, Cornell’s communications have been oblique or silent, leaving the community frustrated, fearful, or angry about the administration’s lack of transparency about how it will take effective responses.

We stand in solidarity with victims of sexual violence. We are outraged by the treatment of Jane Doe. We stand in solidarity with student organizations who have been demanding better, with faculty, staff, and students who have been organizing spaces to process and demand change. We do not yet know precisely how or why this case was so egregiously mishandled. What we do know is that it is the most recent example of the systemic failure of Cornell to protect its community — from patients at Cornell Weill to Cornell students — from sexual violence. This system must change.
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Lisa Wade @lisawade.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Thrilled to appear alongside fellow sociologist @nbedera.bsky.social in this very well-reported @chronicle.com story about the shape of the scandal at Cornell. As the calls from journalists are still coming in, I'm grateful each day that this story doesn't fade from the headlines.
chronicle.com
At Cornell, a Rape Case Defines an Era
A new generation of college students has reason to be both fatalistic and fed up.
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Ken Wissoker @kwissoker.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
A powerful piece by Claudio Lomnitz in Boston Review. His next @dukepress.bsky.social book will be out in the spring. dukeupress.edu/a-political-... www.bostonreview.net/articles/sla...
bostonreview.net
Slavery Pure and Simple
A recent bombshell report documents brutal cases of forced labor in Mexico. Why can’t the government take it seriously?
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Please, for the love of God, leave me behind with all the books because you don’t read. I want to be left behind!
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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
As I’ve asked many times now, what constituencies does a university president represent? Because too often, the answer seems to not include anyone who works or studies at the university, and that seems like a problem.
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Charlie Stross @cstross.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Oh my: LibreOffice just made "no AI" one of their official features: blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/09...
blog.documentfoundation.org
Yes, no AI is now a feature - TDF Community Blog
One of the comments on the announcement of LibreOffice 26.8 was a simple question: “So, no AI is now a feature?” LibreOffice does not reject artificial intelligence out of hand, but an office suite us...
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