iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

National media paid attention to how colleges dealt with campus sexual assault cases in the early 90s -- then places like SNL mocked it. The issue came roaring back in the 2010s, this time as survivors leveraged federal civil rights law -- again there was a backlash. What happens this time?

A Time magazine cover story in 1991 chronicled how some colleges had allowed male students to stay on campus despite finding that they had violated their codes of conduct by sexually assaulting women. Students at Brown University graffitied a list of alleged rapists on campus, which became the subject of an episode on the daytime talk show hosted by Phil Donahue.

Universities and college towns responded by opening resource centers for rape victims, but the early ’90s uprising also elicited backlash from conservative columnists and mockery from “Saturday Night Live,” largely around changing mores of what constitutes consent.

Koss, now a public health professor at the University of Arizona, said the reason for the pushback was simple: “People believe that women lie.”

Ultimately, discussion of the issue ebbed. Misogynist jokes about Monica Lewinsky, Paris Hilton and the women exploited by “Girls Gone Wild” filled the airwaves.

Campus activism against rape surged again in the 2010s, partially fueled by appalling behavior among fraternity members. At Yale University, Delta Kappa Epsilon pledges marched through campus chanting, “No means yes, yes means anal.” At Georgia Tech, Phi Kappa Tau’s then social chair sent an email explaining how brothers could “lure rapebait.”

The wave of activism was also driven by students around the country who filed federal civil rights complaints and spoke out about how college administrators handled sexual assault cases. They described how male students who violated sexual assault policies had been punished with book reports or “expulsion after graduation” and said their schools discouraged them from speaking publicly. Some students again circulated lists of accused classmates.

In response, the Obama administration set up a task force on stopping campus rape and enlisted celebrities for It’s On Us, a prevention campaign that later went independent. A bipartisan group of senators, including current Secretary of State Marco Rubio, proposed legislation to fine universities up to 1% of their annual operating budgets for mishandling sexual assault cases. Many colleges began rewriting sexual assault rules to require affirmative consent — a shift from “no means no” to “only yes means yes.”

“It was perhaps the most successful movement it could have been — it got to the White House,” said Caroline Heldman, chair of Occidental College’s department of gender, women and sexuality studies, who has been involved in anti-rape activism for more than a decade, organizing demonstrations and aiding survivors who speak publicly.

Yet again, there was a backlash.

The definition of consent sparked another national debate, which carried into the #MeToo era. The congressional proposals to issue tougher penalties to colleges that mishandle sexual violence never came to votes. Dozens of men sued universities arguing that schools denied them due process in campus rape tribunals. Conservatives, civil libertarians and men’s rights activists claimed consequential Obama-era guidance on how schools should handle sexual misconduct made colleges too friendly to accusers — and they soon found an ally in the Trump administration.

A Title IX regulation finalized in 2020 narrowed the definition of sexual harassment, allowed schools to use a higher standard of evidence to determine guilt and required colleges to hold live hearings with cross-examinations before they decided sexual assault cases. (The Biden administration replaced the rules in 2024, but the second Trump administration quickly reinstituted them this year.)

As the second peak of campus rape activism faded, it left some lasting changes — but also demonstrated what hasn’t improved.

Many universities began conducting surveys of students about campus safety and sexual harassment, resulting in a clearer understanding of how common assaults are, since most are never reported; they largely show rates remain stubbornly high. Colleges also increased rape prevention education, often incorporating bystander intervention training, but those sessions aren’t enough — some violence prevention experts say that the intention is good but that they focus on turning students into glorified bouncers rather than addressing underlying issues.

“I don’t think we are doing enough to ensure that student trainings and workshops make a meaningful dent in what happens on campuses,” said Suzanne Goldberg, a former Columbia University administrator, who helped lead civil rights enforcement at the Education Department in the Biden administration. “To go to the next step requires resources, p

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

“We’re still talking about ‘Well, if you weren’t drinking’ or ‘What were you wearing?’ — like, come on, that’s stuff that my grandma dealt with, and we’re still doing it in 2026,” -- Brenda Tracy, a gang rape survivor and violence prevention advocate www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news... @nbcnews.com

nbcnews.com

America is debating campus rape. Again.

An alleged gang rape at Cornell University set off a familiar cycle of outrage and debate. Experts and advocates hope this time it turns into lasting change to stop sexual violence.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Why do people always run to compare sexual assault cases to Duke Lacrosse and the UVA/Rolling Stone story? What about the gang rape cases at Vanderbilt? Baylor? The University of Montana? Should we go on?

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

There was a big movement to address campus rape in the 90s. Then 2010s. Maybe we're seeing a 3rd wave start now. But why is this so cyclical? I spoke with longtime activists & experts about why we go in these cycles, and what it will take to break out of it www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

nbcnews.com

America is debating campus rape. Again.

An alleged gang rape at Cornell University set off a familiar cycle of outrage and debate. Experts and advocates hope this time it turns into lasting change to stop sexual violence.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

This is the only good bumper sticker

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

if you'd like to know where this came from, I wrote last year about how many right-wing figures had been pushing this Nixon revisionism and getting more traction www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...

nbcnews.com

The campaign to make Richard Nixon great again

The late president, who resigned in disgrace in 1974, actually wasn’t a crook, pundits on the right argue.

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Reposted by Tyler Kingkade

Mike Finger @mikefinger.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Just asked Victor Wembanyama if he’d ever consider promoting a sports betting company. “Absolutely not. I will never do that. Honestly, I think it's very sad to see some players promote it. .. Everybody does whatever they want, but without me.”

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

StubHub is charging people different amounts for the exact same ticket @nbcnews.com did a test; for the same exact ticket, one person was presented with $72 in fees, while another was charged $134 StubHub said yep, we're testing that www.nbcnews.com/business/con...

nbcnews.com

For the same ticket on StubHub, different prices for different people

NBC News volunteers saw eight different prices for the exact same Harry Styles ticket on StubHub. The company said it’s running random price experiments.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

i wrote this in 2014 and it somehow seems like maybe relevant this week? www.huffpost.com/entry/note-t...

several women whose complaints prompted inquiries tell HuffPost that their cases were compromised by campus authorities' mistakes in note-taking.

In at least five cases reported on by The Huffington Post, the young women who reported sexual assault say a lack of documentation or discrepancies between their accounts of events and what was recorded by campus police and other school investigators.

"I would think on a college campus, there would be a proper appreciation for taking notes," said Lisa Maatz, director of public policy and government relations at the American Association of University Women.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Yes, under the Clery Act all colleges/unis are required to send alerts that like that affect campus safety. If they don't they can be fined. (think it's currently around $40K per violation - enforced by the US Dept of Ed)

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

If she originally said it was consensual, why did a Cornell VP then repeat that she reported being sexually assaulted in a campus wide letter back in 2024?

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

If Jane Doe originally told Cornell Police that the incident at the frat was consensual - as the local DA (an elected official) says - then why did Cornell Police issue a campus wide alert in 2024 that she reported being sexually assaulted and coerced into taking drugs?

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

the Trader Joe's price increases are real. since they never do sales, and have a limited selection, it's easier for me to remember exactly what they cost. Dried figs up from 2.49 to 3.99. Japanese bbq chicken up from 4.99 to 5.99. Bananas from .19 to .23 each.

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Reposted by Tyler Kingkade

Corey Hutchins @coreyhutchins.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

A student journalist's email to the campus spokesperson made the school administrator feel it is was harmful to her safety: capitolfax.com/2026/09/14/s...

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

A survey of elementary school principals finds 38% said their K-5 students spend more than 2 hours a day on screens Additionally, while the vast majority of teachers and parents were worried the amount of time students spend on screens, principals were even more likely to be concerned

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

the adopted son was rescued 2 years ago from an abusive makeshift school for troubled youth - that Matt Bevin sent him to and didn't pick him up from www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

nbcnews.com

Staffers at a school for troubled teens in Jamaica arrested on charges of child abuse

The staffers were arrested after child welfare officials removed eight American boys from Atlantis Leadership Academy.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

the former Republican governor of Kentucky was just arrested on the set of a Christmas movie starring the actress who played Winnie on "The Wonder Years" the warrant for his arrest stems from a child support case his adopted son has taken against him www.courier-journal.com/story/news/p...

courier-journal.com

'He was very cordial': Farm owner recounts Matt Bevin movie set arrest

Dozens of extras were at a Kentucky farm to film a Christmas movie. Among them was ex-Gov. Matt Bevin, authorities say, who was arrested at the scene.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

How many news cycles did we have about Biden and “Corn Pop” b/c no one believed that story?

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

idk about a huge majority loving their own local school, since it's just about a third who are "completely satisfied." but i grant it is a sizable majority that at least don't hate their own local schools

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

i'll never forget that the Varsity Blues scandal was how i learned Mossimo -- the generic clothing line that Target sold in the early 2000s -- was named after an actual person

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

it also doesn't surprise me b/c as I reported earlier this year, Moms for Liberty and teachers unions have also found themselves aligned and supporting some of the same policies www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

nbcnews.com

Conservative parents and teachers unions become unlikely allies fighting tech in schools

After years of maligning teachers unions, Moms for Liberty has joined forces with its former adversaries to push for limits on laptops in classrooms.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

So the fact that they and Mamdani administration are thinking alike shows how bipartisan this has become -- and why there will be more schools going this direction, as I reported this weekend --> www.nbcnews.com/news/educati...

nbcnews.com

How parent activists pushed schools to restrict AI and screen time — and won

New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., announced changes this week in response to a growing grassroots movement against technology in schools.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

The board prez has spoken out against calling "Christmas break" a "winter break" Its VP is a top adviser to Heritage Foundation The board has been outspoken against Title IX applying to protect transgender student athletes The board voted to leave a state education group that was "too woke"

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Last month, the Carroll ISD school board (in Southlake, Texas) unanimously passed an AI/screen time policy similar to -- if not stricter -- than the one Zohran announced last week for NYC schools It shows how bipartisan this push is, if you understand the background of the Southlake...

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

A huge new NBC News poll finds solid majority of Americans do not want data centers built near them, and that they believe AI will do "more harm than good" in K12 education www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

LA clearly kicked this off -- in terms of schools districts taking an about face -- but it's really been due to parents mobilizing in each city

In April, the Los Angeles Unified School District became the first of its size to pass a resolution capping the time students can spend on screens, addressing complaints that students often became distracted by games and social media on school-issued devices. The resolution also ordered an audit of the widely used and often criticized assessment software i-Ready, as well as all other educational technology contracts. And it blocked students from browsing YouTube and set up a committee to craft rules on AI.

During the committee’s first meeting Wednesday, L.A. district administrators said they recently decided to block all grade levels from accessing generative AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude and Nano Banana. Previously, the district had barred children under 13 from using them.

In New York City, the school system forbade children in preschool through second grade from using computers and recommended daily screen time limits of 30 minutes for third through fifth grade and 45 minutes for middle schoolers. A new committee of school officials, labor leaders and parents will revisit the technology changes next year.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Chicago Public Schools isn't implementing rules to curb screen time and doesn't have an AI moratorium, but *half* of the school board candidates signed a pledge to say they want a 3 year ban on AI

Four states enacted laws this year to limit classroom screen time, and many districts have stopped giving every child a laptop, blocked YouTube, cut back on computer-based tests and experimented with tech-free days.

These changes “prove that the people have the power to reclaim public schools from corporate influence,” said Lila Byock, co-founder of the parent activist group Schools Beyond Screens, which began late last year in Los Angeles and has since expanded to chapters in 40 states.

More limits may be on the way. Chicago, the nation’s third largest district, remains committed to teaching students about AI, but nearly half of the school board candidates running this year signed a pledge to ban it for three years. School districts in Iowa City, Iowa, and Fairfax County, Virginia, recently set up committees to cut down on screen time.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

NEW: While everyone focused on NYC's ban on AI in schools, LA also quietly banned AI tools for all students, and DC public schools laid out new restrictions on screen time It's all b/c parents organizing and pushing them to do it. And more cities are going to follow www.nbcnews.com/news/educati...

nbcnews.com

How parent activists pushed schools to restrict AI and screen time — and won

New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., announced changes this week in response to a growing grassroots movement against technology in schools.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

NEW: Los Angeles Unified now bars all students, up through 12th grade, from accessing gen AI platforms on school-issued devices This was first revealed in a school board committee meeting, and now a district spox has confirmed to me

The inaugural meeting of the Generative AI Ad Hoc Committee was held today, continuing the District’s work to develop recommendations for guardrails and procedures for the use of generative AI by students. The committee will bring its policy recommendations to the Board for consideration at the end of the school year.
Previously, LAUSD students aged 13 and older who completed required Digital Citizenship instruction and acknowledged the Responsible Use Policy could access approved generative AI tools. Since the beginning of the 2026-2027 school year, the District practice has been to restrict student access to generative AI platforms while the District reviews instructional use and safeguards.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

so, students learn better from humans rather than the bots?? big if true! (it is true) www.edtechinnovationhub.com/news/stanfor...

New Stanford research finds AI tutoring currently has the strongest evidence when it supports human tutors rather than replacing them

AI tutoring is moving into schools faster than research can establish what works, and the strongest evidence so far favors using artificial intelligence to support human tutors rather than replace them, according to a new Stanford University research review.

The National Student Support Accelerator and AI Hub for Education at Stanford’s SCALE Initiative examined research on high-impact tutoring and emerging AI-enabled models, alongside interviews with tutoring providers, platform developers and researchers.

Published in August 2026, AI Tutoring is Not a Monolith: What We Actually Know separates AI tutoring into different models according to how much human involvement they retain.

Its central finding is clear: live, human-led tutoring remains the model backed by the strongest evidence. AI can help tutors work more effectively, but fully automated tutoring has not yet built a comparable evidence base.

The term “AI tutor” can cover very different experiences, from an AI system quietly helping a human tutor during a live session to a student working alone with software. The researchers argue that those models should not be treated as interchangeable.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

What does “fighting wokeness” mean? Apparently, under the Trump admin, it’s cutting funding to help poor communities keep raw sewage out of their yards www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

$In Lowndes County, Alabama, where inadequate plumbing leaves yards damp with raw sewage, children risk contracting parasites if they play barefoot outside. In Brunswick, Georgia, where downwind breezes from industrial facilities smell like ammonia and coat homes with dust, residents worry the air they breathe isn’t safe. And in the 300-person village of Huslia, Alaska, where a river threatens to wash away homes, tribal members who relocated to higher ground lack running water. Congress promised to help fix these problems — and hundreds of similar ones across the country — when lawmakers four years ago dedicated unprecedented funding to help cash-strapped regions plagued by environmental issues. The funding prioritized marginalized communities where deep-seated issues ranging from racism to poverty have contributed to problems with industrial pollution and failing infrastructure, while also helping areas hit hard by climate change and extreme weather. But at the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, the Environmental Protection Agency gutted the $2.8 billion grant program created to provide residents relief. After Trump issued an executive order to rid the government of what he called “radical and wasteful” diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, the EPA said that the grants no longer aligned with the agency’s priorities and referred to them as examples of runaway government spending. The EPA had started releasing tens of millions of dollars in grants, but once the program ended, many groups wound up receiving only fractions of their allocated sums or none at all. Now, more than a year later, communities are struggling to find new funding as environmental crises have been left to fester, in the worst cases threatening the health and homes of some of the most vulnerable Americans. Predominately Black neighborhoods in Illinois and Texas that sit next to industries pumping out harmful pollutants have gone without robust air monitoring. In Oregon, a …$

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

about those former nba players entering the wnba draft... courtesy of @andrewgreif.bsky.social www.nbcnews.com/sports/wnba/...

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

why is this (the highlighted part) controversial? fireworks absolutely suck; they kill people, injure people, start fires that kill people and destroy homes, pollute the air, and scare the shit out of dogs. they're also boring to look at.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Parents I spoke to said they weren't aware the tool was being used until their kids started complaining about it. Now they want to know why the state is requiring the AI tutor for 30 min/week, and what happens with the recordings it makes of their 5 - 8 year old kids

Cassie Fleming’s first grade daughter came home from school last August complaining about someone named Amira. “She doesn’t let me finish my sentences — she doesn’t listen,” Fleming said her daughter told her.

As it turned out, Amira was not a teacher or another child but rather AI-powered software that spoke to Fleming’s daughter from a tablet assigned to her by Albuquerque Public Schools.

Amira records and analyzes children’s voices as they read aloud, offering real-time feedback on their pronunciation and producing reports for their teachers. Last year, New Mexico began requiring kindergartners and first and second grade students to sit for Amira literacy screenings three times a year. Fleming hadn’t realized that, and she wondered what the software did with the recordings it made of her daughter.

“It felt very icky to me,” Fleming said. “These kids can’t even tie their shoes yet, but there’s already a dataset that could follow them for the rest of their lives. And I just don’t think that’s an appropriate use of our public schools and our kids.”

Amira is one of the most widely deployed AI tools in education, used by more than 4,000 school districts across all 50 states, according to the company, which says it gives personalized feedback that would be impossible to replicate with human tutors. But it’s also drawing backlash from parents across the country who are concerned about their children’s privacy and uncomfortable with AI’s taking over a task once done by teachers.

In New Mexico — which has the nation’s lowest reading proficiency scores — an emerging group of parents, including Fleming, has spoken out against Amira at school board meetings and a legislative hearing in recent weeks. With days to go before the new school year begins, the parents’ protests persuaded two districts to object to a state mandate that all elementary schools use Amira for screening and 30 minutes of weekly tutoring for students.

Public backlash to Amira in New Mexico took off last month after an op-ed by Ifeoma Ozoma, a Santa Fe parent and advocate for more regulation of tech companies, labeled it “unvetted” and called for an opt-out campaign.

“Amira is using the data to improve models and improve services,” Ozoma said in an interview. “What that means is that’s value being created for the company on the backs of our kids.”

Two days after the op-ed was published, Angel appeared before a committee of state legislators alongside Lynn Vásquez, who oversees assessment policy at the state education department. Vásquez described the first year of results from Amira as promising.

Angel told lawmakers that Amira listens to students with 95% accuracy, which offers a clearer picture of each child’s ability than multiple-choice written exams that a child has a 25% chance of guessing correctly.

Albuquerque, the state’s largest school district, said it will continue to use Amira because it has seen positive results. But on Wednesday, two dozen parents spoke against Amira at a school board meeting, many saying they learned only this summer that it recorded students.

Lauren Meiklejohn said her second grade son came home last year complaining that Amira was “creepy” and couldn’t pronounce his name. “I don’t feel comfortable speaking to it,” she said her son told her, “because I feel like it doesn’t know me, and I don’t want it to know me.”

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

NEW: Parents in New Mexico are fighting against a state-mandated AI tool being used for dyslexia screeners and tutoring for K-2 students But what's unique in NM is that even some school districts are saying they're also concerned -- and refusing to use it www.nbcnews.com/news/educati...

nbcnews.com

Meet Amira, an AI reading tutor alarming some parents and school leaders in New Mexico

Literacy software powered by AI has captured hundreds of thousands of recordings of New Mexico students. Now the state faces questions about children’s data.

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

The Biden and Obama admins did not issue press releases like this from the Education Department, nor did the first Trump admin

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

This doesn't seem to get much attention ever but it is so bizarre to see the federal government announce in a press release it is going to investigate something, and issue a press release bashing the "radical left" and essentially saying from the outset what the investigation will conclude

According to news reports, “MyGenderDolls” will be available to Minnesota educators for use in classrooms with students as young as four years old this fall. The dolls – developed via a taxpayer-funded University of Minnesota program – feature removable, interchangeable internal and external genitalia, gender-neutral names, and clothing (including undergarments) for both sexes.

The use of sexually explicit dolls to introduce young students to highly sensitive subject matters, with potential mental health implications for some children, undermines parents’ authority over their children’s safety and well-being. PPRA guarantees parents the right to opt their children out of surveys that elicit certain sensitive information about students or their families, and to review related instructional materials.

“While Governor Walz and the radical left continue to funnel taxpayer dollars to perverted ideologies that can harm children, the Trump Administration is fighting to protect children’s innocence and defend parents’ role as the first and primary decision-makers in their child’s education,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “No four-year-old should be exposed to such material – especially without a parent’s knowledge or consent. ED will enforce the law to its fullest extent, putting parents and families firmly in the driver’s seat of their child’s education.”

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