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UMDEIdefense

@umdeidefense.bsky.social
263 followers 42 following 64 posts
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
This disgusting, misogynistic UM regent wants to be re-elected.
theguardian.com
Lewd messages linked to University of Michigan regent who led campaign against pro-Palestinian students
Jordan Acker, who pushed legal action against protesters, is running for re-election in race reflecting tensions on Israel
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Jordan Acker used his position as Regent of the @umich.edu to wage a vendetta against student protesters and to dox faculty who wouldn't serve as his mouthpiece. Now, he wants to be reelected. This is his campaign photograph.
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
If you’re registered Democrat in Michigan, please join me to support Amir Makled for UM Regent at the convention in April.
michigandaily.com
How Amir Makled will change UMich for the better
I sat down with Makled in the Michigan Union atrium to see whether he could be that change. In our conversation, I found a leader who listens. His policies — taking no corporate money, protecting gend...
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
Thanks to @isaackamola.bsky.social for this generous endorsement of In the Spirit of H. Chandler Davis. Released today! Available everywhere. To order > disobediencepress.com
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
PUB DAY of In the Spirit of H. Chandler Davis, the remarkable set of essays inspired by the UMich prof fired in 1954 for refusing to testify to HUAC. The book’s 12 contributors argue against the suppression of protest, the policed campus, and other enemies of academic freedom. disobediencepress.com
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
The University of Alabama has put allegiance to Trump over the 1st Amendment. They’ve shut down the student magazines that focus on experiences of women and Black students.
npr.org
University of Alabama suspends student magazines amid DEI crackdown
Kendal Wright, editor in chief of the University of Alabama's Nineteen Fifty-Six magazine, reacts to the suspension of two student publications amid a federal crackdown on campus DEI policies.
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
Declining accommodations for a cancer patient?? New low at UMich
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
When I chaired the Faculty Senate last year, Regent Jordan Acker, enraged that he couldn’t control faculty voice, doxxed me on social media. UM police installed security cameras on my home to protect me from his threats. Now Acker wants to be re-elected. @aft.org is considering an endorsement
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yiliw.bsky.social @yiliw.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
Shall we sacrifice the people, families, businesses, and environmental well-being of Yspilanti on the altar of TechBro fantasies? This UM prof says NO. @silkyweineck.bsky.social @umdeidefense.bsky.social @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
UM Regents Paul Brown and Jordan Acker are trying to get on ballot for re-election. They refused to hear reports from Faculty. Dismantled DEI at UM. Stopped gender-affirming care at UM Medicine. Expelled students who criticized Israeli actions in Gaza And yet, aft.org is considering endorsing them
aft.org
AFT - American Federation of Teachers - A Union of Professionals
American Federation of Teachers public web site.
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Jack Iwashyna @iwashyna.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
@umich.edu faculty call for an honorary degree for Trump “We have proven that we have no hard moral principles and no hill on which we will die.” www.michigandaily.com/opinion/op-e...
michigandaily.com
Why Trump would be perfect for an honorary U-M doctoral degree
Awarding Trump an honorary doctoral degree would be an opportunity to recognize the long way the University has walked in less than two years. U-M juniors may still remember times when the campus code...
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
“The African American unemployment rate has surged over the past four months, from 6 to 7.5 percent, while the rate for white people ticked down slightly to 3.7 percent.”
nytimes.com
Black Unemployment Is Surging Again. This Time Is Different.
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
From the @michigandaily.bsky.social Editorial Board: “We now see [the University of Michigan administration’s changes to the student code of conduct] as a catalyst, accelerating the construction of a disciplinary apparatus that the University can aim at whoever it deems threatening.”
michigandaily.com
UMich weaponizes the rules in new student code of conduct
The administration has created a space where rules only cut one way. For those that still doubt the severity of the situation on campus, Grasso and the regents stated their intentions clearly — discip...
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
Some public school teachers are courageously protecting kids rights to access all material, despite threats and retaliation. Thank you to @palan57.bsky.social at @forbes.com for shining a light on their remarkable stories. More than ever, we need heroes to be visible.
forbes.com
Book Shares Teacher Voices From The Culture Wars
Many of those stories have been covered by journalists, but the book Trouble In Censorville features educators who tell their own stories.
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
This Tuesday in Ann Arbor. A reading about attempts to intimidate and silence academics.
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
University of Michigan faculty and staff speak up about what we want in our new president. (post-Ono) @michigandaily.bsky.social @silkyweineck.bsky.social @sbagen.bsky.social @basit-zafar.bsky.social @yiliw.bsky.social @drgigiawad.bsky.social
michigandaily.com
U-M faculty and staff on the next University president
On May 4, University President Santa Ono announced that he was departing from the University of Michigan. His controversial tenure — from his handling of pro-Palestine activism to his decision to cut ...
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
Ohio State University has banned land acknowledgements. But there's no ban on ceding the land and the institution to indigenous people. Even the Heritage Foundation recommends this. Buckeyes, this is your moment. www.heritage.org/progressivis... @ohiostatelaw.bsky.social @osuhistory.bsky.social
heritage.org
Native Land Whiners Should Match Words With Deeds
Over the last several years, an odd ritual known as a “land acknowledgment” has become the fashionable way to begin academic, arts and other elite events. Like a woke version of the “Pledge of Allegia...
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Soumya Rangarajan, MD, MPP @soumya-goblue.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
A lakh is 100,000, so ~300,000 (331,602 to be exact in 2024) students from #India study in US every year, paying $8 billion to US economy. There were ~1300 #Indian students at UMich alone. I met one recently, and he's counting days to finish degree and leave US Our campus will lose millions of $
ndtv.com
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Why we need DEI
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Guidepost Solutions' chairman is monitoring the extortion of Columbia by Trump. U. of Michigan regents, all on their own, hired "consultants" from Guidepost last year to comb through video tapes to harass and attempt to expel students who protested the war on Gaza.
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Regent Bernstein makes a mockery of First Amendment rights. According to the state charter, regents have no authority to meddle in hiring decisions, let alone to subject members of our campus to their petty whims and biases. Donating $$ to the Dems shouldn’t protect him.
nytimes.com
Fired D.E.I. Administrator Sues the University of Michigan
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
U-Mich's Regent Bernstein overrides the assessment of UM administrators and tells the General Counsel to immediately terminate Rachel Dawson, our director of multicultural initiatives. Our regents have turned U-M's campus into a theater where they act on their biases and pettiness.
freep.com
Former DEI administrator sues University of Michigan, alleges discrimination in firing
Rachel Dawson claims the University of Michigan deviated from its normal disciplinary process to fire her.
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
I love the Michigan Daily. “the relative silence from the regents surrounding their efforts to commit acts of espionage against their own student body is alarming. Their response …shows that even despite the accusations, the regents have no interest in taking responsibility for their actions.”
michigandaily.com
From The Daily: The Regents must answer for the surveillance of students
It is crucial to explicitly condemn those responsible for this assault on students: the University’s Board of Regents. This Editorial Board believes regents who authorized the payments to Amerishield ...
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 29/06/2025
Bravo to the Mississippi educators seeking a restraining order to the law prohibiting educators from teaching students about issues "related to race, sex, color, gender identity, sexual orientation or national origin.” @insurgentprof.bsky.social
In April, Mississippi enacted a new anti-DEI law that would, among other things, prohibit public colleges, universities and K-12 schools from “engag[ing]” in “any formal or informal education . . . that focus[es] on increasing awareness or understanding of issues related to race, sex, color, gender identity, sexual orientation or national origin.”

So, we’re suing. 

We had our first hearing in federal court on Tuesday, seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary junction. 

We’re right, and we’re going to win.
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
@cantb.bsky.social on the federal government forcing UVA's president to resign. (Inside Higher Ed)
Brendan Cantwell, a higher education professor at Michigan State University, said Ryan’s resignation is a “major blow” to the independence of American institutions. 

“It is a sign that major public research universities are substantially controlled by a political party whose primary goal is to further its partisan agenda and will stop at nothing to bring the independence of higher education to heel,” he told Inside Higher Ed. “It undercuts both the integrity of academic communities as self-governing based on the judgment of expert professionals and the traditional accountability that public universities have to their states via formal and established governance mechanisms.”
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Shobita Parthasarathy @shobitap.org · 21/06/2025
Here's the problem: Universities' recent embrace of "institutional neutrality" policies are at odds with their goals to help students develop as thoughtful, moral citizens. Gift link.
nytimes.com
A White Nationalist Wrote a Law School Paper Promoting Racist Views. It Won Him an Award.
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
“Accordingly, the Trump administration has engaged in selective outrage about discrimination, focusing disproportionately on a supposed rampant anti-White racism problem in this country that is not supported by data, while remaining silent about prevalent discrimination against racial minorities.”
theglobepost.com
Fact vs. Fiction: The Trump Administration’s Dubious War on Reverse Discrimination
The Trump administration’s focus on “reverse discrimination” against White people is not backed by data and reflects a political narrative of White grievance.
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
"At a moment when higher education is in the political crosshairs, Ono appeared to some like he was more interested in joining the snipers than fighting back alongside his academic brethren." www.chronicle.com/article/he-w...
Time after time during his public interviews, both before the state board and UF’s trustees, Ono showed a willingness to embrace positions popular among conservatives or to renounce his past liberal stances. Questioned about mandating Covid vaccines, for example, Ono played down the real-world applicability of his hard-earned academic credentials, pronouncing himself a mere “mouse doctor,” and “a test-tube guy.” It was, for some who watched, a cringy and telling moment in which a well-educated person seemed willingly to shun the one thing academics value most: expertise.
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
“Leadership requires moral clarity, not strategic evasion. Students were followed, harassed, and criminalized under your watch. History will remember.” @professorjvh.bsky.social May U-M Faculty report to regents re: excessive surveillance: regents.umich.edu/files/meetin...
cloakinginequity.com
Exposed: University of Michigan Hired Undercover Spies to Target Students
As a second-generation alum of the University of Michigan, I’ve often reflected on how this institution shaped my life. The Diag, the center of campus with its steady hum of voices calling out inju…
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
How did Santa Ono lose a one-man race? Professor @silkyweineck.bsky.social writes: “Perhaps it was the instinctive bipartisan contempt most of us feel for blatant pandering: Ono’s assurances that he would follow orders had .. an eagerness to humiliate himself that does not signal leadership.”
chronicle.com
Opinion | The Ruination of Santa Ono
When an accomplished man is reduced to pandering, it’s a sad spectacle.
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
The Chronicle is tracking higher ed’s dismantling of DEI efforts.
chronicle.com
Tracking Higher Ed’s Dismantling of DEI
We’ve documented actions taken on hundreds of campuses to alter or eliminate jobs, offices, hiring practices, and programs amid mounting political pressure to end identity-conscious recruitment and re...
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
“In his opening remarks, Ono spent much of his time on the political defensive. He forswore DEI, pledged to combat antisemitism, beat back charges that he’s a climate-change fanatic, and assured the board that he’s no longer issuing land-acknowledgement statements to honor Indigenous people.”
chronicle.com
For the College Presidency, It’s Officially Campaign Season
Santa Ono’s quest to lead the U. of Florida has looked an awful lot like a national political run.
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Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
“By giving in, the capitulating firms and universities will learn a lesson from the streets that Mr. Trump knows better than they do: Borrowing money from a loan shark isn’t simply adding a new monthly expense; making that kind of deal is a way of life.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Trump Has His Law Firms Right Where He Wants Them
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
My colleagues @scottlgreer.bsky.social and Julie Boland write that Ono “created a polarized mess that hurt the university, and his intransigence led to staff being fired with no warning just weeks ago. A new president should accept that Michigan is a socially engaged and active university.”
bridgemi.com
Opinion | U-M regents have another chance at choosing a leader. Will they take it? | Bridge Michigan
Michigan needs a wartime leader, a victor valiant who will stay and be a champion. Ono wasn't. The regents must make it clear that his replacement should be.
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Santa Ono, in 2023, was asked (not under duress) about his commitment to DEI. m.youtube.com/watch?v=pXKo...
President Ono said, “I’m very pleased that DEI 1.0 has taken place…. It’s a very strong foundation upon which we must build… We have to be committed to continuous positive momentum. And if you don’t do that, then you’ll take one step forward, two steps back.  So, it’s incredibly important to me, from these early days that I’m here to clearly show that I’m behind DEI 1.0, but also to making sure that, when we proceed and embark on DEI 2.0, that we do so with even more vigor and even more determination.”
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
In 2023, Santa Ono 1.0 explains why DEI is personally important to him. Ono 2.0 is now telling U-F that DEI is “about ideology.”
m.youtube.com
DEI 1.0 Evaluation Report w/ Santa J. Ono, President of U-M -- systemic racism
YouTube video by U-M Survivors Speak Up!
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Sean D. Johnson @seanjohnson.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
media.tenor.com
a lion from the wizard of oz is talking to a woman and saying `` i haven 't any courage '' .
Alt: a lion from the wizard of oz is talking to a woman and saying `` i haven 't any courage
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Ono cut ODEI at UM to prove himself to UF: "Some of the things I hear is not everyone is included in the support that's provided," Ono said. "To me, it's an American thing to support all students as opposed to just some of the students.”
freep.com
UF president finalist Ono talks DEI, experimental learning in meetings with students, faculty
Dr. Santa J. Ono, the current president of the University of Michigan, is the only finalist to become the University of Florida's 14th president.
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
In honor of Santa Ono leaving U-M for the University of Florida, it seems only fit that our U-M Graduate Student Employees organization should issue his final report card.
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
My artworks recreate dubious brand messaging to explicitly state the implicit. So when U-M launched the Ono presidency in 2022 (after a series of devastating sex abuse scandals) with a choreographed video of “university pres as mascot” in the spirit of Glee and Bye Bye Birdie, I assembled a team.
vimeo.com
Michigan Students and Leaders Welcome President Ono
This is "Michigan Students and Leaders Welcome President Ono" by Peter Smith-Buchanan on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Ono goes to Florida to continue playing dead.
freep.com
U-M President Santa Ono lacked the stomach to stick around | Letters
The University of Michigan is at a crossroads. As we begin the search for a new president, we must be clear-eyed about what kind of leader we need.
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
This disregard for democratic or parademocratic norms is unacceptable, and it does not bode well for the future when regents can publicly decry “authoritarian regimes” while themselves acting without regard for the consent of the governed.” 2/2
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
“To date, neither the regents nor our administration have publicly acknowledged the fact that more than 3,000 senate members asked them to defend academic freedom … and restore, within legal parameters, the DEI initiatives they abandoned. 1/2 @silkyweineck.bsky.social
chronicle.com
Opinion: Santa Ono Flees for Florida
He might be better suited to red-state politics.
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
freep.com
U-M's Santa Ono, leaving for University of Florida, gets mixed marks from students, staff
Santa Ono's tenure was the shortest of any U-M president in history, except for those who held the office on an interim basis.
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
athlonsports.com
Michigan Insider Gives Thoughts on Santa Ono's Decision to Leave for Florida
A Michigan insider shared his thoughts on Santa Ono's decision to leave for Florida.
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
Ohio University announced that it is shuttering its diversity, equity and inclusion offices, including the Multicultural Center, Pride Center and Women’s Center. nbc4i.co/3SgzRNO?utm_...
nbc4i.co
Ohio University closing diversity offices, women and pride centers
ATHENS, Ohio (WCMH) — Ohio University announced Tuesday that it is sunsetting its diversity, equity and inclusion offices, including the Multicultural Center, Pride Center and Women’s C…
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
If you’re craving serious examples of bad-ass women, I just published a single-essay book about Arijana Lekić-Fridrih, who has literally been standing up to confront the men praying for “male authority” en masse in public squares in Croatia. disobediencepress.com/arijana-leki... #womensrights
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
The University of Michigan Faculty Senate approves a mandate to protect our core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our vote is a “binding action of the University faculties.” In response, U-M Provost McCauley directs deans to remove the term DEI from websites.
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UMDEIdefense @umdeidefense.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
"We need a wartime president." @umich.edu @silkyweineck.bsky.social archive.ph/aIjEA
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Rebekah Modrak @rebekahmodrak.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
In discovery, @umich.edu attorneys learned that (1) faculty colluded to sabotage a promotion and (2) one professor signed their name to a review that was actually written by their conspirator, another professor. 1/2
michigandaily.com
Former SMTD professor alleges provost’s misconduct throughout his tenure review, Daily investigation finds Music, Theatre & Dance School Somangshu Mukherji alleges provost’s misconduct
Professor Mukherji was denied tenure in a process that has allegedly engaged in several levels of misconduct.
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