iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

"IHRA narrows the boundaries of legitimate Jewish identity. While Palestinians have been, without a doubt, the primary targets of this effort, it also . . . restricts the freedom of Jews to define their own identity, limiting the ways in which Jewish beliefs, thought and activism can be expressed."

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"When we criticize something important to someone’s identity, it doesn’t automatically mean we’re attacking their identity itself. When political positions become enshrined as essential components of personhood, substantive disagreements risk being recast as attacks on identity."

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The new definition of antisemitism is transforming America – and serving a Christian nationalist plan

Delighted to read @itamann.bsky.social's latest thoughtful piece today: "The redefinition of antisemitism isn’t simply a policy shift–it’s part of a deeper transformation of American democracy." www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

theguardian.com

Redefining antisemitism in the law was never about Jewish safety. It is about consolidating authoritarian power under the veneer of minority protection

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Reposted by Yaman

Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

I don’t see how, unless our entire profession stands shoulder-to-shoulder in unity, we successfully push back against this effort to break our profession and our democracy. Cowering & compromising won’t work. He is attacking us for the success of our work. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

whitehouse.gov

Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court

MEMORANDUM FOR THE ATTORNEY GENERAL THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY SUBJECT: Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court Lawyers

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What the Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador Experienced

“The intake began with slaps. One young man sobbed when a guard pushed him to the floor. He said, “I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.” I believed him. But maybe it’s only because he didn’t look like what I had expected—he wasn’t a tattooed monster.” time.com/7269604/el-s...

time.com

Exclusive photos of the arrival of Venezuelan detainees deported from the U.S.

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Yaman @ysalahi.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

“But a longstanding lesson of political opposition under authoritarian conditions… is that a critical means for building cross-group trust and solidarity, including for election season, is a willingness to stand on principle.“ newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

newleftreview.org

Aziz Rana, Constitutional Collapse — Sidecar

Trump and the law.

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Yaman @ysalahi.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

They won't stop at Columbia, or on Palestine. This is a broadside against the independence of academia. The only way for universities to defend themselves is to push back aggressively. Admins not ready to do that need to get out of the way. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/u...

nytimes.com

White House Expected to Pause $175 Million for Penn Over Transgender Policy

The decision is the latest clash between a university and the administration as it pushes schools to end diversity programming and adopt stricter discipline, among other things.

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Reposted by Yaman

Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

The Trump admin's thuggish letter to Columbia is garbage, legally speaking. The admin has no statutory authority to make these demands, and many of them are unconstitutional. balkin.blogspot.com/2025/03/a-ti...

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Yaman @ysalahi.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

Authoritarian power grabs begin by neutralizing civil servants, judges, academics, journalists, and artists. You can't have freedom or democracy in such conditions. Trump is pointing the same gun at Perkins Coie, the AP, the Kennedy Center, and Mahmoud Khalil, but many people don't see that yet.

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Yaman @ysalahi.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

The administration is going well beyond its Title VI authority and the First Amendment. Universities must mobilize to fight this in court, or there will be no limit to how and when the administration commandeers higher ed. It’s Palestine today; don’t wait to see what it is tomorrow.

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Many of the people who engineered the campaign against Columbia are also pushing for the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil and other activists. Those who supported the former but not the latter haven't yet realized that both efforts are anti-democratic.

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Absent indications that such unprotected conduct actually targets students based on their identity, as opposed to just making a political statement to a broad audience, unprotected conduct shouldn't raise Title VI concerns either.

This defense also applies to protest conduct that is not itself protected speech (such as trespass, vandalism, etc.). A school's handling of such conduct can't be scrutinized more harshly just because it was associated with a particular political viewpoint.

... argue that such expressive activity is constitutionally protected and cannot lay the foundation for a Title VI violation. Such a legal ruling can insulate universities from future threat of regulation or investigation on the grounds of political protests.

University administrators at Columbia and beyond have only one way out of this before it's too late: aggressively push back, acknowledge that the vast majority of protestors are expressing their disagreement with a highly unpopular foreign policy not hatred of any people, and ...

To the extent the university is negotiating and making further concessions to the administration—including, potentially, collaborating with ICE—it is digging itself into a deeper hole by sacrificing more of its institutional autonomy. It is not normal for the government to control academic life.

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Columbia didn't do that. Instead, it gave into a narrative about campus life constructed largely by off-campus partisans. In so doing, it let down the drawbridge that is now being used to dismantle the institution's independence.

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That requires structural safeguards and protections to guard against improper intrusion. But it also requires university administrators with the guts to stand by those principles under sustained pressure—precisely when those principles are needed most.

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A university's goal must always be to protect the academic freedom of its constituents, so that they can be entrusted to undertake their academic work without fear of undue influence by powerful economic or political actors.

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Instead of protecting Columbia, this line laid the foundation for the cancellation of its funding by an administration with no genuine interest in civil rights.

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