Week 35
Sept 15-19, 2025 - our way out of the woods
Hello friends,
This week, my team and I are kicking off a deeper dive into power mapping. Power mapping is a way of working out who is aligned with the change you want to see in the world, who opposes it, and how much influence each entity can bring to bear. As with any strategy tool I can think of, there are a variety of different approaches, styles, and templates. Some are functionally interchangeable, while others create very different products and experiences. Sometimes I find such multiplicity to be more frustrating than useful, but of course there’s more than one way through the woods.
Still, revisiting the fundamentals is useful. I really enjoyed the chance to get into the weeds about precisely what we mean by “power over”, “power to”, “power with”, and “power within.” We can (and should!) debate how exactly how we operationalize this concept.1 But the abuse of power we’re experiencing right now is anything but academic.
This was Week 35. The stakes are terribly high: let’s face them.
What’s happening now
As I started writing this, news broke about a new executive order to limit H-1B visas.2 In brief, the administration says that the U.S. will start charging a $100,000 fee (per year, for three to six years, per person, payable by the employer). Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Google dominate the pool of H-1B visas and are declining to comment as of this writing. As I’m processing the news, I find it helpful to remember what an executive order is, remind myself that this one will be challenged, and note that it seems not to have a mechanism yet. If it does happen, it will hurt small tech firms, including people I care about very much, but it’s not a foregone conclusion. We see less coverage of all the reversals and walk-backs, but they are plentiful.3 That’s important to remember because there’s so much immigration news happening right now.4 I’m focused on the most direct links to science & higher ed here, but encourage you to follow our immigration work at Unbreaking for more. To wrap this bullet up, I was thinking earlier today about the college apartments sitting empty right now that should be filled with international students. This is about SO much more than economic impact, but I wonder if it creates an unexpected area of common cause? I saw a new Pew poll on the topic of international students. Most people–8 in 10–say “it’s good for U.S. universities to accept international students.” This includes the majority of Republicans. We’ve got the bipartisan agreement people keep clamoring for - now who will run with it?
Speaking of administration reversals, on Monday the CDC revoked reasonable accommodations for disabled employees who work from home, abruptly calling them back to the office. That order was rescinded today, following strong pushback from unions.5 That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the ACIP6 meeting has been… really something. The meeting was marked by confusions, irregularities, and reversals between day one and day two.7 Thanks to this group, the combined measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox (MMRV8) vaccine is no longer recommended for children under four, nor will it be covered by Medicaid or programs that cover uninsured kids. Please understand and tell people in your network that little kids still need their MMR vaccine and their chickenpox vaccine, and they can get them, just in two separate injections. ACIP also voted to stop recommending COVID vaccines for all adults, though they did not support requiring prescriptions for them.9 They delayed their vote on protecting newborns from hepatitis B, and are now revisiting the entire suite of vaccination recommendations for babies, children, and pregnant adults.
And finally, a few more ways I’m noticing power in our realm:
Texas A&M forced the university president to step down, a possibility I speculated about last week. This line seems particularly telling, “In trying to appease both conservatives and faculty, he managed to satisfy neither. [Leaders are struggling] to uphold fundamental values of institutional autonomy and academic freedom in the face of a broad conservative effort to reshape higher education. Very few, it seems, are striking a balance.”
The National Academies, for example, released a major report affirming climate change science on Wednesday. Good. But NASEM has now been denounced by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, as well as the House Committee on Appropriations. The latter has officially encouraged federal agencies to pursue alternative channels for “unbiased” scientific review.
While members of the University of California community wait for decisive action from top leadership, a coalition of 21 UC unions and faculty associations filed suit against the president on Tuesday.10
What’s next & what to do
At the top of this post, I wrote about the idea of “many paths through the woods.” A colleague introduced me to a technical word for this last week: equifinality is about achieving the same outcome from diverse trajectories or different starting spots.
I believe we need to pursue our own paths, using our own strengths, in our own contexts. I wish breaking things wasn’t so easy, I wish building them wasn’t so hard. I really wish shit-talking competitors just didn’t work. And oh how I wish the people with the most power would actually use it instead of scrabbling for cover. To quote Judith Butler, “It is important to refuse the notion that this is just how things are right now, invoking a feckless realpolitik that justifies complicity with a brutal and rising authoritarianism.”
So instead of railing against the ways I see us falling short, I’m going to hold tighter to the principle of equifinality. I’ll keep doing my level best to understand what different groups are trying to do, and to highlight the work that inspires me.11
This week, I’m excited about the vision Stand Together for Higher Ed has for building a sector-wide response. Their diagnosis of our problems in higher ed includes the diminished power that faculty and staff have on their own campuses. Their vision of a national network of chapters is specifically grounded in labor organizing. I specifically like that they are calling on people on those whose citizenship status and tenure or relative job security give them more safety to take on more of the risk. I also like that they named community colleges in the same breath as big state schools and the Ivy League in our discussion. They’re recently launched, and their way isn’t the only way, but I think it’s a promising one. Maybe they’re what you’ve been looking for?
Whatever it is, I hope you find it, and then I hope you hold on to it, but not too tight. I hope you help others who’ve found a different way. Call it community, call it equifinality, or call it “Do not split” like the Hong Kong protestors did. It’s how we’ll find our way out of the woods.
Liz
As ever, thanks for reading & thinking with me. Please share it with your people. Meeting the Moment will always be free, but if you want to contribute ⤵️
If this email was forwarded to you, hi! 👋 This newsletter is my part of an ongoing conversation with friends who’ve had a rough week. Every Friday night, I share two or three pieces of news that feel most important to those of us who care about science and higher education. I try to offer a helpful way to think about the problems in front of us, and at least one useful thing to do. If you like what you see ⤵️
And pay close attention to who is cited as definitive or authoritative on the subject. ↩
These are the work visas for specialty occupations. We often use the phrase “highly skilled workers” - people with PhDs, MDs, and software engineers, for example. I always forget that there is also a dedicated subgroup for fashion models (H-1B3). This is not a smirking aside - it’s yet another example of unusual alliances that might arise from shared struggle. ↩
Although this story is from March (a lifetime ago), and this one is from May (a distant memory), here’s one from last weekend that argues the president is prone to reverse course, “particularly when it comes to foreign workers, student visas and industries that rely on immigrant labor.” ↩
Off the top of my head: the launch of ”gold” and “platinum” visas, federal agents using tear gas on protestors in Chicago, the Supreme Court okaying racial profiling for ICE, a new (already-disputed) order to deport Mahmoud Khalil, and the revocation of Temporary Protected Status for Syrian refugees, and potentially Venezuelans as well. All since I wrote this newsletter last Friday. ↩
Per the AFGE Local 2883 and 3840 unions’ joint statement, “the most sweeping civil rights violation against federal employees in decades.” ↩
ACIP is the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. See my updates on it in Week 21 and Week 35, or this KFF write up for an overview of the situation. (Sorry that their reporting terminology is a little confusing - each mention of “advisory group” in the piece means ACIP.) ↩
In fact, I will caveat freely here. I’m exhausted and some of the coverage of this meeting left me more confused than I started. I encourage you to follow people who truly know what they’re talking about. My go-to is Jessica Malaty Rivera. She posts lots of of-the-moment reels addressing what’s going on and also shares painstakingly vetted pieces like this extremely helpful flowchart for parents trying to figure out measles vaccinations, for example. ↩
Chickenpox = varicella. The virus is from the genus Varicellovirus. Of course I wanted to read about the etymology. Don’t you? ↩
It’s still more complicated than it was or should be, but you can probably get yours! I got mine earlier this week with zero hassles, questions, or hoops to jump through. Fingers crossed your experience is as easy. I’m really sorry if it’s not. ↩
There are so many lawsuits. It might help you like it helps me to bookmark the JustSecurity case link if you want to check in on it over time. ↩
Sending specifically warm thoughts out to Abby, Erika, Eve, Julie, Jonathan, and Kathy. In your own ways, you each fueled my fires this week. Thank you. 🔥 ↩