Week 40
Oct 18-24, 2025 - care and feeding
Hello friends,
I love green, growing things: they fill up my house and my free time. I have so many house plants at this point that I have an app1 to help stay on top of it all. I don’t love waking up to notifications telling me I have 78 new tasks,2 but even during my busiest stretches, I love the quiet care and presence plants require from me. Each one has its unique watering and fertilizing needs. They want different soils, different light, different pots, I love the challenge of finding the right conditions for each one. Most of all, I love that the app is merely a guide - an expert guess about what my plants might need, but just a guess. What I need to know isn’t on a screen, it is right there in front of me, if I only manage to notice it.
The pressure keeps ratcheting up in our networks, our universities, and our neighborhoods. I’m feeling it in every private conversation I have with scientists across the country, and I’m feeling it here in Oakland. It makes me think about how important it is to focus our attention on the things happening right in front of us.
This was week 40, and here’s what I saw.
What’s happening now
On Wednesday, UVA reached an agreement with the administration that will pause five federal investigations targeting the university’s work toward diversity and racial equity. This is something entirely separate from the compact, which UVA did decline last week. You can read the new agreement in full, but in brief, there is no financial penalty and no external monitoring. There are specific sections that affirm the “importance of and support for” academic freedoms and civil rights. What catches my attention is that one of the university’s FAQs says, “We have agreed to follow DOJ’s guidance on civil rights only to the extent that it remains in force and is consistent with relevant judicial decisions.” This is the guidance in question, and the administration’s attempt to eradicate DEI is being actively fought in court. Here’s the thing: I thought that it was odd that the new agreement requires UVA’s president to personally attest that the school is compliant with civil rights laws every quarter.3 Why would they do that? Here’s my thinking:
We know that the administration is weaponizing the False Claims Act (FCA) to bring fraud cases and pursue claims against organizations conducting DEI work;
Unlike other civil rights laws, the FCA carries heavy financial penalties. With mandatory fees ranging from $14,000-$28,000 per violation, these suits can reach hundreds of millions of dollars;
The FCA is also expressly structured to not just allow private individuals to bring suit on behalf of the federal government, but to incentivize those whistleblowers with financial rewards - 10 to 30% of the recovered funds.
Do you see where that leaves UVA? It has statements on paper that say “academic freedom” but it also now has the promise of direct financial incentives for racists, bigots, transphobes, and anyone keen to destroy anything they call DEI. I would dearly love to be wrong about this:4 the chilling effects and self-censorship alone will be staggering. The targeted harassment will be even worse.
In what feels like ancient history, an AWS outage on Monday highlighted what the internet’s “fragile interdependencies” really mean for schools, universities, hospitals, industry, and more. Condolences to everyone who struggled during those hours when Canvas, Slack, and thousands of other sites and apps went down.
Harvard is reducing their incoming cohort of hopeful science PhDs by more than 75% for the next two years. Science is not the only discipline affected, and Harvard is not the only school slashing incoming graduate classes. Astronomers have set up surveys & a working group. Alex Witze reports that in o different survey, 40 of 45 responding biology departments reported reducing their incoming 2026/2027 cohorts or planning to do so. What I keep noticing is how widespread budget cuts are, and how very quiet changes are being kept so far.
And finally, the government is still shut down. Today (Friday Oct 24) is day 25, and marks the second-longest shut down in American history. Many of the 4,000+ RIFs from Oct 10 have since been rolled back, but we don’t have a precise accounting. Some fired staff at the National Center for Health Statistics are unable to access their email, so they don’t know if they are currently employed or not. Meanwhile, NEJM and CIDRAP are joining forces to fill in the yawning void left by the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR, “the voice of the CDC”). The new effort will publish public health alerts and analysis. I hate that we need this, but I’m so glad it’s happening.
What’s next & what to do
Next week, unless something changes, 42 million people are going to lose the financial support they depend on to keep their families fed. Come November 1st, at least half the states in this country plan to cut off benefits for SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program). SNAP is the largest anti-hunger program in the country, and if it helps to think of it this way, 42 million people translates into 1 in 8 residents. There is a $6 billion contingency fund we could tap to keep people fed, but USDA does not plan to. So that leaves it to us.
Hunger is a policy choice, a dehumanizing weapon, and it is abhorrent. If you need a more pragmatic argument, I’d say “Hungry kids can’t learn. Hungry adults can’t focus.” So in addition to our research and science communication, I think we have a clear duty here, and as systems thinkers, we understand that it’s all connected. However you can contribute, do it: food banks, meal programs, mutual aid, checking in on your neighbors.
There’s work we need to do to help the people around us thrive. It’s right here in front of us, if we only manage to notice it.
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 ⤵️
I’m glad to have Nic Bennett hosting recurring Scientists in Solidarity action hours with us again ⤵️
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 ⤵️
Truly, Planta is an all-time great app if you’re searching for one! Genuinely thoughtful and helpful design, from a team that actually understands how to be useful. ↩
Yes, I KNOW I could solve this by having fewer plants. Stop bullying us! ↩
And to be clear, under this administration means not doing anything anyone might call DEI. ↩
I’m going to vet this idea with legal scholars and encourage you to do the same. Please send them my way if they have contradictory or confirmatory analysis. I thought this felt important enough to float now and will share any major revisions or rethinks in future newsletters. ↩