Hello friends,
It’s the end of September, the end of the federal fiscal year, and we are just five weeks out from what will be among the most pivotal midterm elections in US history. If you feel like you’re holding your breath while things just keep accelerating, you’re far from alone.

It therefore feels like serendipitous timing for the annual celebration of Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who singlehandedly averted nuclear war. On September 26, 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov was commanding Russia’s missile defense network when the early-warning system reported, with a 100% confidence rating, that the United States had just launched five intercontinental ballistic missiles. Large-scale nuclear counterstrikes and counter-counterstrikes would be imminent …if he had reported it up the chain. Petrov had personally set up 30 layers of verification in the satellite-based system, and the alert was unambiguous.¹ But instead of raising the alarm, he reported a system error² and white-knuckled his way through the grueling minutes until his gamble that the system was in error was proven correct.

The full story of Petrov’s choice and his life afterward is well worth exploring, especially amidst so much breathless discourse about AI ending life as we know it.

This was Year 2, Week 39.

What’s happening in science & higher ed

• The Justice Department is ending its longstanding oversight of more than 50 school desegregation orders. Most of these carefully-negotiated consent decrees have been in place for more than 50 years.³ The department’s intervention to secure dismissals is shocking because the simple passage of time does not solve a problem when underlying issues remain unchanged. In at least one instance already, a district released from its consent decree this year has discarded transfer and transportation policies that ensure equal access. Worse, the administration is abandoning the legal framework and data that make it possible for communities to tackle systemic racial injustice.
• Thanks to vocal bipartisan opposition from the Senate Appropriations Committee,⁴ the administration appears to have walked back the plan to give OMB Director Russell Vought personal veto over NIH grants. Last Friday, an Oval Office power struggle between Vought and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya ended in a decision to draft an executive order creating a commission that would supersede NIH Institute Directors’s decisions. Grants would require 100% consensus from the group, which would include Vought himself. Thankfully, that’s no longer happening,⁵ and although it’s not directly related, a brand-new Senate Bipartisan Science and Innovation Caucus just launched too.
• But before we fall over ourselves celebrating conservative lawmakers for protecting science, I think it’s important to read beyond the appealing headlines⁶ and focus on the full impact of funding disruptions. Elected officials trying to hold their seats⁷ are racing to position themselves in a flattering light right now, and political interference in science and medicine is decidedly unpopular.⁸
• As annual rankings roll out, my newsfeed is flooded with institutions touting their latest placement on the lists of top universities and colleges. We might spend a lot of energy digging into whether the observation that “most Florida universities fell in the rankings” means anything, but I’d much rather focus on the fact that UT Austin just removed 35 social and cultural analysis courses from its core curriculum for Spring 2027. Or that 25% of Minnesota State system institutions are on poor financial footing and the next step is shutting down campuses. Or that public universities across the country are reporting drops in international enrollment.

And what’s next

Unfortunately, what I want to focus on is at odds with the news cycle. The reason I write this update on Friday nights is because it’s when news dumps happen. And we got a pretty big one today: the White House has just announced a new $1 billion pocket rescission.⁹ We now have some sense of the targeted funds, and those most relevant to this newsletter include some $95 million in education funds supporting immigrant students and international scholars, $28 million in politically disfavored research grants under HHS and another $9 million linked to climate change policies, and $5 million from The HHS Office of Minority Health.

I struggle to think about and slog through explaining these spending machinations. What keeps me going is thinking about the real-world consequences. I dread the suffering that is going to be unleashed when SNAP and Medicaid rule changes go into effect next week because I care about all the families and people who will be hungry and hurting.

You know who else didn't just care, but consistently found ways to help communities cope with disasters? Dolly Parton, may she rest in peace. California just dedicated today, September 25, in her honor.¹⁰ As she says, “​We can't just hope for a brighter day, we have to work for a brighter day. Love too often gets buried in a world of hurt and fear. And we have to work to dig it out so we can share it with our family, our friends, and our neighbors.”

So let’s get digging,
Liz

As ever, thanks for reading & thinking with me!

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