Catching up with Mark Lilla “Such a regime could attain its ends by making only a small number of opponents suffer physically while leaving the rest in psychological torment, wondering if or when the blow will fall.” www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...
Michael S Roth
@msroth.bsky.social
President of Wesleyan University. (grand)father, husband, author, professor. Defender of academic freedom, liberal education and democracy.
Congrats @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social prof @maazamengiste.bsky.social www.macfound.org/fellows/clas... @macfound.org
"Aaron shall lean both of his hands..upon the live he goat's head and confess upon it all the willful transgressions of the children of Israel, all their rebellions, and all their unintentional sins, and he shall place them on the he goat's head, and send it off to the desert with a timely man"
Read jloeffler.bsky.social “debates about Jews are never just about Jews. They are the seismographs of a society’s deeper tremors: its fears of difference, its contested visions of nationhood.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/o...
About to go teach my first class of the year at @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social. I'll try to remember this all semester: "Today’s students are trying to work out what it means to be decent humans in a world growing more heated, hostile and, sometimes, heartless." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/o...
Barbara Kingsolver quotes Wendell Berry: “As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/b...
@simsjames.bsky.socialReposted by @msroth.bsky.socialWatch the full episode of @realbillmaher.bsky.social featuring @msroth.bsky.social on HBO Max and catch his appearance on the “Overtime” after show on YouTube. #highered
@simsjames.bsky.socialReposted by @msroth.bsky.socialWesleyan University’s @msroth.bsky.social from last week’s @realtimers.bsky.social. #highered
@simsjames.bsky.socialReposted by @msroth.bsky.socialRead @michellegoldberg.bsky.social “the bleakness of our time makes her example more important than ever. She didn’t vanquish crude sexism, but she was part of a movement that made it marginal, at least for a while. If it was done before, it can be done again.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/o...
"Because the rules allow no wiggle room &the potential penalty is so large, schools are likely to examine their own activities and make changes even before the regulations take effect
“The chilling effect is very real" @wsj.com @aacu.org @thefireorg.bsky.social @aaup.org www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...
“Ms. McMahon’s letter might appear more benign than the compact. But she still implies that core academic decisions should be overseen by the federal government…Coercion is coercion, even if it’s not explicit.” @nytopinion.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/o...
Read @dwightgarner.bsky.social “Some of the ironies are pitched so high that only a dog can hear them…You don’t finish “The Disappearers.” It finishes you.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/30/b...
Too woke? “I used to live in the country that I thought was the most enthusiastic about the prospects for science improving the human condition, of any country in the world,” said Phillip Zamore… “And I woke up one day and that wasn’t true anymore.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/w...
Read @mashagessen.bsky.social “Fascism works not only by the passage of arbitrary, dehumanizing laws but by the arbitrary, dehumanizing enforcement of the laws.” @nytopinion.nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2026/08/13/o...
nytimes.comOpinion | What’s Happening in Kansas Should Alarm Us All (Gift Article)Is Kansas just the beginning?
"Authoritarianism doesn’t have to involve men in suits dragging people into cars...Orban showed that critics — or pockets of independence — can be rendered pliable by making them believe that the smart move is to affirmatively sacrifice some of their independence" @yale.edu wapo.st/3RW4HPo
wapo.stOpinion | Yale trustees, history is watching youA lesson from Hungary: Boards don't capitulate to authoritarians. The people on them do.