#statistical programming service

[sad--tree]

keep saying i don't want 2 work another retail xmas but canNOT 4 the life of me make myself finish my goddamn fucking job applications !!!!!! death & dying & despair etc. etc.

[unicodehealthcareservices45]

[help-me-find-a-name-please-lol]

exciting news! after 3 weeks of jumping through hoops and absolutely CRUSHING an interview, I got offered a job!!

even better news! I got to experience time travel!! I got yeeted back to the bad old days of when I first started my career and employee rights were at an all-time low, by being offered one of the worst, most exploitative contracts I've possibly ever seen. (And with my work history, that's saying A LOT).

(I turned it down. cos I value myself as at least a human being on the most basic level. so yaaaaay still unemployed).

[cybersuccesss]

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The data management process involves preparing, organizing, and enhancing the data to make it more valuable for analysis and modeling. Less controversial preprocessing focuses on data preparation for machine learning models to ensure performance data quality will directly affect the accuracy and reliability of machine learning models The information is well suited and ensures insights are accurate and useful. This helps to identify hidden patterns and saves time during sample development and subsequent analysis. At Cyber ​​Success Institute, we focus on the importance of data security requirements so we prepare you and your employees to ensure that your data is always up to date. Our Data Science Course in Pune offers hands-on training in data wrangling and pre-processing, enabling you to effectively transform raw data into actionable insights. Basic Steps in Data Management and Preprocessing,

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[abcshomecare]

ABCS Home Care

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[hislop3]

MedPAC and Medicare Advantage

In yesterday’s post, Mish-Mash Monday, in the section about the House Budget Committee’s Health Care Task Force, I offered some commentary regarding MedPAC (Medicare Payment Advisory Commission) and Medicare Advantage plans. I also included a letter from the senior living trade association LeadingAge to the Congressional task force that references MedPAC’s concerns regarding Medicare Advantage…

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Sarah Schwartz

Test after test of U.S. students’ reading and math abilities have shown scores declining since the pandemic.

Now, new results show that it’s not just children whose skills have fallen over the past few years—American adults are getting worse at reading and math, too.

The connection, if any, between the two patterns isn’t clear—the tests aren’t set up to provide that kind of information. But it does point to a populace that is becoming more stratified by ability at a time when economic inequality continues to widen and debates over opportunity for social mobility are on the rise.

The findings from the 2023 administration of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC, show that 16- to 65-year-olds’ literacy scores declined by 12 points from 2017 to 2023, while their numeracy scores fell by 7 points during the same period.

These trends aren’t unique in the global context: Of the 31 countries and economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that participated in PIAAC, some saw scores drop over the past six years, while others improved or held constant.

Still, as in previous years, the United States doesn’t compare favorably to other countries: The country ranks in the middle of the pack in literacy and below the international average in math. (Literacy and numeracy on the test are scored on a 500-point scale.)

But Americans do stand out in one way: The gap between the highest- and lowest-performing adults is growing wider, as the top scorers hold steady and other test takers see their scores fall.

“There’s a dwindling middle in the United States in terms of skills,” said Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees PIAAC in the country. (The test was developed by the OECD and is administered every three years.)

It’s a phenomenon that distinguishes the United States, she said.

“Some of that is because we’re very diverse and it’s large, in comparison to some of the OECD countries,” Carr said in a call with reporters on Monday. “But that clearly is not the only reason.”

American children, too, are experiencing this widening chasm between high and low performers. National and international tests show the country’s top students holding steady, while students at the bottom of the distribution are falling further behind.

It’s hard to know why U.S. adults’ scores have taken this precipitous dive, Carr said.

About a third of Americans score at lowest levels PIAAC is different from large-scale assessments for students, which measure kids’ academic abilities.

Instead, this test for adults evaluates their abilities to use math and reading in real-world contexts—to navigate public services in their neighborhood, for example, or complete a task at work. The United States sample is nationally representative random sample, drawn from census data.

American respondents averaged a level 2 of 5 in both subjects.

In practice, that means that they can, for example, use a website to find information about how to order a recycling cart, or read and understand a list of rules for sending their child to preschool. But they would have trouble using a library search engine to find the author of a book.

In math, they could compare a table and a graph of the same information to check for errors. But they wouldn’t be able to calculate average monthly expenses with several months of data.

While the U.S. average is a level 2, more adults now fall at a level 1 or below—28 percent scored at that level in literacy, up from 19 percent in 2017, and 34 percent in numeracy, up from 29 percent in 2017.

Respondents scoring below level 1 couldn’t compare calendar dates printed on grocery tags to determine which food item was packed first. They would also struggle to read several job descriptions and identify which company was looking to hire a night-shift worker.

The findings also show sharp divides by race and national origin, with respondents born in the United States outscoring those born outside of the country, and white respondents outscoring Black and Hispanic test takers. Those trends have persisted over the past decade.

[nornities]

How to use DXVK with The Sims 3

Have you seen this post about using DXVK by Criisolate? But felt intimidated by the sheer mass of facts and information?

@desiree-uk and I compiled a guide and the configuration file to make your life easier. It focuses on players not using the EA App, but it might work for those just the same. It’s definitely worth a try.

Adding this to your game installation will result in a better RAM usage. So your game is less likely to give you Error 12 or crash due to RAM issues. It does NOT give a huge performance boost, but more stability and allows for higher graphics settings in game.

The full guide behind the cut. Let me know if you also would like it as PDF.

Happy simming!

Disclaimer and Credits

Desiree and I are no tech experts and just wrote down how we did this. Our ability to help if you run into trouble is limited. So use at your own risk and back up your files!

We both are on Windows 10 and start the game via TS3W.exe, not the EA App. So your experience may differ.

This guide is based on our own experiments and of course criisolate’s post on tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/criisolate/749374223346286592/ill-explain-what-i-did-below-before-making-any

This guide is brought to you by Desiree-UK and Norn.

Compatibility

Note: This will conflict with other programs that “inject” functionality into your game so they may stop working. Notably

Reshade

GShade

Nvidia Experience/Nvidia Inspector/Nvidia Shaders

RivaTuner Statistics Server

It does work seamlessly with LazyDuchess’ Smooth Patch.

LazyDuchess’ Launcher: unknown

Alder Lake patch: does conflict. One user got it working by starting the game by launching TS3.exe (also with admin rights) instead of TS3W.exe. This seemed to create the cache file for DXVK. After that, the game could be started from TS3W.exe again. That might not work for everyone though.

A word on FPS and V-Sync

With such an old game it’s crucial to cap framerate (FPS). This is done in the DXVK.conf file. Same with V-Sync.

You need

a text editor (easiest to use is Windows Notepad)

to download DXVK, version 2.3.1 from here: https://github.com/doitsujin/DXVK/releases/tag/v2.3.1 Extract the archive, you are going to need the file d3d9.dll from the x32 folder

the configuration file DXVK.conf from here: https://github.com/doitsujin/DXVK/blob/master/DXVK.conf. Optional: download the edited version with the required changes here.

administrator rights on your PC

to know your game’s installation path (bin folder) and where to find the user folder

a tiny bit of patience :)

First Step: Backup

Backup your original Bin folder in your Sims 3 installation path! The DXVK file may overwrite some files! The path should be something like this (for retail): \Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin (This is the folder where also GraphicsRule.sgr and the TS3W.exe and TS3.exe are located.)

Backup your options.ini in your game’s user folder! Making the game use the DXVK file will count as a change in GPU driver, so the options.ini will reset once you start your game after installation. The path should be something like this: \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 (This is the folder where your Mods folder is located).

Preparations

Make sure you run the game as administrator. You can check that by right-clicking on the icon that starts your game. Go to Properties > Advanced and check the box “Run as administrator”. Note: This will result in a prompt each time you start your game, if you want to allow this application to make modifications to your system. Click “Yes” and the game will load.

2. Make sure you have the DEP settings from Windows applied to your game.

Open the Windows Control Panel.

Click System and Security > System > Advanced System Settings.

On the Advanced tab, next to the Performance heading, click Settings.

Click the Data Execution Prevention tab.

Select 'Turn on DEP for all programs and services except these”:

Click the Add button, a window to the file explorer opens. Navigate to your Sims 3 installation folder (the bin folder once again) and add TS3W.exe and TS3.exe.

Click OK. Then you can close all those dialog windows again.

Setting up the DXVK.conf file

Open the file with a text editor and delete everything in it. Then add these values:

d3d9.textureMemory = 1

d3d9.presentInterval = 1

d3d9.maxFrameRate = 60

d3d9.presentInterval enables V-Sync,d3d9.maxFrameRate sets the FrameRate. You can edit those values, but never change the first line (d3d9.textureMemory)!

The original DXVK.conf contains many more options in case you would like to add more settings.

A. no Reshade/GShade

Setting up DXVK

Copy the two files d3d9.dll and DXVK.conf into the Bin folder in your Sims 3 installation path. This is the folder where also GraphicsRule.sgr and the TS3W.exe and TS3.exe are located. If you are prompted to overwrite files, please choose yes (you DID backup your folder, right?)

And that’s basically all that is required to install.

Start your game now and let it run for a short while. Click around, open Buy mode or CAS, move the camera.

Now quit without saving. Once the game is closed fully, open your bin folder again and double check if a file “TS3W.DXVK-cache” was generated. If so – congrats! All done!

Things to note

Heads up, the game options will reset! So it will give you a “vanilla” start screen and options.

Don’t worry if the game seems to be frozen during loading. It may take a few minutes longer to load but it will load eventually.

The TS3W.DXVK-cache file is the actual cache DXVK is using. So don’t delete this! Just ignore it and leave it alone. When someone tells to clear cache files – this is not one of them!

Update Options.ini

Go to your user folder and open the options.ini file with a text editor like Notepad.

Find the line “lastdevice = “. It will have several values, separated by semicolons. Copy the last one, after the last semicolon, the digits only. Close the file.

Now go to your backup version of the Options.ini file, open it and find that line “lastdevice” again. Replace the last value with the one you just copied. Make sure to only replace those digits!

Save and close the file.

Copy this version of the file into your user folder, replacing the one that is there.

Things to note:

If your GPU driver is updated, you might have to do these steps again as it might reset your device ID again. Though it seems that the DXVK ID overrides the GPU ID, so it might not happen.

How do I know it’s working?

Open the task manager and look at RAM usage. Remember the game can only use 4 GB of RAM at maximum and starts crashing when usage goes up to somewhere between 3.2 – 3.8 GB (it’s a bit different for everybody).

So if you see values like 2.1456 for RAM usage in a large world and an ongoing save, it’s working. Generally the lower the value, the better for stability.

Also, DXVK will have generated its cache file called TS3W.DXVK-cache in the bin folder. The file size will grow with time as DXVK is adding stuff to it, e.g. from different worlds or savegames. Initially it might be something like 46 KB or 58 KB, so it’s really small.

Optional: changing MemCacheBudgetValue

MemCacheBudgetValue determines the size of the game's VRAM Cache. You can edit those values but the difference might not be noticeable in game. It also depends on your computer’s hardware how much you can allow here.

The two lines of seti MemCacheBudgetValue correspond to the high RAM level and low RAM level situations. Therefore, theoretically, the first line MemCacheBudgetValue should be set to a larger value, while the second line should be set to a value less than or equal to the first line.

The original values represent 200MB (209715200) and 160MB (167772160) respectively. They are calculated as 200x1024x1024=209175200 and 160x1024x1024=167772160.

Back up your GraphicsRules.sgr file! If you make a mistake here, your game won’t work anymore.

Go to your bin folder and open your GraphicsRules.sgr with a text editor.

Search and find two lines that set the variables for MemCacheBudgetValue.

Modify these two values to larger numbers. Make sure the value in the first line is higher or equals the value in the second line. Examples for values: 1073741824, which means 1GB 2147483648 which means 2 GB. -1 (minus 1) means no limit (but is highly experimental, use at own risk)

Save and close the file. It might prompt you to save the file to a different place and not allow you to save in the Bin folder. Just save it someplace else in this case and copy/paste it to the Bin folder afterwards. If asked to overwrite the existing file, click yes.

Now start your game and see if it makes a difference in smoothness or texture loading. Make sure to check RAM and VRAM usage to see how it works.

You might need to change the values back and forth to find the “sweet spot” for your game. Mine seems to work best with setting the first value to 2147483648 and the second to 1073741824.

Uninstallation

Delete these files from your bin folder (installation path):

d3d9.dll

DXVK.conf

TS3W.DXVK-cache

And if you have it, also TS3W_d3d9.log

if you changed the values in your GraphicsRule.sgr file, too, don’t forget to change them back or to replace the file with your backed up version.

OR

delete the bin folder and add it from your backup again.

B. with Reshade/GShade

Follow the steps from part A. no Reshade/Gshade to set up DXVK.

If you are already using Reshade (RS) or GShade (GS), you will be prompted to overwrite files, so choose YES. RS and GS may stop working, so you will need to reinstall them.

Whatever version you are using, the interface shows similar options of which API you can choose from (these screenshots are from the latest versions of RS and GS).

Please note: 

Each time you install and uninstall DXVK, switching the game between Vulkan and d3d9, is essentially changing the graphics card ID again, which results in the settings in your options.ini file being repeatedly reset.

ReShade interface

Choose – Vulcan

Click next and choose your preferred shaders.

Hopefully this install method works and it won't install its own d3d9.dll file.

If it doesn't work, then choose DirectX9 in RS, but you must make sure to replace the d3d9.dll file with DXVK's d3d9.dll (the one from its 32bit folder, checking its size is 3.86mb.)

GShade interface

Choose –           

Executable Architecture: 32bit

Graphics API: DXVK

Hooking: Normal Mode

GShade is very problematic, it won't work straight out of the box and the overlay doesn't show up, which defeats the purpose of using it if you can't add or edit the shaders you want to use.

Check the game's bin folder, making sure the d3d9.dll is still there and its size is 3.86mb - that is DXVK's dll file.

If installing using the DXVK method doesn't work, you can choose the DirectX method, but there is no guarantee it works either.

The game will not run with these files in the folder:

d3d10core.dll

d3d11.dll

dxgi.dll

If you delete them, the game will start but you can't access GShade! It might be better to use ReShade.

Some Vulcan and DirectX information, if you’re interested:

Vulcan is for rather high end graphic cards but is backward compatible with some older cards. Try this method with ReShade or GShade first.

DirectX is more stable and works best with older cards and systems. Try this method if Vulcan doesn't work with ReShade/GShade in your game – remember to replace the d3d9.dll with DXVK's d3d9.dll.

For more information on the difference between Vulcan and DirectX, see this article:

https://www.howtogeek.com/884042/vulkan-vs-DirectX-12/

[pucksandpower]

So … I rarely talk about politics on here. I prefer to take action in real-life, and put my time and money where my mouth is.

But, as a medical student and a United States citizen, there are some things I need you to know.

- Unfortunately, many states have laws requiring healthcare providers ask patients about their immigration status. You do not have to answer this. Despite what is encoded into law, you will not be turned away nor reported, especially if you are seeking emergency services. Do not let fear stop you from getting the care you need, that’s what the government wants.

- An executive order has withdrawn the United States from the World Health Organization. While the WHO is not perfect, they are responsible for some of the most comprehensive research networks, vaccine initiatives, healthcare surveillance systems, and pandemic response protocols around the globe. Every healthcare provider and medical student I know is worried about what this means for our future and the standard of care we are able to provide nationally.

- Dismantling DEI programs only serves to hurt already marginalized communities. Contrary to what the White House claims, DEI initiatives do not allow “less qualified” applicants to enter the workforce. Instead, they provide individuals who have systematically been given less opportunities a more equitable playing field. For example, only about 6.9% of physicians identify as Hispanic and about 5.7% of physicians identify as Black or African American in the United States. This is extremely disproportionate when looking at ethnicity statistics of the country as a whole. And it largely comes down to the same root cause — lack of resources. No medical school is accepting unqualified applicants, that’s simply a fact. What DEI initiatives do promote, however, is qualified applicants to study and eventually become healthcare providers. Because guess what? Research has shown that physicians of color are most likely to practice in underserved communities and provide medical care to some of the patients who need it most.

There is so much more I want to say that can’t be adequately condensed into a short post on tumblr. But what I can do is try to do my small part in educating how current events are going to trickle down and affect national healthcare as we know it.

My comments, messages, and inbox are always open for anyone who wants to talks.

[contemplatingoutlander]

How Trump is reshaping reality by hiding data

Curating reality is an old political game, but Trump’s sweeping statistical purges are part of a broader attempt to reinvent “truth.”

Trump appears to be turning the federal government into its own 1984-style Ministry of Truth.

This is a gift 🎁 link so there is no paywall to read it. Below are some excerpts/highlights.

By Amanda Shendruk and Catherine Rampell | March 11, 2025 The Trump administration is deleting taxpayer-funded data — information that Americans use to make sense of the world. In its absence, the president can paint the world as he pleases. We don’t know the full universe of statistics that has gone missing, but the U.S. DOGE Service’s wrecking ball has already left behind a wasteland of 404 pages. All sorts of useful information has disappeared, including data on:

[...]

[See more under the cut.]

Three cases of legerdemath and other tricks up Trump’s sleeve

Deleting data isn’t the only way to manipulate official statistics. Trump and his allies have also misrepresented or altered data. Here are a few examples: 1. Incorrect data

Witness DOGE’s bogus statistics on its supposed government savings. The administration counts as “savings” some canceled contracts that had already been paid in full. Some canceled expenses were created out of whole cloth, such as $50 million supposedly spent on sending condoms to Gaza. 2. Misrepresented data

One of Trump’s favorite charts on immigration is riddled with errors. For one, it does not show the number of immigrants entering the United States illegally, as he claims, but the number of people stopped at the U.S. border. Similarly, when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was recently asked how much DOGE funding cuts might reduce economic growth, he suggested that the agency might decide to change how economic growth is calculated so that the usual GDP report strips out government spending altogether. This would be an abrupt change to the standard GDP methodology that has been used around the world for nearly a century, but it would certainly make the DOGE cuts look less painful. 3. Altered data

When data doesn’t tell the story Trump wants, he fabricates it. In what became known as “Sharpiegate,” Trump notoriously altered a map of Hurricane Dorian’s path in 2019.

Likewise, before Jan. 30, a National Institutes of Health website documenting years of spending data included a category called “Workforce Diversity and Outreach.” That line item is now gone — even though the money was, indeed, spent.

Taking cues from authoritarian illusionists

Such actions are straight out of authoritarian leaders’ playbooks. Research suggests that less democratic countries have been more likely to inflate their GDP growth rates and manipulate their covid-19 numbers. Statistical manipulation is also more common in countries that shun economic openness and democracy. [...] To be clear, efforts to rewrite reality via statistical manipulation often don’t work. If anything, China’s data deletions reduced public confidence in the country’s economic stability. (No one hides good news, after all.) The Trump team’s efforts to suppress nettlesome numbers have similarly eroded trust in U.S. data. Only about one-third of Americans trust that most or all of the statistics Trump cites are “reliable and accurate.”

Meanwhile, missing or untrustworthy data lead to worse decisions: Auto companies, for example, draw on dozens of federally administered datasets when devising new car models, how to price them, where to stock and market them and other key choices. Retailers need detailed information about local demographics, weather and modes of transit when deciding where to locate stores. Doctors require up-to-date statistics about disease spread when diagnosing or treating patients. Families look at school test scores and local crime rates when deciding where to move. Politicians use census data when determining funding levels for important government programs.

And of course, voters need good data of all kinds when weighing whether to throw the bums out. Many of us take the existence of economic or public health stats for granted, without even thinking about who maintains them or what happens if they go away. Fortunately, some outside institutions have been saving and archiving endangered federal data. The Internet Archives’ Wayback Machine, for instance, crawls sites around the internet and has become an invaluable resource for seeing what federal websites used to contain. Other organizations are archiving topic-specific data and research, such as on the environment or reproductive health. These are critical but ultimately insufficient efforts. At best, they can preserve data already published. But they cannot update series already halted or purged.... Some private companies may step in to offer their own substitutes (on prices, for example), but private companies still rely on government statistics to calibrate their own numbers. Much of the most critical information about the state of our union can be collected only by the state itself. Americans might be stuck with whatever Trump chooses to share with us, or not.

[matt-murdockk]

Gold Rush— Chapter 1

series masterlist | fluff, not exactly angst, but there's an emotional heart-to-heart

pairing: spencer reid x fem!bau!reader

words: 3.1k

summary: Hotch has you and Spencer pose as college students for a particularly riveting case. Spencer confides in you about his own college experience. Morgan and Garcia debate meddling in your lives.

warnings: language, mentions of suicide, canon typical violence, bogus statistics that i made up for the sake of plot

a/n: new spencer series can i get a wahoo; This is the first chapter, it's going to be a slow burn, fluffy, angst, probably suggestive, friends-to-lovers thing, with a definite happy ending because Spencer Walter Reid deserves good things in life. no established timeline yet, but Gideon is still with the team right now.

In all your time at the BAU, one thing you noticed was how surprisingly often you had to take cases involving universities. Something about high-pressure environments like these kept pushing people over the edge. It made sense if college was still as brutal as you remembered; no wonder people kept losing it as frequently as they did.

"Did you know that over 1,100 college students in the U.S. die by suicide each year? And nearly one in four students meet the criteria for a diagnosable mental health condition, but only about 25% of them seek help. Also, campus crime rates have shown a 7% increase in violent offenses over the last decade— likely due to underfunded mental health services and increased academic stressors."

"That's an extremely depressing statistic, thank you for that, Spencer."

"Emily, I'm just trying to help."

The environment in the jet was tense, to say the least. On top of the fact that the latest victim had been found less than 200 feet from a freshman dorm, with signs of prolonged restraint, the most recent ME report confirmed what they’d all feared: this wasn’t rage. It was ritual. Deliberate. Calculated.

"Alright," Morgan said, flipping through the file, his brow furrowed. "We’ve got four students dead in six weeks. All of them high achievers, all part of the same hyper-competitive academic fellowship program. No signs of struggle. No known enemies. Ligature marks around the wrists and feet indicate that they may have been tortured. Slowly."

The jet was quiet for a beat— just the hum of engines and the occasional rustle of paper.

(Y/n) leaned forward, elbow on her knee, eyes scanning the victimology chart. “All four were juniors. That means they were eligible for summer internships. The kind that come with permanent placement options.”

JJ glanced up from the folder in her lap. “You think this could be connected to competition? Someone trying to eliminate the top contenders?”

“It’s possible,” (Y/n) said, thoughtful. “But if it were just about removing competition, the unsub wouldn’t need to do it this violently. This feels... personal.”

“Good insight,” Hotch said, nodding once. “Keep following that thread.”

From across the aisle, Reid spoke without looking up from the file in his lap. “It’s reminiscent of the 1998 Brecklin University case in Utah. Three students from a competitive honors cohort murdered by a rejected applicant. Same kind of precision. Same fixation on achievement.”

“That guy had a manifesto,” Gideon muttered, not looking up. “Swore the school was rigged against him.”

Emily sighed. “So we’re looking at a potential revenge motive. Someone who thinks they should’ve been in the program?”

“Or someone who was and got cut,” JJ added. “We’ll need to get the list of current fellows and anyone who didn’t make the last cut.”

(Y/n) reached for her tablet, already briefing Garcia. “On it.”

Next to her, Spencer nudged her foot lightly under the table. “Your theory tracks,” he said, voice lower now, just for her. “Most people overlook psychological escalation when there's a logical motive present. You didn’t.”

(Y/n) shrugged. “Yeah, well. Most people don’t spend their weekends with you explaining twelve different types of criminal obsession over lukewarm coffee.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “That was one time.”

She grinned. “It was three.”

Morgan noticed the moment and smirked slightly. “Alright, lovebirds. Focus.”

"That's not— we're not— I, uh," Spencer struggled.

"Wow," replied (Y/n), clutching her imaginary pearls. "And here I was, thinking our love was real. For shame, Dr. Reid. For shame."

Spencer huffed out a soft laugh, the tension in his shoulders easing just enough to be visible. He turned slightly, catching her eye across the aisle.

She was already looking at him, one corner of her mouth lifted in that way that meant you’re fine.

He mouthed a quiet, thank you.

(Y/n) winked. Anytime.

——————————————————————————————————

The precinct they landed in was small, boxy, and smelled vaguely of burnt coffee and stale printer ink. A far cry from Quantico, but it would do. JJ and Gideon were already coordinating with local officers, setting up a profile board in the narrow back room that doubled as a break area.

Garcia was on speaker with Derek somewhere in the periphery, her voice tinny through the ancient phone system as she rattled off the initial background checks, with the occasional inappropriate comment that Derek doubled down on with much joy.

Hotch stood at the centre of the chaos, calm as ever. “I want (Y/n) and Reid to go undercover on campus,” he said, flipping through a preliminary security log. “The unsub is targeting students from within. We need eyes and ears close to the victim pool.”

Spencer blinked. “You want us to pose as… students?”

Emily smirked from across the room. “What’s the matter, Reid? Afraid someone’s gonna ask you to shotgun a beer?”

Spencer ignored her. “I just mean— my college experience was… atypical. I was fourteen. I didn’t live on campus. I didn’t attend parties or football games or join any clubs. Well, regular clubs. I— I don’t know how to blend in with normal students.”

“Well,” (Y/n) said, patting him on the back as she passed, “lucky for you, I was a deeply average college student with exactly zero social capital and a very unhealthy caffeine addiction. I’ve got this.”

Spencer gave her a wary look.

(Y/n) grinned. “Seriously. Relax, baby boy. I gotchu.”

Across the room, Morgan let out a low whistle. “You two are gonna blend in just fine.”

Spencer shot Morgan a look, then turned back to her. “I’m not entirely sure how pretending to be eighteen again is going to help us gather meaningful data. For all we know, Morgan would probably make a more convincing student. He can pass for a jock, right?”

She handed him a hoodie someone had fished out from the campus security lost-and-found. “Don’t worry. You’re not here to be meaningful. You’re here to be pretty and mysterious.”

Spencer adjusted his satchel. “I’m fairly certain I can manage mysterious.”

(Y/n) smiled, tilting her head. “Yeah, and the pretty part is, well, already taken care of. Come on, Doctor. Time to infiltrate the youth.”

——————————————————————————————————

The sun was beginning to dip behind the campus library, casting long, golden shadows across the quad as (Y/n) made her way toward the old stone fountain at the centre. It was a popular hangout spot, even now— students milling about with iced coffees, backpacks slung low, laughter bouncing off brick walls. She spotted Spencer instantly.

He stood awkwardly by the fountain, posture too straight, expression too polite, and looking deeply out of place in the zip-up hoodie they’d bullied him into wearing. A group of girls had just passed him— giggling, whispering, one of them very obviously handing him her number on a napkin from the student café.

She bit back a laugh as she walked up.

He looked over and exhaled like her presence alone was a relief.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

(Y/n) sipped her drink. “Made some friends, got a few names from the fellowship director. Cross-referenced their housing, spotted a pattern— he’s been circling the same three dorms. Garcia’s running the utilities and entry logs now.”

Spencer blinked. “You got all that in twenty minutes?”

“I multitask,” she said, handing him a folded notepad. “Also, the campus gossip train is terrifyingly effective. Everyone knows something. Especially if you bring a coffee and look appropriately tired.”

He flipped through the notes, nodding slowly.

"So, how'd it go on your end? You look like you had to sit through someone misquoting Nietzsche for 40 minutes straight."

"Well, let's see. It took me conversations with 4 different people to realise that I was being propositioned, got 6 phone numbers so far, yeah, apparently I give off a sullen, mysterious, lonely English literature professor energy that quote unquote chicks dig, at least 3 people thought I was someone called Scotty and would not listen when I very politely tried to explain to them that I had no idea who this Scotty was, I think someone tried to sell me weed? Yeah, and I stepped on something; I don't even want to find out what it was, I'm just going to burn my shoes when we get home, and I am deeply, utterly, painfully uncomfortable."

(Y/n) stared at him, wide-eyed, then promptly burst out laughing.

It wasn’t delicate. It was full-bodied and genuine— the kind that made her tip forward slightly, hand pressed to her stomach. Spencer looked at her with faux-offense, arms crossed, but the corner of his mouth twitched anyway.

“You think this is funny?”

“Oh, hell yes. This is the best day of my life,” she wheezed. “You getting mistaken for Scotty is just hilarious, might I add.”

"You know him, too? Jesus, who's Scotty?"

"Dude, you should so meet Scotty, how do you not know him? He’s a campus legend. Sells weed, gives terrible relationship advice, runs an anonymous poetry zine, and once faked his own death for a sociology project.”

Spencer blinked. “What.”

She shrugged, sipping her drink like it was the most normal thing in the world. “It was performance art.”

“We’ve been here for—” he checked his watch, “—an hour and twelve minutes.”

“Exactly. And you’re already accidentally embodying the student body’s most chaotic icon. You’re killing it.”

Spencer opened his mouth, then closed it again, clearly reassessing his life choices.

They started walking, cutting through a patch of sun-drenched grass toward the dorms. The chatter of students buzzed around them like white noise— fragments of conversation, laughter, the occasional sound of a Frisbee being caught mid-air.

As they passed a cluster of students seated under a tree, one of them nudged another and nodded toward them.

“See?” the guy said, not even trying to whisper. “Cute couple like that exists, and I’m still getting ghosted by someone named ‘do not pick up.’ There’s no hope, I swear to God.”

Spencer nearly tripped over his own feet.

(Y/n) didn’t miss a beat. “He’s talking about us, by the way.”

Spencer flushed immediately, the tops of his ears turning pink.

“I—uh, should we—?”

She looked over at him with a sly smile. “Should we what? Set the record straight? Clarify to the emotionally devastated college population that we’re not dating?”

“I mean… maybe?”

(Y/n) nudged him with her shoulder. “Relax, Spence. I know you get weird when people tease you.”

“I do not get weird,” he said, entirely too quickly.

“You’re currently red from the neck up.”

“That’s due to sun exposure,” he deadpanned.

She snorted. “Sure. And I’m Miss America.”

They walked a few more paces in comfortable silence before she added, softer this time, “We’re better than any couple here, anyway.”

He turned to look at her, brow furrowing just slightly. “We are?”

She met his gaze without hesitation. “Of course we are. We’re best friends.”

And that— somehow— made his shoulders drop, just a little. The tension melted into something else. Something warm.

He smiled, quiet and real. “Yeah. We are.”

(Y/n) nodded, bumping her hand lightly against his. “Come on, pretty boy. Let’s go see if Scotty’s real or just a campus cryptid.”

Spencer followed, still smiling. And just like that, the blush didn’t feel like embarrassment anymore.

——————————————————————————————————

After a particularly long day on campus and a debriefing at the station, the team was done for the day, back at their hotel rooms, some fast asleep, and some wide awake.

The hotel vending machine made a mechanical whir before it spat out a slightly dented packet of peanut M&Ms. Spencer retrieved it with a sigh and didn’t even bother opening it. He just stood there in the dim hallway, bathed in the soft flicker of an overhead light, letting the quiet settle around him.

He hadn’t been able to sleep.

He rarely could, after days like this.

So when he heard soft footsteps padding across the carpet, he didn’t need to turn to know who it was.

“Can’t sleep?” (Y/n)’s voice was quiet, warm. Like she already knew the answer.

Spencer shook his head. “Didn’t even try.”

“Same.”

She joined him at the vending machine, arms crossing over her chest, hair pulled up and messy like she hadn’t really meant to be seen. It made him smile, faintly. They walked in unspoken agreement to the little lounge area in the corner of the lobby, two mismatched armchairs and a table that had definitely seen better days.

“You know, I used to dream about going to college,” he said suddenly. “Not the academic part. Knew that was always going to be easy or at least manageable for me. But the rest of it. The normal part. Living on campus. Making friends. Going to class. Meeting people who liked the same things I did.”

She turned to look at him, but didn’t interrupt.

“I thought it would be like starting over,” he said. “School was not a particularly pleasant time, so I thought maybe in college, I’d finally belong somewhere. That I’d find my people, you know?”

He gave a soft, humorless laugh.

“I was maybe fourteen when I started at Caltech,” he said. “I lived alone in a rented apartment two miles from campus. My mom called every night, sometimes crying. I didn’t know how to help her. I didn’t know how to help me. I used to walk through the dorms just to hear other people’s voices. I’d sit in the library until it closed so I wouldn’t have to go home to silence.”

Her heart cracked a little.

“I had classmates,” he said. “Brilliant ones. Talented. Older. But I didn’t have friends. Not really. No one ever invited me out or sat next to me unless it was for group work. Most of the time they just stared. Sometimes they laughed.”

He looked down at the packet in his hands.

“I stopped hoping for a normal life around that time. Just told myself that some people don’t get it. That I wasn’t… built for it. That I didn't deserve it, you know?”

She didn’t know what to say, not at first. Her throat was tight.

“But today,” he said softly, “walking around with you— pretending, laughing, just… being— I felt something I haven’t felt since I was a kid. I felt like I could’ve had that life. I could’ve belonged. And maybe the reason I didn’t wasn’t because I was broken or unworthy. Maybe I just hadn’t met you yet.”

Tears prickled at the backs of her eyes before she could stop them.

“Jesus, Spencer,” she whispered. “You absolute menace. You’re gonna make me cry in a Red Roof Inn lobby.”

He smiled, small and tired. “Sorry.”

She nudged his knee with hers. “Don’t be. I’m really glad I know you. I hope you know that.”

“I do,” he said quietly. “And I’m really glad I know you too.”

There was a soft sniff from behind a fake potted plant.

They both turned.

Morgan stood frozen mid-sip with a bag of Skittles in hand, blinking like he’d just stepped on an emotional landmine.

“I— yeah, I’m just gonna—” he gestured vaguely behind him. “No, no, I’m fine. Just… allergies. In my soul.”

He ducked away before either of them could call him out.

(Y/n) turned back to Spencer, her voice a whisper now.

“If we’d been in college together… I think we'd still have been best friends.”

His hand found hers under the table.

"You think so?"

"I know so."

——————————————————————————————————

The unsub didn’t wait.

By the time they pieced together the access logs and realized which dorm was next in the pattern, it was almost too late. A camera glitch on the east quad. A missing student not yet reported. A name on the fellowship list— circled twice in the unsub’s obsessively annotated journal.

Spencer and (Y/n) were the closest.

They ran.

It was a three-story building, older, with creaky stairs and fluorescent lights that flickered like they were as nervous as the students inside. Spencer took the west hallway, (Y/n) took the north. Backup was still five minutes out.

The door wasn’t locked.

(Y/n) burst in just as the unsub raised a knife— quick, practiced, like he’d done this before. There was no hesitation in her tackle, no falter in her grip. The scuffle was fast, messy, a blur of movement and panic and adrenaline. She got the blade away from him, but not before they both slammed into the desk and hit the floor hard.

By the time Spencer reached her, the unsub was cuffed, breathing hard through a busted lip, and (Y/n) was sitting on the carpet, checking her elbow for bruises.

“Are you—?!” he started, too breathless to finish the sentence.

She looked up at him, eyes wide.

“I’m fine,” she said, and winced. “Desk fought back, but I won.”

Spencer crouched immediately, hands hovering just above her shoulders, like he needed to touch her but wasn’t sure if he should.

“You sure?”

She smiled, even as she flexed her fingers. “Yeah. You?”

He let out a shaky breath. “I am now”

——————————————————————————————————

The case wrapped up within hours. Victim safe. Unsub in custody. Team debriefed. Statements given.

They flew home that night.

The jet was quiet, lit only by soft blue overheads and the glow of tablets left idle. Hotch was asleep with his arms crossed. Emily was out cold, head tilted back on the headrest. Gideon had claimed the recliner and a blanket. JJ was slumped sideways with a folder still open on her lap.

Derek sat near the back, phone pressed to his ear as he whispered to Garcia on the other end.

“I’m just saying,” she was saying, muffled but insistent, “if those two don’t get it together soon, I will start mailing them matching ‘just kiss already’ T-shirts. In their sizes. Color-coded.”

Derek snorted quietly.

“They’re asleep,” he murmured, watching them from across the cabin.

Spencer was curled slightly toward (Y/n), his head resting gently on her shoulder. Her cheek was pressed to his hair, one hand resting over his, where it sat on the seat between them. Neither stirred.

Derek smiled to himself, watching the slow, steady rise and fall of their breathing, synced without even trying.

“They’re gonna be okay,” he said softly into the phone. “Both of them.”

There was a pause on the other end. Then Garcia’s voice, hushed now, like she didn’t want to disturb the moment from a thousand miles away.

“They already are.”

Derek leaned back in his seat. “Still think we should’ve meddled?”

“Nah,” she said. “Not this time. They're doing okay, where they are. Writing their own story. We're just lucky enough to read it.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “You’re getting all poetic on me, Baby Girl.”

“Well, you’re getting all soft on me, Chocolate Thunder.”

“Only for you.”

“Oh, I know.”

[beardedmrbean]

WASHINGTON (AP) — A unanimous Supreme Court made it easier Thursday to bring lawsuits over so-called reverse discrimination, siding with an Ohio woman who claims she didn’t get a job and then was demoted because she is straight.

The justices’ decision affects lawsuits in 20 states and the District of Columbia where, until now, courts had set a higher bar when members of a majority group, including those who are white and heterosexual, sue for discrimination under federal law.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote for the court that federal civil rights law draws no distinction between members of majority and minority groups. “By establishing the same protections for every ‘individual’ — without regard to that individual’s membership in a minority or majority group — Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone,” Jackson wrote.

The court ruled in an appeal from Marlean Ames, who has worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services for more than 20 years.

Though he joined Jackson's opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas noted in a separate opinion that some of the country's “largest and most prestigious employers have overtly discriminated against those they deem members of so-called majority groups.”

Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, cited a brief filed by America First Legal, a conservative group founded by Trump aide Stephen Miller, to assert that "American employers have long been ‘obsessed’ with ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ initiatives and affirmative action plans."

Two years ago, the court's conservative majority outlawed consideration of race in university admissions. Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has ordered an end to DEI policies in the federal government and has sought to end government support for DEI programs elsewhere. Some of the new administration’s anti-DEI initiatives have been temporarily blocked in federal court.

Jackson's opinion makes no mention of DEI. Instead, she focused on Ames' contention that she was passed over for a promotion and then demoted because she is heterosexual. Both the job she sought and the one she had held were given to LGBTQ people.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars sex discrimination in the workplace. A trial court and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Ames.

The 6th circuit is among the courts that had required an additional requirement for people like Ames, showing “background circumstances” that might include that LGBTQ people made the decisions affecting Ames or statistical evidence of a pattern of discrimination against members of the majority group.

The appeals court noted that Ames didn’t provide any such circumstances.

But Jackson wrote that “this additional ‘background circumstances’ requirement is not consistent with Title VII’s text or our case law construing the statute.”

[yourreddancer]

Heather Cox Richardson 11.15.24

One of President-elect Trump’s campaign pledges was to eliminate the Department of Education. He claimed that the department pushes “woke” ideology on America’s schoolchildren and that its employees “hate our children.” He promised to “return” education to the states. 

In fact, the Department of Education does not set curriculum; states and local governments do. The Department of Education collects statistics about schools to monitor student performance and promote practices based in evidence. It provides about 10% of funding for K–12 schools through federal grants of about $19.1 billion to high-poverty schools and of $15.5 billion to help cover the cost of educating students with disabilities.

It also oversees the $1.6 trillion federal student loan program, including setting the rules under which colleges and universities can participate. But what really upsets the radical right is that the Department of Education is in charge of prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and sex in schools that get federal funding, a policy Congress set in 1975 with an act now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This was before Congress created the department.

The Department of Education became a stand-alone department in May 1980 under Democratic president Jimmy Carter, when Congress split the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare into two departments: the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education. 

A Republican-dominated Congress established the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1953 under Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower as part of a broad attempt to improve the nation’s schools and Americans’ well-being in the flourishing post–World War II economy. When the Soviet Union beat the United States into space by sending up the first  Sputnik satellite in 1957, lawmakers concerned that American children were falling behind put more money and effort into educating the country’s youth, especially in math and science. 

But support for federal oversight of education took a devastating hit after the Supreme Court, headed by Eisenhower appointee Chief Justice Earl Warren, declared racially segregated schools unconstitutional in the May 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. 

Immediately, white southern lawmakers launched a campaign of what they called “massive resistance” to integration. Some Virginia counties closed their public schools. Other school districts took funds from integrated public schools and used a grant system to redistribute those funds to segregated private schools. Then, Supreme Court decisions in 1962 and 1963 that declared prayer in schools unconstitutional cemented the decision of white evangelicals to leave the public schools, convinced that public schools were leading their children to perdition.

In 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan ran on a promise to eliminate the new Department of Education.

After Reagan’s election, his secretary of education commissioned a study of the nation’s public schools, starting with the conviction that there was a “widespread public perception that something is seriously remiss in our educational system.” The resulting report, titled “A Nation at Risk,” announced that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”

Although a later study commissioned in 1990 by the Secretary of Energy found the data in the original report did not support the report’s conclusions, Reagan nonetheless used the report in his day to justify school privatization. He vowed after the report’s release that he would “continue to work in the months ahead for passage of tuition tax credits, vouchers, educational savings accounts, voluntary school prayer, and abolishing the Department of Education. Our agenda is to restore quality to education by increasing competition and by strengthening parental choice and local control.”

The rise of white evangelism and its marriage to Republican politics fed the right-wing conviction that public education no longer served “family values” and that parents had been cut out of their children’s education. Christians began to educate their children at home, believing that public schools were indoctrinating their children with secular values. 

When he took office in 2017, Trump rewarded those evangelicals who had supported his candidacy by putting right-wing evangelical activist Betsy DeVos in charge of the Education Department. She called for eliminating the department—until she used its funding power to try to keep schools open during the covid pandemic—and asked for massive cuts in education spending.

Rather than funding public schools, DeVos called instead for tax money to be spent on education vouchers, which distribute tax money to parents to spend for education as they see fit. This system starves the public schools and subsidizes wealthy families whose children are already in private schools. DeVos also rolled back civil rights protections for students of color and LGBTQ+ students but increased protections for students accused of sexual assault. 

In 2019, the 1619 Project, published by the New York Times Magazine on the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans at Jamestown in Virginia Colony, argued that the true history of the United States began in 1619, establishing the roots of the country in the enslavement of Black Americans. That, combined with the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, prompted Trump to commission the 1776 Project, which rooted the country in its original patriotic ideals and insisted that any moments in which it had fallen away from those ideals were quickly corrected. He also moved to ban diversity training in federal agencies. 

When Trump lost the 2020 election, his loyalists turned to undermining the public schools to destroy what they considered an illegitimate focus on race and gender that was corrupting children. In January 2021, Republican activists formed Moms for Liberty, which called itself a parental rights organization and began to demand the banning of LGBTQ+ books from school libraries. Right-wing activist Christopher Rufo engineered a national panic over the false idea that public school educators were teaching their students critical race theory, a theory taught as an elective in law school to explain why desegregation laws had not ended racial discrimination. 

After January 2021, 44 legislatures began to consider laws to ban the teaching of critical race theory or to limit how teachers could talk about racism and sexism, saying that existing curricula caused white children to feel guilty.

When the Biden administration expanded the protections enforced by the Department of Education to include LGBTQ+ students, Trump turned to focusing on the idea that transgender students were playing high-school sports despite the restrictions on that practice in the interest of “ensuring fairness in competition or preventing sports-related injury.” 

During the 2024 political campaign, Trump brought the longstanding theme of public schools as dangerous sites of indoctrination to a ridiculous conclusion, repeatedly insisting that public schools were performing gender-transition surgery on students. But that cartoonish exaggeration spoke to voters who had come to see the equal rights protected by the Department of Education as an assault on their own identity. That position leads directly to the idea of eliminating the Department of Education.

But that might not work out as right-wing Americans imagine. As Morning Joe economic analyst Steven Rattner notes, for all that Republicans embrace the attacks on public education, Republican-dominated states receive significantly more federal money for education than Democratic-dominated states do, although the Democratic states contribute significantly more tax dollars. 

There is a bigger game afoot, though, than the current attack on the Department of Education. As Thomas Jefferson recognized, education is fundamental to democracy, because only educated people can accurately evaluate the governmental policies that will truly benefit them.

In 1786, Jefferson wrote to a colleague about public education: “No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom, and happiness…. Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish and improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against [the evils of “kings, nobles and priests”], and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.”

[hyperlexichypatia]

So you want to support your local public library

You’ve been following the news about book bans, funding cuts, Moms for Liberty, censorship, and you’re outraged! You want to Do Something! What should you do? 

Here are some tips from a small-town public library worker. Some of this is stuff I’ve seen a lot of other people saying, but some isn’t. 

DISCLAIMER: Every library has different needs, policies, funding situations, etc. What I’m saying may not apply to your local branch. Ask your local library staff. 

THINGS THAT HELP A LOT: 

Use your library. Really, just using it helps a lot. Check out books. Download ebooks on Libby. Listen to audiobooks. Come to programs. Stream movies on Kanopy. Join the book club. Bring your kids to storytime. Help spread the word about library services and events (we don’t have an advertising budget). Not only do we rely on usage statistics to justify our funding, but also, robust attendance makes the library feel more like part of the community. 

Check out controversial/challenged books. Popularity affects whether it stays on the shelves. Ask the staff to order certain titles. Show demand for these books!

Give us some money. Just fork over some cash. Go to the online donation portal. Write a check if you’re feeling fancy. We rely on donation money for everything from cleaning supplies to prizes. Participate in library fundraisers. If there’s a friends of the library group, join that. If your library posts a wishlist, go shopping. 

Contact your local elected people and tell them you want libraries uncensored and well-funded. Invoke your identities that politicians care about. “As a constituent,” “as a voter,” “as a taxpayer.” Be specific about what you want the remedy to be. If the issue is censorship, say you want libraries to have free and uncensored material for all. If the issue is resources, say you want to increase library funding. If you say “The library should be open longer hours,” you and I might interpret that to mean that the solution is to fund the library to be open more hours. But politicians and their staff do not think like you and I do. To them, “The library should be open longer hours” may mean “The library is unpopular and not meeting people’s needs, so let’s defund it.” 

EXTRA CREDIT IF YOU WANT TO GO ABOVE AND BEYOND: Apply to serve on your local library board.

THINGS THAT MIGHT HELP, BUT NOT AS MUCH AS PEOPLE THINK. Again, this is going to vary wildly based on your particular public library branch. At some libraries, these things might help a whole lot! At other libraries, not so much. 

Donating books. Some libraries don’t even take donated books. Most libraries put donated books in their book sale, or put them out for swaps. Very few donated books end up catalogued for circulation. Donating banned books really does nothing – if a library is ordered to remove a book from their shelves, they won’t be allowed to re-add a donated copy, either. Our library sometimes catalogues donated books if they are new (published within the past ~5 years) and in like-new condition. Your childhood favorites are not “in good condition,” I’m sorry. 

Volunteering. Again, this is going to vary widely from library to library. Some libraries rely heavily on volunteers. Some libraries don’t let anyone volunteer at all. My library requires volunteers to go through a criminal background check first (I loathe this policy with the fire of a thousand suns, but have been unable to persuade my boss to change it). Even if you are allowed to volunteer, don’t be surprised if the tasks you’re assigned look more like “clean the bathrooms” than like “read aloud to a roomful of rapt children” or “comb through archives.” Most libraries don’t let volunteers do circulation tasks, and there are very good reasons for that. And for Pete’s sake, don’t offer to “volunteer” to do someone’s actual paid job. 

I’m not saying “Don’t donate used books and don’t volunteer”; I’m saying “The well-meaning viral posts about how you can save your local library by donating used books and volunteering are missing a lot.”

BONUS EXERCISE: Kill the Mom for Liberty inside your head. The right-wing anti-library movement feeds on the same censorship, bigotry, and “think of the children” moral panic that runs rampant in progressive spaces. If you want to support public libraries, you’ve got to snap out of the idea that books, media, and truly public space are “dangerous.” Here, imagine this scenario: At a public library, a 10-year-old girl, who’s walked to the library by herself after school, is sitting at the table with her books. She’s been reading Warrior Cats, but today she’s branched into the adult section and grabbed the newest T.M. Frazier book. Across the table, a 31-year-old man is working on his laptop, but he looks up to mention that he also loves Warrior Cats, and they have a brief conversation about Bramblestar’s character development. In the lounge chair across the room, a 62-year-old woman with a huge backpack who looks like she might be unhoused is dozing and slightly snoring. At the lego table, a couple of kids are collaborating on a tower, while a 47-year-old man is twitching and talking to someone other people can’t see. A 15-year-old is checking out [most offensive book by most hateful author – I’m not even going to give an example, it’s whatever is the worst option in YOUR mind]. At a public computer, a 9-year-old with headphones is watching a video of Pokemon farting. A 25 year old woman with Down Syndrome is checking out The Joy of Sex and Because of Winn Dixie. If you want to regulate or ban anything in this scenario, fix your mindset. If you think the library “shouldn’t have to deal with homeless people because that’s mission creep,” or that there needs to be some kind of protection against the “danger” of “adults interacting with minors,” or that people should only read “age-appropriate” or “reading-level-appropriate” books, or that someone should “get help” for voice hearers in public, you are part of the problem. If you don’t support the ideal of public libraries as places where any-yes-any member of the public can hang out and read whatever they want, you don’t actually support the anyone-can-hang-out-and-read-whatever-they-want place.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Gloria Oladipo at The Guardian:

For many students of color, access to an equitable education is dependent on the initiatives and programs provided by the Department of Education. Among its various functions, the department provides targeted funding for low-income students, collects data on educational outcomes and investigates potential bias – essential functions that help underserved students. But such services stand to be disrupted or ended entirely as Donald Trump plans to dismantle the department during his second tenure. In addition to nominating for education secretary the former WWE executive Linda McMahon, who served on Connecticut’s state board of education for one year and has no other notable education experience, Trump has pledged to “[close] up” the department and “return” education rights to the states. Though Trump alone cannot eliminate the federal agency, as such an act requires congressional approval beyond a simple majority, experts have warned that any type of overhaul could disrupt the department’s critical roles, especially for marginalized students.

The education department dates back to 1867; the agency was founded to collect data on schools as states crafted their education systems (Congress abolished the department a year later, fearing federal overreach). In 1980, under former president Jimmy Carter, the department was reconceived as an executive agency with the purpose of ensuring equal education access in primary, secondary and higher education across all states. Historically, the department has overseen the implementation of federal civil rights laws in local school districts, such as the desegregation of schools following the supreme court’s Brown v Board of Education decision. Now, the department coordinates “certain services that states receive, protections, and accountability mechanisms”, said Wil Del Pilar, senior vice-president of EdTrust, an education non-profit. The department also “sets priorities” and can use funding incentives to encourage school districts to work around an issue. “[If] teacher diversity is a focus, [the department] can leverage federal dollars to create a competition for folks to apply for dollars to improve the diverse educator pipeline,” he added.

Investigating civil rights violations is a critical function of the department, carried out by their Office of Civil Rights (OCR). In 2023, OCR received a record 19,201 complaints, according to the department’s annual report, with 45% of complaints relating to sex discrimination. Amid an onslaught of legislation targeting transgender youth last year, the OCR fielded several complaints from LGBTQ+ students against their school districts. Eighteen percent of complaints dealt with race and national origin discrimination, including bullying and racist harassment from school officials. In one high-profile example, the OCR investigated the Jefferson county school district, Kentucky’s largest public school district, and found that Black students were punished more often and more severely than white students. As a result, the district is mandated to amend their disciplinary policies by March 2025.

Following an OCR investigation, the department can force a school to make changes by threatening schools in violation of civil rights. “Funding and enforcement go hand-in-hand,” said Rachel Perera, a fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute. “The threat of violating civil rights law is that you will lose federal funding.” Absent these checks, schools would have less incentive to comply with the law. Statistics from the department’s civil rights data collection not only provide insight into potential education disparities, including discipline rates by race, but they also determine what funding a school district is eligible for. Title I and Title III initiatives, which provide funding for high-poverty schools and English learners, respectively, are both dependent on enrollment statistics. Eliminating the department all together is an unlikely outcome, experts argue, especially as many of the offices within the department are themselves enshrined into federal law. Prominent Republicans, including former president Ronald Reagan, have attempted to eliminate the department, all to no avail.

[...] Under Trump, the department could be underfunded or further understaffed, and offices such as OCR already struggle to investigate an increasing number of complaints. Disenfranchised students, including students of color and those with disabilities, who rely on Title I funding, would be affected as Trump could make further cuts to the underfunded program. “About 90% of school funding comes from local and state sources, but 10% comes from the federal government,” said Perera. “That 10% is oriented towards poor communities, communities that are disproportionately of color, [where if] that money were to go away overnight, those schools would be in a very difficult position.”

Donald Trump’s plans to abolish the DoE could have very disastrous consequences for students with disabilities, POC, low-income, and/or LGBTQ+.

[sunrisesinthesuburbs]

little by little project

there is something i had planned for march - international women’s day and women’s history month -, but life got in the way, so here I am, proposing this to you in april instead (which still works, given the state of the world).

we all know and are aware of the current trend of gender based violence and femicide, a cruel reminder of the inequality and discrimination all women face on a daily basis. it’s a systematic oppression, and it involves everyone of us.

for the entire month of april, if you donate to one of these five organizations (and send me proof of it!), I’ll write you a go ficlet / short one shot based off of a prompt of your own choosing! (i have some hard limits we can discuss in private, but i’ll write basically everything you want - every rating, every setting, canon or not, etc.). here are the options:

1. Sistah Space (based in the UK)

Sistah Space is a UK-based award-winning community-based charity focused on supporting women of African and Caribbean heritage who are affected by domestic and sexual abuse in the UK with one-on-one support, group counseling, help for survivors to understand their rights, and connecting them to services and support networks. The tragic death of Valerie Forde and her daughter perpretrated by Forde’s ex partner and the heavy criticism Metropolitan police faced after how the case was handled, led to Sistah Space advocating for Valerie's Law, a law that would mean mandatory cultural awareness training for the police and other agencies in the UK, with the aim of supporting Black women who are victims of domestic and sexual violence.

Here is where to donate to Sistah Space!

2. Kwanele South Africa (based in South Africa)

The rate of violence against women and girls in South Africa is among the highest in the world. The country’s rates of intimate partner violence are five times the global average and the country has the fourth-highest rate of interpersonal violence-related femicide in the world. Kwanele South Africa was founded by Leonora Tima in 2021, and its mission is to put an end to the country’s sad statistics by providing any survivor of GBV access to support and justice through innovative technology and data-informed reporting. Since its foundation, the organization has defended more than 200 cases of GBV in South Africa. Kwanele also provides access to sexual and reproductive healthcare for women survivors through access to abortion services and other services.

Here is where to donate to Kwanele South Africa!

3. Djirra (based in Australia)

Djirra is an Aboriginal community-managed organization that provides holistic, culturally sensitive, legal, and non-legal support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are experiencing or have experienced domestic or family abuse. Djirra was founded in 2002 by Antoinette Braybrook, and designs and delivers crucial early intervention and prevention programs based on community needs, as well as working towards reforming policies and laws to enhance access to justice, promote the resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, and reduce their vulnerability to violence.

Here is where to donate to Djirra!

4. CADMI (based in Italy)

CADMI is the first ever Anti-Violence centre founded in Italy, back in 1986. Ever since then, it provides a shelter for all women who have been victim to all kind of abuse, whether it’s sexual, psychological, or even financial. Italy’s systemic issues with GBV is as tragic as it is well known: the ‘delitto d’onore’, a law that allowed weaker punishments for whoever killed their wives, sisters or daughters if caught in ‘carnal acts’, was only abolished in 1981; in the past two days, three young women have been victims of femiceds.

Here is where to donate to CADMI!

5. Sylvia Rivera Law Project (based in the US)

Transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, including sexual assault and aggravated or simple assault, according to a new study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. The Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) is an American organization that offers free legal services to the low-income trans, intersex and gender non-conforming community. SRLP programs include Legal Services, Impact Litigation, Movement Building, Public Education and Grassroots Fundraising. The charity operates as a collective with different teams running different parts of the organization. For example, the Direct Services Team runs the legal clinic and advocates for policy reform. SRLP also offers trainings and presentations to schools, community organizations, government agencies and others.

Here is where to donate to SRLP!

Why this?

Well, this specific fandom has gone through a lot of things, and I do believe the community handled it well, all things considered. Then again, victims support and advocacy should and needs to come before any fandom or anyone’s enjoyment.

That being said, this is a safe space, and it has always been. If we can do something, however small, to show support to something that really matters, I am 100% sure we will. This is what we do, and why I love this space.

If you are on board with this, DM me with proof of donation and your chosen prompt and I’ll do my best to do it before the end of May. All ficlets will be published on my AO3 account, in a collection that will be titled ‘little by little’.

i truly hope you like this! much love as always ❤️