Category: Academic Reportage

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Geoff Emberling, Research Scientist in Archaeology, University of Michigan

When I first became co-director of an archaeological project at Jebel Barkal in northern Sudan in 2018, I was amazed by the site’s pyramids, temples and palaces. It had been an urban center in the ancient empire of Kush, which dominated the Nile Valley off and on for over 2,000 years, from 2000 B.C.E. to 350 C.E.

I was far from alone in admiring the ruins – European and American travelers have visited and archaeologists had documented the site for the past two centuries. More recently, Jebel Barkal was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2003.

But researchers still know so little about the ancient city and its residents, particularly compared with other ancient cities of Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome. Where did nonroyal people live? What did they eat? We don’t even know how they got their water, since the site is about a mile away from where the Nile flows today. Could there have been a nearby channel of the Nile that has since filled in? What was this landscape like when Jebel Barkal was a major urban center? More broadly, how did changes in climate over the past 4,000 years affect the growth of the city?

Some of these questions can be studied by a field called geomorphology, the study of how the Earth’s surface changes, especially by erosion. To learn more about how the landscape around Jebel Barkal had changed over millennia, I invited two Dutch geomorphologists, Jan Peeters and Tim Winkels, who had previously worked on Nile landscapes in Egypt, to come to Sudan to design a study.

The Nile as a source of life

The Nile floods at the end of every summer, as rains from the Indian Ocean monsoon fall on the highlands of East Africa. The ancient historian Herodotus famously called Egypt “the gift of the Nile” because in Egypt. the rich silt the floods deposited every year made for fertile fields. Egyptians retained the floodwaters in ponds and basins to use later for irrigation.

Upstream in Sudan, however, the underlying geology and geomorphological setting is different. This stretch of the Nile is interrupted by bedrock outcrops that break the flow of the river by what are called cataracts: islands, rapids and even small waterfalls.

The Nile also cuts more deeply into the bedrock and is more confined to the riverbed in Sudan than in Egypt. The floodplains here are generally more limited. As a result, it’s harder to hold onto water to use for irrigation after the annual flood has passed.

Our team wanted to understand how the ancient city interacted with the Nile and how that relationship developed through time as climate and the local environment shifted. Our recent study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at how the Nile channel and floodplain and Jebel Barkal evolved over centuries.

To learn about the ancient landscape, we collected 26 sediment cores, averaging 26 feet (8 meters) in depth and 3 inches (8 centimeters) in diameter. These cores are like time capsules that preserve the stacked layers of sediment from Nile floods that accumulated gradually over thousands of years. Connecting the dots, 17 of our cores formed a line across the Sudanese Nile valley. A second group of nine cores focused on the area where the ancient city developed.

The work was physically challenging, due both to the unrelenting Saharan sun and the depth of the sediments. Together with a team of five local men, we spent weeks drilling the cores using hand augurs and a gas-powered drill.

Hatim Awad Abdullah was this group’s energetic leader. He had his own interest in the history of Nile flooding, in part because his father and grandfather had told him that the river used to flood different areas than it has in more recent times. Our conversations with Hatim were part of a broader effort on our project to engage members of the local community, and they informed and enriched our understanding of the landscape. Other projects in Sudan have taken similar steps toward community engagement.

Extracting info from the sediment layers

Once our team had extracted the long sediment cores, we laid them out in sections so the geomorphologists could document what was in them at different levels. Sediments at the top of the cores are more recent, those lower down come from earlier in time.

Finer clays, silts and coarser sands would all have been deposited by different processes. Gentle flooding from the Nile could have carried some of these particles. More turbulent water draining from the desert via seasonal drainage channels called wadis might have brought others. By working from the deepest, oldest parts of the core samples to the ground surface, the geomorphologists could reconstruct a sequence of flooding and sediment deposition over thousands of years.

Our next step was to try to establish dates for when the sediments at different levels were deposited. One set of information came from fragments of ancient pottery found in some of the cores. Our team’s ceramic specialist, Saskia Büchner-Matthews, was able to analyze these small pieces and could often tell by their color, texture and shape when they had been made.

Another line of evidence relied on a technique called optically stimulated luminescence dating. By measuring the energy given off by minerals in the sample, like quartz grains, this amazing technique establishes when a sediment was last exposed to light. In order for optically stimulated luminescence dating to work, the samples need to be kept in the dark, so we had to be careful that our sediments were collected in black opaque tubes. Our team member Liz Chamberlain did this labor-intensive analysis in a specialized lab at Wageningen University in The Netherlands.

Our results show, first of all, that there had been an ancient Nile channel close to Jebel Barkal, but more like 10,000 years ago – millennia before the people of Kush built their city here. By the time the site was first occupied around 2000 B.C.E., that channel had long since filled in. So we still don’t know for sure how the people of Jebel Barkal got their water, but it’s clear that the Nile wasn’t running right next to the city.

The data also shows that the floodplain began to build up from regular Nile flooding starting around 2000 B.C.E. This process continued until the early 20th century, when upstream dam construction altered the Nile’s natural flood regime. That gentle accumulation of fertile soil in the floodplain, which the people of Jebel Barkal used as agricultural fields, encompasses nearly the entire ancient history of the city.

The cores our team drilled show that the city grew during a time of abundant rains and productive, predictable Nile flooding that provided fertile soil for agriculture. It doesn’t look like local climate change is the reason Jebel Barkal eventually went into decline.

Our scientific results lend new weight to an inscription of the ancient Kushite king Taharqo, who ruled over both Nubia and Egypt from about 690-664 BCE. It records a gentle and particularly abundant flood in the sixth year of his reign.

“When the time for the rising of the Inundation came, it continued rising greatly each day and it passed many days rising at the rate of one cubit every day.

“It penetrated the hills of South-land, it overtopped the mounds of North-land, and the land was (again) Primeval Waters, an inert (expanse), without land being distinguishable from river. …

“Every man of Nubia was inundated with an abundance of everything, Egypt was in beautiful festival, and they thanked the god Amun for His Majesty.”

This research has been particularly satisfying for me because it helps build a richer picture of life in ancient Sudan, comparable in depth and detail to what we know about other ancient civilizations.

Geoff Emberling has received funding from the U.S. Department of State (through its Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation), the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Geographic, and private donors including Kitty Picken, Steve Klinsky, and Roger and Ann Cogswell. In addition to his position at the University of Michigan, he is a board member of the International Society for Nubian Studies and Secretary of the American Sudanese Archaeological Research Center.

– ref. How a shifting Nile landscape shaped the rise of the ancient empire of Kush in Sudan – https://theconversation.com/how-a-shifting-nile-landscape-shaped-the-rise-of-the-ancient-empire-of-kush-in-sudan-281841

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kelley Cotter, Assistant Professor of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State

Anthropic, the company behind the generative AI tool Claude, claimed in March 2026 that it used an AI interviewer to conduct “the largest and most multilingual qualitative study” ever done. The AI tool collected responses from nearly 81,000 people about their visions for AI, spanning 70 languages and 159 countries. Anthropic contends that tools like this can enable researchers to conduct “rich, open-ended interviews at a very large scale.”

Qualitative research is useful for understanding the lived experiences of people. “Qualitative” refers to both the type of data that researchers collect and their purpose for conducting a study. Qualitative data includes text, images, audio, video and anything that isn’t a number. This is why the term “qualitative” is often discussed in contrast to “quantitative” – that is, numerical – data.

Qualitative research enables researchers to deeply explore the tensions, ambiguities and paradoxes that characterize everyday life. It also helps unpack how social norms, cultural dynamics and subjective experiences shape people’s perspectives, beliefs and attitudes.

So, can an AI model without lived experience or a capacity to self-reflect connect with people enough to understand their worlds?

We are researchers who specialize in qualitative research on digital technologies. Collectively, we have decades of experience developing, conducting and publishing interview studies, and we teach qualitative research methods to undergraduate and graduate students.

While AI tools can support social science research, they also have significant limitations. Not taking these limitations into account risks undermining the unique value of research that relies on human connection.

What is qualitative research?

Broadly speaking, qualitative inquiry is about exploring the meaning people give to experiences.

Qualitative inquiry often involves face-to-face interviews with individuals and groups. What this looks like in practice varies based on a researcher’s academic discipline, their philosophical approach and their personal background.

While the goal is to produce explanations about the world, qualitative inquiry is designed to reveal the nuanced ways people make meaning while accounting for the different contexts that shape their experiences.

For instance, our team has used qualitative inquiry to explore how parents, children and teachers navigate digital privacy issues. We’ve also used qualitative data to analyze how influencers, activists and everyday users make sense of and respond to social media algorithms.

Anthropic Interviewer can pose questions to participants and present follow-up questions based on a participant’s response. However, we argue that qualitative inquiry requires human capacities that an AI model lacks.

AI is programmed, human conversations are not

Unlike studies focused on quantitative data, qualitative inquiry relies on flexibility.

Research that collects quantitative data requires carefully managed study conditions. They often aim to test specific hypotheses and measure the relationship between variables. To establish the validity of their findings, researchers need to demonstrate that they controlled for confounding factors.

In contrast, qualitative studies are more open-ended. They typically consider how people understand or experience the world in context. Since the world is complex, messy and nuanced, interviewers may need to change their initial questions or add new ones to collect insightful data. In other words, researchers adapt the interview to follow the conversational flow.

To plan out the interactions Anthropic Interviewer would have with study participants, researchers need to specify core interview questions and give the program instructions on how to engage with participants. For its recent study on people’s visions for AI, some of the core questions Anthropic used include “What’s the last thing you used an AI chatbot for?” and “If you could wave a magic wand, what would AI do for you?” The company did not specify what prompts or hypotheses they fed the system to come up with follow-up questions for this study.

By relying on fixed instructions, Anthropic Interviewer does not have a conversation with a participant the way a human researcher does. Instead, it executes a series of tasks in response to prompt engineering. In a conversation, a human interviewer absorbs a variety of information from a participant – their words, tone, demeanor – and responds organically in a way that meets the moment. An AI interviewer, being a machine, can act only within the parameters set by the system designers. This means that even if it is trained on large datasets, as the Anthropic Interviewer is, it will not be able to account for the unique, often unspoken relational dynamics of new interviews.

Using an AI tool can generate qualitative data, but it is not the same as conducting qualitative inquiry.

AI does not have positionality

Most qualitative researchers see their identity, lived experiences and relationships to the people they study as central to their work. This positionality can be thought of as a series of lenses through which researchers approach their studies, such as their race, gender, beliefs, values, biases and life circumstances. These factors position researchers in relation to their area of focus – as insiders, outsiders or somewhere in between, depending on the context.

Anthropic Interviewer has no position in relation to the research it is meant to support, because it has no body, identity, life history or lived experiences. Even if prompted to imitate a particular perspective – such as from “one woman to another” – it will not “contain multitudes,” as poet Walt Whitman put it, like real people do.

As opposed to a real person with a personal perspective who can genuinely respond to a live conversation, AI models use probabilities to match the patterns of how a person may commonly act or speak. It may also be alienating for participants if an AI interviewer assumes a particular persona and changes how they respond. In some ways, Anthropic AI can present only what philosopher Donna Haraway called “a view from nowhere.”

Moreover, an absence of a personal lens does not imply neutrality. Because AI systems are trained on existing data, they can reflect the dominant stereotypes and worldviews of the time, including that of their developers, curators and the companies behind them.

The AI tool’s lack of positionality matters because this quality shapes every stage of research. This includes what questions researchers ask in interviews and how they ask them; how researchers filter information and interpret responses; and which topics they follow up on. Sharing things in common with participants – even just as a fellow human who can have firsthand experiences, thoughts and emotions – can be critical for data collection and analysis. It enables a deep, intuitive understanding of how participants perceive and interpret what they share.

A researcher’s personal lens also shapes how participants respond to them: what they choose to share and how comfortable they feel. For example, someone who grew up poor may feel more comfortable discussing debt and public assistance with someone who has a similar background than with someone who does not.

Without a personal lens, interviews can become flat and lack context. Questions may become mechanical, and the development of mutual understanding is limited. Participants may also respond differently when they sense the interviewer lacks a clear perspective.

AI cannot be reflexive

When researchers are able to reflect on their own assumptions, they can produce more thoughtful and responsible findings that avoid misrepresenting their participants. This reflexivity is another key human aspect of qualitative inquiry: researchers’ ongoing efforts to self-monitor the ways their personal background and choices over the course of a study may affect the work.

Good qualitative researchers do not try to eliminate their biases but instead try to account for them. They continually think about how their identity, experiences and perspectives shape their work and publicly share these reflections. While quantitative researchers see bias as a source of error, qualitative researchers see their viewpoints as assets in producing meaning.

For example, when our team interviews students for our studies, we consider how our dual roles as college professors and researchers may influence how we interpret our participants’ experiences, what they feel comfortable sharing and how they share it. Openly sharing such accounting provides important context for readers considering the findings, judging how far they can be applied elsewhere and building trust in the findings.

Anthropic Interviewer is not capable of reflexivity, because it has no frame of reference or capacity for self-reflection. As a machine, it cannot self-monitor its “choices” in interactions, consider how participants perceive it, or reflect on how these factors may shape what participants share or hold back. When readers cannot take stock of the ways researchers’ assumptions, values, beliefs and choices affected how they collected data, this can make the research seem less trustworthy.

Interviewing often helps researchers develop an empathetic connection to their study participants, which can help ensure their work is ethical and accountable. This deeply felt connection can guide researchers in respecting boundaries in interviews.

Empathy also helps researchers take care in honoring the thoughts, feelings and experiences of their participants by representing them as faithfully as possible.

Qualitative interviews still need humans

Anthropic Interviewer introduces new possibilities for qualitative research by enabling data collection at an unprecedented scale and speed. However, this does not mean that it does what human interviewers do in qualitative inquiry.

Research interviewing is not about extracting ready-made insights from research participants as efficiently as possible. It is about entering into other people’s realities and leveraging shared human experiences that make mutual understanding possible, both cognitively and emotionally.

As sociologist Douglas Ezzy once said, good interviews are about communion, not conquest.

Kelley Cotter has received funding from the National Science Foundation.

Priya C. Kumar has received funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

Ankolika De does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. AI interviewers can’t connect with people the way human researchers can – they can produce only data, not meaning – https://theconversation.com/ai-interviewers-cant-connect-with-people-the-way-human-researchers-can-they-can-produce-only-data-not-meaning-279437

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Eric Welch, Professor and Director, Center for Science, Technology & Environmental Policy Studies, Arizona State University

The American academic research engine has long been the envy of the world. Generally well-funded, labs in the United States have been able to attract the best minds who generate breakthroughs and train the next generation workforce that powers the U.S. economy. But since the start of the second Trump administration in January 2025, new federal policies have destabilized the American scientific enterprise.

The disruption generated by the Trump administration’s funding, DEI and visa policies has been well reported by the media. On an individual level, though, what do academic researchers think of all these changes and how have they been directly affected?

We are researchers affiliated with Arizona State University’s scientist opinion panel survey, known as SciOPS, a 5-year research program designed to monitor, understand and improve how scientists communicate with the public. We wanted to know more about the reality inside today’s universities as researchers grapple with Trump administration policies.

Along with our colleagues, we fielded a survey of randomly sampled members of the academic science community participating in the SciOPS panel. We obtained responses from 280 scientists from several fields, including biology, chemistry, civil and environmental engineering, computer and information science engineering, geography and public health from 131 universities.

Our results show dramatic, mostly negative, effects of federal policy changes on researchers, the research system and American competitiveness.

How research in US universities has changed

Any research enterprise thrives because of its ability to fund cutting-edge science and thus attract highly motivated, well-trained people. Since the second Trump administration took office in January 2025, just over half of the scientists in our survey report that their overall funding has declined.

Declines in federal funding have had knock-on effects. Around one-quarter of scientists reported that state and local and university internal funding have also declined. Another 9% reported that internal funding has increased, presumably as universities have provided emergency funds to researchers to support critical studies.

According to the scientists who responded to our survey, Trump administration policies have also affected the scientific workforce pipeline, hampering their ability to recruit internationally and domestically.

We hypothesize that these hiring issues can be related to visa and immigration policies, which make it difficult for international graduate students and postdocs to work in the U.S. or attend international conferences. Just over half of scientists in our survey reported that international students or postdocs have expressed concerns to them about deportation.

Concerns about longer-term career impacts are also to blame for trouble recruiting the next generation of researchers. Over 80% of surveyed scientists reported that graduate students or postdocs on their research team have increased concerns about future job prospects.

These impacts have taken a toll on scientists’ professional work environment and overall outlook. Over two-thirds reported more work-related stress and almost half reported increased workloads since January 2025. About half reported decreased work motivation.

How are scientists and engineers reacting?

We found scientists’ responses to be a mixture of resilience, acquiescence and considering an exit.

While many scientists said they were less motivated at work, most reported no change in their efforts to obtain federal research funding. Small proportions did report successfully increasing their efforts to obtain funding from non-federal sources.

Our survey also asked scientists whether they had taken any self-censoring actions since January 2025 due to concern over potential negative consequences for their work or career. Over half reported having reviewed or adjusted key words in research proposals, and almost half said they’d reframed research topics. Forty-three percent had also cautioned students or collaborators to be careful what they say publicly and more than a third had abandoned plans on one or more research topics.

Although scientists are adopting strategies to cope with the new challenges, nearly two-thirds of the scientists in our sample appear to be considering one or more other career options.

Scientists look to the long term

Scientists and engineers in our sample have strong opinions about the impacts of current U.S. science policy. A large majority (87%) believe the administration’s actions have influenced research priorities more than previous administrations. Most scientists in our survey had a negative opinion of the Trump administration’s overall changes to science policy.

Scientists in our sample believed that administration policies have had a negative effect on the future scientific workforce and the ability of scientists and engineers in the U.S. to produce breakthroughs and discoveries and contribute to national welfare.

Large majorities believe these policies have harmed public perceptions of the integrity of U.S. scientists (85%) and hurt public trust in science (84%).

Academic scientists’ reactions to the Trump administration’s changes to science policy are perhaps not surprising given the perceived level of threat these actions represent to the research community. What is less certain is whether the dramatic changes we are currently witnessing – cuts to grant funding, politicization of research, downsizing of federal agencies, restrictive immigration policies, attacks on the autonomy of higher education and more – are temporary or if they represent the initial phase of a transition to a new research environment with less federal support for American science.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Self-censorship, more stress, tougher recruiting – we asked US researchers how the Trump administration’s science policies have affected them – https://theconversation.com/self-censorship-more-stress-tougher-recruiting-we-asked-us-researchers-how-the-trump-administrations-science-policies-have-affected-them-280968

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Caitlin Grady, Associate Professor of Environmental Management and Systems Engineering, George Washington University

Formula 1 auto racing is one of the most energy-intensive and logistically complex sports on the planet. The events involve cars, of course, but also long-haul freight, international travel, temporary event infrastructure, and a global calendar that keeps people and equipment moving almost constantly.

Motorsports companies are not necessarily going to lead the transition to cleaner energy sources as the world seeks to limit the climate changes resulting from burning fossil fuels. But Formula 1 is a global operation with a large audience and a looming deadline for eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. It also has the same kinds of operational realities many industries face when trying to reduce their emissions: transportation, freight, energy use and the temptation to count the hardest remaining emissions as someone else’s problem.

F1 has pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2030 across its full operations. That means it will emit as little carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as possible, using methods that include shifting to the use of alternative fuels in race cars. The organization says it will balance any remaining emissions by capturing carbon back from the atmosphere or purchasing credits from organizations that capture carbon themselves. The organization publishes sustainability data updates to demonstrate its progress.

We used that data in an interactive computer model that lets anyone who wants to explore what it will take for Formula 1 to fulfill that promise in reality. Users can change various assumptions about fuel use, increase renewable electricity use and even change the racing calendar.

Our analysis finds that F1 racing could achieve substantial cuts in emissions – but getting all the way to net zero will still require carbon offsets. That leaves F1 with choices, gains, limits and then a final question about what counts as “zero.”

From the track to the road

Formula 1 racing has long provided opportunities to test technologies that later appear in everyday transportation. Hybrid systems that use gasoline and electric batteries to power the engine, regenerative braking that recovers energy when a car slows down, and energy recovery from exhaust heat all advanced through F1 before becoming common in everyday cars.

Starting in 2026, Formula 1 cars are set to run on 100% advanced sustainable fuel made from renewable or waste-derived feedstocks like municipal waste or forestry waste. The international governing body of auto racing, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile, and F1 leaders have explicitly described that fuel mix as a drop-in technology that could directly replace fossil fuel gasoline, with potential use in everyday vehicles.

Significant room for improvement

Our analysis suggests the sport can make significant emissions cuts through concrete operational changes. Cars can use cleaner fuels; shipping and logistics can choose lower-emission options; and more buildings can use renewable energy.

Our model shows that one of the most effective options is to group races more tightly by geography. If all the races scheduled for Europe, for instance, took place in successive weeks, followed by several weeks of racing in Asia, people and freight would travel less over the course of a season than they do now, shifting back and forth across continents.

But the race calendar is not dictated solely by logistics. Commercial deals, weather, tourism efforts, host-country priorities and broadcaster demands all help determine which races happen in which cities on what dates.

Under realistic assumptions, our analysis is that F1 appears capable of cutting its direct emissions by at least 50% from its 2018 baseline.

But in our scenarios, even significant operational improvements won’t get F1 all the way to net zero by 2030. Under the scenario that includes the most aggressive operational cuts, about a quarter of F1’s yearly emissions still remain to be addressed.

Compensating for unavoidable emissions

To achieve net-zero emissions, Formula 1 will need to purchase carbon offsets to cover the remaining gap.

Buying carbon offsets, also called carbon credits, means spending money to make up for emissions a company can’t eliminate itself. For instance, a company could pay an organization to plant hundreds or thousands of trees, which would remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in wood for many years.

The markets in which carbon offsets are bought and sold have faced years of scrutiny over whether credited benefits are real, whether the activities like tree-planting would have happened anyway, and whether they remove carbon from the atmosphere for a suitably long time.

Those questions matter for Formula 1 because the final step from deep emissions cuts to “net zero” depends not just on whether credits exist, but on what kind they are and whether they should count.

A corporate challenge

Other companies are also struggling with these questions about carbon offsets in their climate plans. For instance, Microsoft, one of the world’s largest buyers of carbon removal credits, announced in April 2026 that it was pausing some new carbon-removal credit purchases.

For Formula 1, announcing the target was the easy part. The harder part is deciding what to do when technology and operational improvements get most of the way there, but not all the way. At that point, climate strategy becomes less about innovation alone and more about governance, credibility and what people are willing to count as credit.

Americans will be watching: The Netflix documentary series, “Drive to Survive,” which debuted in 2019 and is now in its eighth season, has significantly boosted Formula 1’s audience in the U.S. The organization’s sustainability efforts are part of a public story about whether a global entertainment business can align a high-performance identity with changing expectations about climate responsibility.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Formula 1 racing shows the hard part of reaching net-zero carbon emissions isn’t the engineering – https://theconversation.com/formula-1-racing-shows-the-hard-part-of-reaching-net-zero-carbon-emissions-isnt-the-engineering-281495

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Henry F. Fradella, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University

Texas Tech University, a public university in Lubbock, announced in April 2026 that its five schools would phase out all academic credentials centered on sexual orientation or gender identity. The new policy, detailed in a six-page memo on April 9, also requires instructors to use “alternate materials” when courses address these topics.

Texas Tech, led by former Texas Republican state legislator Brandon Creighton, is not the first university to try to restrict instruction on gender, sexual orientation and other topics in recent years.

In 2023, for example, Florida passed legislation that banned students at public universities from majoring in critical race theory, gender studies, queer theory and intersectionality.

Texas Tech, however, goes further with this new memo. It also bars graduate students from writing “degree-culminating” theses or dissertations on sexual orientation or gender identity, something no other major public university system appears to have done.

As a scholar who studies the intersection of law, science and public policy, I doubt the policy would survive a possible constitutional challenge in court, given First Amendment freedom of speech protections. Even if courts ultimately strike the policy down, though, it may still leave a lasting mark, by signaling that some universities are willing to prioritize politics over independent academic inquiry.

Texas Tech’s policy shift

Texas Tech’s policy, which will begin taking effect in June 2026, requires faculty to teach in compliance with a 2025 Texas law that declares there are “only two human sexes.”

The law echoes the language of an executive order the Trump administration issued in January 2025 that said “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.”

Despite that air of certainty, there is substantial scientific literature that shows people’s biological variation does not fit a strict binary model.

Texas Tech faculty will soon be largely prohibited from teaching about gender fluidity or gender as a spectrum. There are narrow exceptions to this rule, such as discussions about intersex traits, so long as instructors do not “advocate for or validate sociological frameworks.”

Although current faculty may continue researching “topics of their choosing,” new faculty will be hired “in alignment” with the memo.

Students, meanwhile, can continue to conduct “general independent student research,” and write standard term papers, for example, on one of these subjects. But students cannot write graduate theses or dissertations on sexual orientation and gender identity.

By legal standards, these new policies are not neutral, curricular decisions. This is because the state of Texas favors one viewpoint – that there are only two biological sexes – that this public university system now reflects.

For nearly 60 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the idea of viewpoint discrimination at universities. This discrimination occurs when the government or another authority allows speech favoring one opinion, while restricting speech expressing an opposing opinion.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees the region where Texas Tech is located, has also long recognized that “classroom discussion is protected activity.”

In a statement to the Associated Press in April, Creighton said that the school is “focused on ensuring our academic programs are rigorous, relevant, and produce degrees of value.”

He added that this focus “is matched by our unwavering support for the First Amendment and the open exchange of ideas that define a public university. Texas Tech will continue to be a national leader on both fronts.”

Part of a broader story

The Texas Tech policy is the latest example of a broader political effort to reshape what public universities may teach and research.

Several other public universities have also recently limited programs or coursework involving gender and identity studies.

In 2022, Florida’s “Stop WOKE” Act, restricted instruction perceived as endorsing certain race-related concepts in classrooms and workplace training sessions. Some faculty members left Florida public universities, citing concerns about censorship and political interference in higher education.

In 2022, federal judge Mark Walker called that Florida law “positively dystopian” and barred its enforcement, holding that the state cannot grant academic freedom only to viewpoints it favors. The restrictions remain blocked, pending appeal.

Texas A&M English professor Melissa McCoul sued that university after she was fired in September 2025, following a classroom discussion she led about gender identity.

Texas A&M later eliminated its women’s and gender studies degree program in January 2026.

The University of Texas at Austin consolidated four ethnic studies departments and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department into a single Department of Social and Cultural Analysis in February 2026. The university is also reviewing which majors, minors and courses within that new department students may pursue and enroll in.

These changes reflect a broader political climate in which some politicians and university leaders increasingly frame gender identity and other academic subjects as ideological positions, rather than scholarly areas of research. That trend has intensified alongside the Trump administration’s executive orders, actions and rhetoric surrounding gender identity and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Limiting academic research

Texas Tech was established in 1923 to prepare students for technical and agricultural professions, and “elevate the ideals, enrich the lives, and increase the capacity of the people for democratic self-government.”

That mission reflects the American Association of University Professors’ 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The statement describes universities as dedicated to “the common good” through the “free search for truth.”

Universities are therefore expected to pursue scholarly inquiry according to disciplinary standards and academic expertise, not partisan priorities. That commitment is reflected in the thesis and dissertation process, through which faculty evaluate students’ ability to conduct independent research and contribute to disciplinary knowledge.

Although disfavored on some Texas and Florida campuses, topics such as HIV disparities in LGBTQ+ populations continue to be studied elsewhere as public-health subjects. The same is true for suicide risk and family rejection among LGBTQ+ adolescents and services for transgender youth.

With such lines of inquiry curtailed, some Texas Tech students now question whether the university can still provide an “honest education.” Some Texas Tech faculty members are openly discussing looking for other jobs.

Restricting academic independence

A September 2025 survey by the American Association of University Professors documented the toll of political interference on university faculty across the country, including in Texas.

One-quarter of the 1,100 Texas professors and researchers surveyed said they are seeking jobs outside the state. More than 60% said they would not encourage graduate students or colleagues to work at a university in Texas.

When the state decides which questions may and may not be researched, it is doing more than shaping curriculum. It is regulating the boundaries of knowledge itself by determining what future scholars may study and what universities are permitted to discover.

That – more than any single line in a memo – is what I believe should concern anyone who cares about the integrity of higher education. And it is precisely the danger longstanding First Amendment protections for academic freedom were designed to prevent.

Henry F. Fradella does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Texas Tech’s new limits on how faculty teach gender identity and sexual orientation challenge more than free speech – https://theconversation.com/texas-techs-new-limits-on-how-faculty-teach-gender-identity-and-sexual-orientation-challenge-more-than-free-speech-282840

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Benjamin Chrisinger, Assistant Professor of Community Health, Tufts University

The more than 250,000 shops and stores that accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits as payment for groceries will have to meet tougher requirements starting on Nov. 4, 2026, according to new U.S. Department of Agriculture rules. Any retailers that accept SNAP benefits from their customers will have to stock a wider variety of food, some of it perishable.

Government officials said they introduced the new standards to make it easier for Americans who receive SNAP benefits, which help people pay for groceries, to select more nutritious options.

As a community health scholar, I’ve been following these and other changes to SNAP, the largest and most important government program for helping Americans get enough to eat. While expanding access to healthy food is a worthy goal, I fear that these new rules could have the opposite effect for people who are enrolled in SNAP.

More kinds of dairy, produce, grains and protein

Until now, small shops and big stores alike have had to stock at least three items in each of four staple food categories if they want to be able to accept SNAP benefits: dairy, produce, grains and protein.

Under the stricter new rules, all retailers accepting SNAP as payment must sell at least seven kinds of food in each of those four categories. And they need to offer at least one perishable variety in three of the four.

The rules will expand some ways that retailers can meet USDA requirements. For example, the government will accept plain, seasoned and shelf-stable meats as separate items that count as protein. And specialty retailers, such as bakeries and produce markets, will remain exempt from having to fulfill all the requirements.

But certain items that currently meet the requirements, such as beef jerky for protein or butter for dairy, no longer will.

Supermarkets and other big stores that sell groceries won’t need to do anything different to comply with the rule changes. But many convenience stores, corner markets, bodegas and other small stores will have to make changes if they want to continue to accept SNAP benefits.

What’s at stake

A big industry group that represents convenience stores and an anti-hunger organization are both warning that instead of making it easier for low-income people to follow a balanced diet, the new USDA rules might lead many small shops to stop accepting SNAP benefits.

That’s in part due to other changes those small retailers face.

More than 20 states have begun to restrict what people can buy with their SNAP benefits. Selling banned items to shoppers paying with SNAP benefits can jeopardize a store’s ability to accept those benefits.

These rules prohibit sales of soda, with some states also banning the sale of energy drinks, candy, desserts or processed foods to anyone paying with SNAP benefits. Some states, including Tennessee, are proposing additional, more complex restrictions based on ingredient lists.

Retailers will have to update their checkout systems to prevent SNAP payments on banned items, and educate staff and customers about the changes. Rather than police purchases, some stores might instead decide to stop accepting SNAP. This could leave communities with fewer options to spend SNAP benefits.

Fewer people are getting SNAP benefits

These aren’t the only challenges retailers that accept SNAP benefits face. Nationwide, the number of people who get those benefits fell by about 10% between June 2025 and February 2026, from about 42 million to 38 million. This decline isn’t happening because fewer Americans need help paying for groceries.

The big tax and spending package that President Donald Trump signed into law in 2025 is responsible. It restricted SNAP eligibility for some age groups and expanded the reach of SNAP’s work requirements.

With fewer Americans using SNAP, retailers can expect lower sales. This could be a big problem for stores whose customers rely heavily on SNAP. It’s possible that some of these stores could close.

While losing food retailers will make shopping with SNAP less convenient, it also could be bad for their former customers’ health. Research shows that people enrolled in SNAP have healthier diets when they have better access to retailers that accept SNAP as payment. And cutting their benefits has the opposite effect.

Helping small shops offer healthier options

This isn’t the first time the government has sought to make it easier to buy healthier food at small stores in low-income communities. State and local governments and researchers have worked for over a decade with the owners of those shops to procure, stock and sell healthier products.

Examples include the Healthy Corner Store Initiative in Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey; collaborations between city officials and researchers in Baltimore; and a state-funded program to purchase equipment and health-promotion materials for small stores in rural North Carolina.

Often, these programs have assisted store owners with a mix of expertise, funding and logistics, such as new shelving and refrigeration.

While there have been successes, researchers that have evaluated these programs have found that there are many obstacles.

Role of small stores

Many smaller retailers are not familiar with how to source and stock healthier food, especially produce, and may question whether these products will sell. These initiatives are often funded on a temporary basis, meaning that store owners must maintain any changes on their own after a program ends.

For example, a refrigerator purchased for fresh fruits and vegetables can easily be repurposed to hold bottles of soda.

Efforts to get small shops to sell more nutritious food work best when they are created in partnership with store owners and tailored to fit the needs of local communities. But the USDA is not offering that kind of help.

What’s more, while most Americans buy salty or sweet treats from convenience stores, I think that these rules suggest that SNAP shoppers should not.

For more than 60 years, a cornerstone of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the food stamp program that preceded it has always been that the people who are enrolled in it should be treated like everyone else when they buy food. I believe that the USDA’s new rules suggest that the government is moving away from that commitment.

Benjamin Chrisinger has received funding from USDA’s Research Innovation and Development Grants in Economics (RIDGE) Partnership. This should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. government determination or policy.

– ref. New SNAP rules requiring that benefits be used at stores selling healthier food could backfire – https://theconversation.com/new-snap-rules-requiring-that-benefits-be-used-at-stores-selling-healthier-food-could-backfire-282788