Good News from “Chop Wood, Carry Water”

Extra! Extra! 2/2 by Jessica Craven

We made it through another week! Read on Substack

From Jay Kuo’s ever excellent “Just For Skeets and Giggles”

Hi, all, and happy Sunday!

Good God, what a week. I’m guessing you’re ready for a little good news, and guess what? I’ve got some! Actually quite a bit. Remember: two things can be true at once. Things are very bad, AND good things also happened this week. Some of them are even outgrowths of the bad things.

So with no further ado, let’s take a look at what went right in a week that was otherwise exceedingly challenging. Please take this list in, savor it, and dwell on it for as long as you can. It isn’t doomscrolling, for a change — it’s goodscrolling! Enjoy! And then share this list with someone who needs the lift.

As usual, I’ve popped an 🪓 next to every item that everyday activists like you helped make happen, and a 🪣 next to every one that got done by lawmakers or administrations that we helped elect.

Read This 📖

This hopeful cartoon is from editorial cartoonist Kevin Necessary. [H/T Nancy Davis Kho]

Celebrate This! 🎉

The Virginia Senate approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would restore voting rights to individuals with past felony convictions upon their release. If passed by both chambers next session, the amendment will go before voters for final approval. 🪣

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced a settlement with Novo Nordisk, securing insulin products for $35 per month in the state for the next five years. 🪣

A coalition of non-profits, public health leaders, and small businesses sued to block OMB’s late night attempt to pause all agency grants and loans. 🪓

Workers at a Whole Foods in Philadelphia have voted to become the first unionized store in the grocery chain, which is owned by Amazon. 🪓

Jim Acosta resigned from CNN, issuing a statement that said, in part: “It is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant…Do not give in to the lies. Don’t give into the fear. Hold on to the truth and to hope.” He then launched a Substack, which already has over 150K subscribers. 🪓

A Nevada judge dismissed a right-wing lawsuit filed by the Public Interest Legal Foundation that challenged voter rolls in Washoe County.

Trump’s firing of 18 inspectors general has prompted bipartisan pushback. Your calls helped with this! 🪓 🪣

The White House rescinded its illegal “freeze” after a day of ferocious backlash. Nice job, y’all. 🪓

Democrat Mike Zimmer flipped a state Senate seat in Iowa in a special election on Tuesday. Zimmer prevailed 53% to 47% in a district that Trump carried 60% to 39% in November. AMAZING! 🪓

The normally quiet Reddit thread of federal workers at rfednews has exploded with defiance — “We will NOT Resign, we took an oath and we will keep defending it against foreign and DOMESTIC enemies!!” 🪓

USDA inspector Phyllis Fong refused to comply with her firing and finally had to be semi-dragged out of her office. 🪓

Clean energy investment manager Greenbacker Renewable Energy has secured $950 million to build what will be New York State’s largest solar farm.

The U.K. and Scottish governments have launched a “skills passport” program to help fossil fuel workers transition to clean energy jobs.

The American Association of University Professors are saying they will completely ignore Trump’s attempts to control school curriculum. 🪓

Democrats easily held a state Senate seat in Minnesota. Democrat Doron Clark won this Hennepin County seat 91% to 9%. In November, Harris had prevailed 83% to 14%. 🪓

The Burbank, CA city council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution to make Burbank a sanctuary city. 🪓 🪣

Solar and wind are now being installed at a rate that is five times faster than all other new electricity sources combined. 🪣 (Thanks, Joe Biden!)

In response to Trump’s announcement of 25% tariffs on Canadian goods, British Columbia Premier David Eby has directed the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch to immediately stop purchasing American liquor from Republican-led “red states” and remove the top-selling brands from public liquor store shelves.

A bipartisan coalition of 24 U.S. governors pledged to continue the country’s work toward achieving Paris Agreement goals. Representing nearly 60% of the U.S. economy and 55% of the nation’s population, Alliance members pledged to reduce collective greenhouse gas emissions by 26% below 2005 levels by 2025, a target it is on track to achieve. 🪣

The Nature Conservancy also independently pledged to continue honoring the Paris Agreement goals and help the rest of the U.S. “do its part,” too.

SCOTUS allowed the federal government to enforce a money-laundering law that protects consumers by increasing transparency in corporate ownership.

Three days before Trump was sworn into the presidency, a private equity firm with a growing monopoly on anesthesia practices agreed to a federal settlement requiring it to back off its anticompetitive roll-up scheme that has cost patients millions more for vital services. 🪣

After years of litigation that delayed payments designed to combat the national opioid crisis, Purdue Pharma and the billionaire Sackler family who own it agreed to pay $7.4 billion to settle lawsuits over the opioid manufacturer’s role in the crisis and give up their company ownership. 1

Sexual assault victims in New Jersey should be able to track their rape kits through the criminal justice system by late summer under a new law Gov. Phil Murphy signed last week. 🪣

Sacramento City Unified School District officials unanimously affirmed safety for undocumented students at their schools, saying they will refuse to cooperate with ICE or allow them on their campuses. 🪓 🪣

Senate Budget Committee Democrats boycotted the committee hearing on Russell Vought to protest his nomination. MORE LIKE THIS PLEASE!! 🪓 🪣

Costco is increasing pay for most of its hourly U.S. store workers to more than $30, per Reuters.

A New York appeals court restored the state’s Voting Rights Act, which expands voter protections, overturning a lower court’s decision striking it down.

China broke its own records for the installation of new solar and wind power last year, with installed capacity increasing by 18 and 45 percent, respectively.

Former New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison following his conviction on bribery and corruption charges.

The leaders of more than half of Africa’s nations gathered this week in Dar es Salaam to commit to the biggest burst of spending on electric-power generation in Africa’s history.

New research indicates students are paying significantly less to attend public universities than they were a decade ago. And tuition increases at private colleges have finally slowed after years of hefty rises. Meanwhile, college enrollment in the U.S. rose for the first time last fall to surpass pre-pandemic levels.

Two unions–National Treasury Employees Union and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility–are suing the president for his “Schedule F” executive order that would allow him to fire civil servants without due process. 🪓

Former North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson is dropping his defamation lawsuit against CNN and “dropping out of politics.”

A federal judge in Rhode Island granted a temporary restraining order to block Trump’s freeze on all agency grants and loans. The judge also barred the Trump administration from issuing any further directive that emphasizes a funding freeze. Oh and he’s a judge Biden appointed. 🪣

A group of Quaker meetings, represented by Democracy Forward, filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s plan to enable ICE agents to enter houses of worship for their immigration enforcement actions. 🪓

The first step towards creating a Celtic rainforest – a now extremely rare habitat that once covered large swathes of the west coast of Britain – has been completed in Devon, England.

IKEA has slashed its carbon footprint by 30 percent in the last ten years while growing its profits 24 percent over the same period.

The decision to greenlight a giant new oilfield off Shetland in the UK has been ruled unlawful by the courts, in a major win for climate action.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has blocked anyone who took part in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol from working in state government. 🪣

TikTok influencers have been spreading information about ICE raids across the country, sometimes making it harder for agents to enforce Trump’s massive crackdown. 🪓

A new report from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication finds that most registered voters support climate-friendly policies, think the US should use more renewables and less fossil fuels in the future, and support US participation in the Paris Climate Agreement.

A Franklin County, MO woman pardoned for her participation in the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for her role in a fatal drunk driving crash.

Left-leaning media outlets are seeing a “Trump bump” in ratings after initially seeing a massive drop in viewership. MSNBC has seen a 61 percent bump since Donald Trump’s inauguration. The Guardian, The Bulwark and The Atlantic have also seen increases.

Economists at Georgia Tech reported in a paper published this month that by mid-2023, the 13 states with total abortion bans had suffered a combined net loss of an estimated 36,000 residents per quarter, or more than 144,000 per year.

Rachel Maddow is bringing viewers back to MSNBC — and giving them hope.

Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature seem to be at war.

A tip line (DEIAtruth@opm.gov) meant to encourage federal employees to rat out their colleagues for working on diversity issues is instead apparently being spammed with movie quotes and colored pencil drawings. (And some of us helped!)

Active-duty trans soldiers—and one prisoner—have sued to stop the Trump Administration’s anti-trans orders.

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by several voters who sought to remove hundreds of allegedly ineligible voters from voter rolls in Marin County, California without evidence. The judge ruled the voters lacked standing.

Trump’s approval ratings are already starting to drop.

Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll refused a Justice Department order that he assist in the firing of agents involved in Jan. 6 riot cases, pushing back so forcefully that some FBI officials feared he would be dismissed (he wasn’t.) Courage—love to see it!

Officials have declared that the world’s largest hornet, dubbed the “murder hornet” for its killer stings, has been eradicated in the US five years after it was first spotted.

2000 new people have signed up with Run For Something just in the last week – that makes more than 15k since Election Day. WOW!

After Minnesota’s largest Pride festival dropped Target’s sponsorship (and the 50K donation that came with it) they put out a call for financial help and raised twice the money Target was supposed to kick in in less than 24 hours.

New York lawmakers are discussing a bill that would give Gov. Kathy Hochul more time to set dates for special elections, which could leave Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik’s red North Country seat empty until the summer.

Amazing PA rep Malcolm Kenyatta was just elected the Vice-Chair of the DNC! So was David Hogg! (The DNC has three vice-chairs.) Ken Martin will be the Chair, and although he wasn’t my choice he seems like he’ll be a competent leader. So the DNC has strong new leadership. No more “rudderless ship.” Yay!

Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs appointed Maria Elena Cruz to the Arizona Supreme Court. The state appellate judge from rural Yuma County will become the first Latina and the first Black person chosen for the state’s high court

After a white supremacy aligned university club encouraged students to report their classmates to ICE, hundreds of Arizona State University students responded by marching in support of their undocumented classmates.

Gov. Tim Walz announced he is proposing the first sales tax rate cut in Minnesota’s history to help Minnesotans weather Trump’s tariffs.

ITS OFFICIAL — the Eaton, Palisades & Hughes fires are all 100% contained. (As an Angeleno this one may be my favorite.)

(snip)

Literally Watching Again In Real Time, Peace & Justice History For 2/2

History, and Why Some Women Ought To Know Better Than How They Behave…

In the Ladies’ Loo

Gender-segregated bathrooms tell a story about who is and who is not welcome in public life.

Passengers freshening up in the ladies’ restroom at the Greyhound bus terminal, Chicago, 1943 via LOC

By: Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza

Women’s entry into public life around the turn of the twentieth century was a major catalyst for the creation of sex-segregated public restrooms. As scholar Daphne Spain writes, female civic reformers lobbied municipal governments to make cities more inclusive places for women, pushing for amenities such as health clinics and kindergartens. And in both small towns and big cities, notes historian Peter C. Baldwin, women worked to ensure the availability of public toilets. The first gender-segregated public bathrooms afforded women privacy, safety, and autonomy—if, that is, the women were white and of means; otherwise, access to bathrooms served as a tool of segregation. The history of the women’s bathrooms in the United States is a story of who does—and who doesn’t—get to belong in public life.

The first public bathrooms in the United States appeared in the late 1800s. Pub owners offered them to paying customers to drum up business and keep drinkers drinking. But, as Baldwin notes, pubs and saloons were improper, unwelcoming, and sometimes dangerous environments for women, and were effectively male-only establishments whose facilities only catered to men.

Just a few decades later, according to Spain, women had begun to challenge their “proper place” in society. While middle- and upper-class women increasingly ventured out of the home into the burgeoning urban environment to shop and to socialize, their lower-class counterparts increasingly found work in factories and other non-domestic environments where they could earn their own money. And some, many of whom belonged to the upper classes, forced their way into political and civic life, lobbying for, and winning, suffrage. Changing social stations pushed women and men together in public. They shared sidewalks, transportation, parks, stores, and restaurants. Women entered public life, and standards of decorum shifted to accommodate them, though certainly not to include them—gender segregation became a paramount concern, according to Baldwin, for preserving the modesty and propriety of women. Still, a dramatic shift had occurred: Men no longer wielded a monopoly on public life.

While men were afforded the opportunity to take care of their most basic needs—the need to relieve themselves—women were not given the same.

In the absence of an available pub bathroom, men were accustomed to relieving themselves in the street. Not only did that suddenly seem crass in mixed company, but the new science of germ theory made it clear that using the city as a toilet posed a health hazard, Baldwin says. Urban designers, physicians, and civic groups lobbied municipal governments in Chicago, Boston, New York, and elsewhere to provide a sanitary solution to the problem of human waste.

The first public toilets, euphemistically called “comfort stations,” appeared in American cities in the 1890s, according to Baldwin. By 1919, roughly one hundred cities, including Denver, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Seattle made toilet facilities available to the public for free or a small fee. Some were funded by health-minded philanthropists and reformers concerned not only with physical cleanliness, but “moral cleanliness,” writes sociologist Alexander K. Davis. They believed the two were intrinsically linked.

Comfort stations were gender segregated but not gender equal. While men were afforded the opportunity to take care of their most basic needs—the need to relieve themselves—women were not given the same. Women’s facilities were often smaller and had fewer toilets than the men’s, writes Baldwin, and were consistently inferior to the semi-private “customers only” bathrooms available in the “Adamless Eden” of a department store, as one such store owner Spain quotes called them; these were available only to patrons.

For those women denied the privilege of department store entry owing to race or lack of means, the comfort station was the only option for getting some privacy in public. Businesses, manufacturing plants, offices, and government buildings almost entirely lacked gender-segregated bathrooms, and because it was scandalous for a woman to enter a bathroom that men used, the lack of women’s toilets sent a clear signal about who was and wasn’t welcome in a particular space. Without equitable access, women were not able to fully participate in life outside the home. If you can’t empty your bladder or your bowels with dignity, it’s hard to be away from home for long.

Public stations were expensive to maintain and quickly became dirty and malodorous. Many were underground or in secluded areas and were dangerous for female users. Baldwin points out that by the early 1920s, cities cut budgets and patrons abandoned the cause, so stations fell into disrepair almost as soon as they appeared, and some of the same women’s groups that had petitioned for their creation eventually pressed for their closure. The provision of bathrooms became largely the remit of private business owners who could provide or restrict access as they pleased.

Women's restroom at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, AZ, 1930s — Women’s restroom at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, AZ, 1930s via Wikimedia Commons

Though the truly public bathroom—where access is free to all—is increasingly rare today, the semi-public toilet is taken for granted. The ladies’ room in restaurants, bars, airports, train and bus stations, hotel lobbies, schools, and event venues remains one of the few spaces where men are strictly prohibited. Though many are accessible only to those who can patronize a business or afford a ticket for travel.

It’s such an important part of female culture that the women’s bathroom is a convenient prop in movies, TV, and books. Writers set a scene in the ladies’ room, where women gather to complain, cry, confide, confess, gossip, preen, or bully. And though such scenes sometimes lean on tired tropes of female behavior, the gender-segregated bathroom is a place to exist beyond the gaze and reach of men. Here, women speak candidly about feelings, bodies, periods, sex, romantic partners, friends, jobs, and family.

“They offer a space for bonding, the exchange of information, and personal recovery,” writes scholar Christine Overall. “Sex-segregated toilets provide ‘the element of sociability important to many women, who also use the women’s room as a refuge, ‘a place to feel safe, both physically safe but also psychologically safe.’” On the wall and in stalls, it’s not uncommon to see phone numbers for domestic violence helplines or, in bar bathrooms, instructions for ordering an “angel shot”: a coded way to ask a bartender for help in the face of harassment.

Of course, the ladies’ room by design isn’t a safe space for all women.

“At various points in US history, the absence of toilet facilities has signaled to [B]lacks, to women, to workers, to people with disabilities, to transgender people, and to homeless people that they are outsiders to the body politic and that there is no room for them in public space,” writes the feminist scholar Judith Plaskow. If these bathrooms are supposedly for the public, then by virtue of excluding certain people, the message is that their needs are not for consideration.

Access to public space in the US has even been explicitly exclusionary. When the Boston-based advocacy organization Women’s Educational and Industrial Union pressed for the creation of health clinics and lunch rooms in the early twentieth century, it made it clear that their goal was to segregate classes and create spaces, Spain explains, where only “middle-class and elite women could appear without being declassed and working women could appear in public without having their virtue questioned by being ‘on the streets.’”

In the Jim Crow south, writes Baldwin, Black women had to use separate bathrooms, typically older and poorly maintained, and were not afforded the privacy of gender-segregated facilities. In some cases, Black people in the segregated South had no access to public bathrooms at all.

Now, the current campaigns of exclusion seek to bar transgender women from accessing the ladies’ room. In 2016, the North Carolina state legislature passed “the bathroom bill,” which forced people to use the bathroom that corresponds to the gender they were assigned at birth. The next year, eight more states moved to impose similar restrictions. North Carolina’s bill was met with such anger on behalf of the LGBTQ community that some elements were quickly scrapped, and the remainder was left to lapse in 2020. While campaigns for equity have made such laws and restrictions exceedingly unpopular, they have not yet made them extinct.

In November 2024, Sarah McBride became the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, representing the state of Delaware. Within weeks, representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina introduced a resolution banning transgender women from the ladies’ bathrooms on Capitol Hill. Within days, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced the official ban.

Yes, I believe it is worthwhile to challenge hate speech.

And this is a blog well worth following, though I don’t read there often enough.

https://happinessbetweentails.com/2025/01/23/metoo-a-plea-bad-pharma-by-pam-lazos-and-abraham-johns-md/?page_id=449703

Wee Pals’s Soul Circle:

Wee Pals by Morrie Turner for February 01, 2025

Wee Pals Comic Strip for February 01, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/weepals/2025/02/01

Peace & Justice History for 2/1

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryfebruary.htm#february1

Some Essence of Thought videos on trans issues.

I love Ethel who is a grand young woman. I have watched her transition from an awkward teenager online who did not understand how to express what she felt inside and watched her blossom as she realized and started living openly as who she was. She is a wonderful resource for how to combat trans hate and misinformation. If she gives a stat or makes a claim you can take it to the bank that it is correct as she not only does meticulous research she also documents it all for others to see and read for themselves. Trans women are simply women, and trans men are simply men. I look forward to the day we can all drop the word trans, just we need to stop saying same sex marriage and simply say marriage. Hugs and loves.

MAGA And The Danger Of Empathy

Migrants, Prisoners, The Poor; No Conditions On Our Love

Compassionate Wisdom From The Author & Writer of “Fur Babies”

We interrupt this broadcast by Nancy Beiman

Cal Arts stories can wait a while. This is importance. Read on Substack

It’s hard to believe how much the world has changed since 2020.

I started drawing panel cartoons and comic strips in March, 2020 as the COVID 19 pandemic changed daily life. We were in lockdown starting in March. No one thought it would be for long.

There were jokes about toilet paper shortages though I never noticed any. Guess where most of the toilet paper is made?

This was my first cartoon, drawn to cheer up the neighbors on March 18, 2020.

I continued drawing the cartoons until January, 2022. (sometimes with large gaps between depending on what was going on outside, and my level of depression). The first Corona Diary cartoon appeared on April 18, when the ‘four week lockdown’ was supposed to end. It didn’t.

Thee first Corona Diary cartoon. April 18, 2020.

I never intended to draw more than one of these cartoons, just like I never intended to draw a comic strip. As the lockdowns got longer and longer, I kept on drawing them and sending them on social media and emails to a lot of very scared people.

They were intended to cheer people up and let them know what was happening here. The Canadian experience was very different from the American. Toronto became one big community. People wore masks and considered other people’s health along with their own. Prime Minister Trudeau had daily press conferences where he spoke of what was going on and what the health ministers thought could help.

People paid more attention to hygiene. I may never shake anyone’s hands again.

We would stand on the apartment roof and bang pots and ring bells to thank the nurses and first responders who still had to go to work.

and generally stayed out of crowds.

How different from today. Some people think that if it doesn’t immediately affect them, it isn’t happening. Back then: we knew that we were all connected.

There were ‘anti maskers’ before there were ‘vaccine deniers’. I caricatured the worst of them and decided that I didn’t want their ugly faces in my files, or future book. This cartoon is a replacement showing how we improvised masks in 2020, when there were no N95S available for anyone other than essential healthcare workers.

I discovered that ‘non woven material’ could be found in the cheap shopping bags in the market. The bags could be cut up and used as filters in cloth masks. Other people matched their masks to their outfits.

Replacement cartoon for one that I won’t publish and didn’t keep.

Why am I publishing this today? Because we are in danger of another pandemic, the first one is by no means over, and there are people who deny that any vaccine, anywhere, ever worked.

I’m willing to bet that most of us would not be alive today if it weren’t for childhood immunizations. You have only to walk through an old cemetery (pre 1950) to see many small gravestones commemorating children. These become less frequent after 1950 because of polio, measles, and mump immunizations.

I don’t want to live in the mid 19th century, and certainly not in the Dark Ages. (snip)

Seeing “Victors” Rewrite History

Vera Rubin Was a Pioneering Female Astronomer. Her Federal Bio Now Doesn’t Mention Efforts to Diversify Science.

The edits to the webpage offer a glimpse into how far the Trump administration will go in refusing to acknowledge today’s inequalities as it purges federal initiatives promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.

Vera Rubin was an astronomer who earned the National Medal of Science for her research on dark matter, an invisible substance that makes up much of the universe. Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Rubin Collection

During his first presidential term, Donald Trump signed a congressional act naming a federally funded observatory after the late astronomer Vera Rubin. The act celebrated her landmark research on dark matter — the invisible, mysterious substance that makes up much of the universe — and noted that she was an outspoken advocate for the equal treatment and representation of women in science.

“Vera herself offers an excellent example of what can happen when more minds participate in science,” the observatory’s website said of Rubin — up until recently.

By Monday morning, a section of her online biography titled, “She advocated for women in science,” was gone. It reappeared in a stripped-down form later that day amid a chaotic federal government response to Trump’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

While there are far more seismic changes afoot in America than the revision of three paragraphs on a website, the page’s edit trail provides an opportunity to peer into how institutions and agencies are navigating the new administration’s intolerance of anything perceived as “woke” and illuminates a calculation officials must make in answering a wide-open question:

How far is too far when it comes to acknowledging inequality and advocating against it?

“Vera Rubin, whose career began in the 1960s, faced a lot of barriers simply because she was a woman,” the altered section of the bio began. “She persisted in studying science when her male advisors told her she shouldn’t,” and she balanced her career with raising children, a rarity at the time. “Her strength in overcoming these challenges is admirable on its own, but Vera worked even harder to help other women navigate what was, during her career, a very male-dominated field.”

That first paragraph disappeared temporarily, then reappeared, untouched, midday Monday.

That was not the case for the paragraph that followed: “Science is still a male-dominated field, but Rubin Observatory is working to increase participation from women and other people who have historically been excluded from science. Rubin Observatory welcomes everyone who wants to contribute to science, and takes steps to lower or eliminate barriers that exclude those with less privilege.”

That paragraph was gone as of Thursday afternoon, as was the assertion that Rubin shows what can happen when “more minds” participate in science. The word “more” was replaced with “many,” shifting the meaning.

“I’m sure Vera would be absolutely furious,” said Jacqueline Mitton, an astronomer and author who co-wrote a biography of Rubin’s life. Mitton said the phrase “more minds” implies that “you want minds from people from every different background,” an idea that follows naturally from the now-deleted text on systemic barriers.

She said Rubin, who died in 2016, would want the observatory named after her to continue her work advocating for women and other groups who have long been underrepresented in science.

It’s unclear who ordered the specific alterations of Rubin’s biography. The White House, the observatory and the federal agencies that fund it, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, did not respond to questions from ProPublica.

The observatory’s page on diversity, equity and inclusion was also missing Thursday afternoon. An archived version from Dec. 19 shows that it described the institution’s efforts “to ensure fair and unbiased execution” of the hiring process, including training hiring committee members “on unconscious bias.” The DEI program also included educational and public outreach efforts, such as “meeting web accessibility standards” and plans to build partnerships with “organizations serving audiences traditionally under-represented” in science and technology.

Similar revisions are taking shape across the country as companies have reversed their DEI policies and the Trump administration has placed employees working on DEI initiatives on leave.

If the changes to Rubin’s biography are any indication of what remains acceptable under Trump’s vision for the federal government, then certain facts about historical disparities are safe for now. But any recognition that these biases persist appears to be in the crosshairs.

The U.S. Air Force even pulled training videos about Black airmen and civilian women pilots who served in World War II. (The Air Force later said it would continue to show the videos in training, but certain material related to diversity would be suspended for review.)

One of Rubin’s favorite sayings was, “Half of all brains are in women,” Mitton said. Her book recounts how Rubin challenged sexist language in science publications, advocated for women to take leadership roles in professional organizations and declined to speak at an event in 1972 held at a club where women were only allowed to enter through a back door.

Jacqueline Hewitt, who was a graduate student when she met Rubin at conferences, said she was inspired by Rubin’s research and how she never hid the fact that she had kids. “It was really important to see someone who could succeed,” said Hewitt, the Julius A. Stratton professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It felt like you could succeed also.”

Rubin was awarded the National Medal of Science by then-President Bill Clinton in 1993. The observatory, located in a part of Chile where conditions are ideal for observational astronomy, was named after her in 2019 and includes a powerful telescope; it will “soon witness the explosions of millions of dying stars” and “capture the cosmos in exquisite detail,” according to its website.

Mitton said the observatory is a memorial that continues Rubin’s mission to include not just many people in astronomy, but more of those who haven’t historically gotten a chance to make their mark.

“It’s very sad that’s being undermined,” she said, “because the job isn’t done.” (Snip)