A FOREGONE CONCLUSIONS MEDIA PUBLICATIONCURRENT EDITIONREAL EVENTS · NATIONAL PANIC
The National Emergency
Civilization hangs by a thread.
September 20, 2026Vol. I, No. 4A Foregone Conclusions Media Publication
Providence City Hall, July 2017; contextual photograph. A,Ocram / CC0.
SOCIALIST ADVANCE
Providence’s Socialist Nominee Already Has a Timetable
Providence’s Democratic voters have replaced incumbent Brett Smiley with DSA member David Morales as their mayoral nominee, and Morales is spelling out what comes next if he wins in November. He wants rent stabilization passed within his first 100 days, enforcement beginning no earlier than fall 2027, the city’s Flock cameras switched off and a public-safety commissioner with a restorative-justice background. Republican opponent David Talan argues that more housing, rather than rent control, is the answer. Morales says he would maintain police headcount. The socialist advance here has a name, a primary victory and a proposed governing schedule.
The University of Texas at Austin Main Building, April 2014; contextual photograph. Larry D. Moore / CC BY 4.0.
HIGHER EDUCATION
UT Cuts Identity-Studies Majors. Faculty Call It Ideological Pressure.
The University of Texas at Austin has stopped new enrollment in three majors: African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies. Current students can finish, and faculty have been asked to propose a replacement program. Faculty critics describe the decision as ideological pressure and a message that their fields lack value; conservative supporters welcome it as a correction to politicized higher education. Nobody has banned students from discussing race or gender. What has changed is the university’s willingness to maintain separate degree programs around them—and that alone has provoked a fight over what public education is for.
UC Defends Its Pronoun Policy. A Judge Finds a Speech Problem.
A federal judge has temporarily barred the University of California from applying parts of its name-and-pronoun policy to members of Defending Education, finding the group likely to prevail on its compelled-speech challenge. UC disagrees, describing its policy as protection against discrimination and harassment; the conservative organization calls the injunction a victory for free expression. The ruling preserves UC’s power to stop abusive harassment. Its narrower point is consequential enough: a public university’s commitment to inclusion does not automatically authorize it to prescribe how students express contested beliefs. That boundary now has a preliminary injunction behind it.
Delaware’s Progressive Insurgents Start Replacing the Incumbents
Working Families Party-backed candidates won eight of thirteen endorsed races in Delaware’s September primaries, including five victories over incumbents. Supporters celebrated a break with the state’s established political order; several winners still have general-election opponents to defeat. These are WFP-backed candidates, not automatically DSA members, and primary wins are not legislative seats. They are nevertheless concrete gains for an organized progressive movement. Alongside Providence’s socialist nominee, Delaware offers another reason to watch the races below the national headlines: political institutions change when the people occupying them change.
University Pays $600,000 After Professor Gives the Wrong Land Acknowledgment
University of Washington, Seattle. A.Schneider83 / CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and cropped; contextual photograph.
The University of Washington has agreed to a $600,000 settlement after investigating professor Stuart Reges for putting a parody of its recommended land acknowledgment in his syllabus. Following an appellate ruling that administrators violated his First Amendment rights, the agreement protects his ability to repeat the statement without further retaliation. The university still maintains it acted appropriately—a position it can now defend from $600,000 farther away.
Kansas School District Faces Lawsuit Over Keeping Parents Outside Gender Discussions
Department of Justice headquarters. Ed Brown / public domain. Contextual file photo.
The Justice Department is suing Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools over practices it alleges conceal students’ social gender transitions from parents and violate federal records and consent protections. The district denies wrongdoing; the disputed guidance considers excluding parents case by case, and its superintendent says the original document was never formally adopted as policy. Parents are left asking why their place in decisions about their own children requires a school evaluation.
Catholic Caregivers Go to Court Over What Refusing Assisted Suicide Actually Allows
Cardinal Blase Cupich, two orders of Catholic nuns and an Illinois pharmacist have sued over the state’s assisted-dying law, arguing that information and referral obligations would make them facilitate a practice their faith forbids. The law allows providers to decline participation, but the plaintiffs contend its remaining requirements undermine that protection. A policy defended as expanding personal choice has left religious caregivers fighting over whether that includes their choice to refuse.
Assemblymember José Luis Solache Jr. authored AB 713, which would allow qualifying undocumented students to seek campus jobs at California’s public colleges and universities. California State Assembly, via Wikimedia Commons; public domain.
IMMIGRATION
California Prepares Campus Jobs for Students Without Work Authorization
California’s Legislature has approved a bill requiring public colleges and universities to consider undocumented students for campus employment even when they cannot provide federal work authorization. Supporters call it equal opportunity; opponents see a state government deliberately placing its own immigration policy above federal law while American students compete for the same jobs. Governor Gavin Newsom, who vetoed a similar measure in 2024, must now decide whether California’s taxpayer-supported campuses will become employers for people the federal government says cannot legally work here.
An ICE officer oversees an immigration enforcement operation, June 11, 2019. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, via Wikimedia Commons; public domain.
BORDER SECURITY
California Moves to Blacklist Former Immigration Agents
California lawmakers have approved measures barring former federal immigration agents from many state and local government jobs while prohibiting electric-shock gloves reportedly under consideration for federal officers. As Washington expands immigration enforcement, California is preparing to penalize the people who carried it out and restrict equipment intended to protect officers in dangerous encounters. The message from Sacramento is increasingly unmistakable: resisting federal border enforcement is a qualification for public service, but enforcing it may soon become a disqualification.
After President Trump directed federal agencies to call Lake Ontario “Lake America,” MapQuest announced that it would retain the traditional name—and promptly became the most-downloaded navigation application in Apple’s US store. The company was not legally required to adopt the federal designation, but it transformed rejection of the president into a successful national marketing campaign. What began as a dispute over a map label has become another demonstration that open resistance to an American president can be packaged, promoted and rewarded as a consumer product.
A New York law that took effect September 1 requires cosmetology schools and licensing examinations to cover every hair texture, from tightly coiled to straight. The state says the change will ensure that licensed professionals can serve customers whose hair has historically been neglected in conventional beauty training, and it added the material without increasing required instruction hours. Albany has nevertheless established a new principle: even a private haircut is now a matter of state-supervised equity, with government licensing used to determine what every aspiring stylist must learn before being permitted to work.
New York City Bans AI for Children Through Eighth Grade
New York City’s public schools will prohibit students from using artificial intelligence through eighth grade, restrict classroom screen time and ban AI companion chatbots across all grades. High-school students will receive limited access and AI-literacy instruction, while teachers may continue using the technology for approved tasks such as lesson preparation and parent communications. The nation’s largest school system has therefore decided that artificial intelligence is too dangerous for younger students to use—but useful enough to remain in the hands of the adults running their education.
California Moves to Ban Work Requirements for Housing Assistance
California lawmakers have sent Governor Gavin Newsom a measure prohibiting local housing authorities from imposing work requirements or time limits on people receiving federal rental assistance, even if proposed federal rules permit those conditions. Supporters argue that such requirements do little to increase employment and could instead push struggling families into homelessness. If Newsom signs the bill, California would become the first state to guarantee that continued housing assistance cannot depend on meeting a work standard—once again placing the state at the head of organized resistance to Washington’s attempt to attach personal responsibility to public benefits.
Meta Pays Up to $18 Billion After States Explain That Children Need Bedtimes
Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion and impose default daily limits, nighttime blocks, stronger age checks and more parental tools to settle state claims that its platforms harmed young users; Meta disputed the allegations and admitted no wrongdoing. Silicon Valley built a business around keeping children online, then received an $18 billion reminder that children are supposed to log off and go to bed.
Texas Court Asked Whether Parenthood Belongs to Biology, Pregnancy or Contract
A California couple and their Alaska-based surrogate are fighting in Texas over parental authority for a newborn with a severe heart defect after the genetic parents requested an abortion, the surrogate continued the pregnancy and later sought conservatorship. No final custody ruling has been issued. The traditional family has expanded to include two states, competing court orders and a surrogacy agreement.
Olivia Rodrigo Raises $20 Million for Women’s Groups; Gen Z Enters the Philanthropy Village
Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields festival raised $10 million and Melinda French Gates matched it, with the money divided among ten groups including Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the National Women’s Law Center and Black Mamas Matter Alliance. A pop festival has become a donor conference with better lighting, and America’s daughters can now collect activist pins between sets.
