The Office of Personnel Management has proposed a rule, "Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service." Comments on the rule can be submitted until May 23.

The proposed rule would remove civil-service protections from a new category of federal employees called “Schedule Policy/Career" (P/C). These P/C employees would be at-will workers without the right to challenge terminations or appeal reclassification to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). The proposed rule would give the President sole authority to reclassify federal employees as P/C.

The proposed rule would make it easy to fire hundreds of thousands of federal employees and replace them with political loyalists. This would make it easier to purge the government of the people and services that hold corporations accountable, protect labor rights, ensure clean air and water, provide healthcare and Social Security benefits, and enforce the safety regulations that improve the lives of Americans.

The Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is very concerned  about the potential impact on federal statistics of this proposed rule, and has provided templates for taking action online.

The Federal Unionists Network (FUN) has provided an extensive Public Comment Toolkit, available as a Google document. 

See also the editorial, "Institutionalizing politicized science" in Science, May 8, by Donald Moynihan and Pamela Herd.

"On Friday, May 2nd, The ADVANCE Journal: Individual and Institutional Transformation for Social Justice received its termination notice from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the NSF grant supporting the journal. While we are saddened, we are not broken. In fact, we see this moment as an opportunity to continue our work for gender and intersectional equity freed from the constraints of institutional dictates in the current political situation. We are defiant.

"We are only one of hundreds of NSF grants focused on broadening participation of women, BIPOC, and 2SLGBTQIA+ in STEM higher education that have been abruptly terminated. As other such projects are receiving their notices and the destruction of the ADVANCE program at NSF continues, the ADVANCE Journal invites submission of personal or collective essays and impact statements about positive experiences of these NSF grant programs and the negative impacts of their cancellations. This is for scholars working on issues of gender, race, inclusion, equity, and justice through ADVANCE and other NSF grants, such as LSAMP. We are interested in highlighting how these cancellations impact PIs, co-PIs, postdoctoral and international scholars and other participants, institutions, and science itself.

"These essays will not be peer-reviewed but will be reviewed by the journal’s editorial team. They will be published on the ADVANCE Journal site as a blog series that bears testimony to the fallout of this administration’s targeting of women, BIPOC, people with disabilities, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people within the academy."

Essays should be no more than 2,000 words and should be submitted by Monday, May 26, 2025. "We also welcome submissions of poetry, photographs, and hyperlinks to projects and publications that convey the significance of your project and the impact of the grant termination."

See the complete call and link for submission online.

From the Consortium of Social Science Associations:

"National Academy of Sciences Announces 2025 Fellows" (May 13)
COSSA congratulates the 150 newly elected fellows of the National Academy of Sciences, including the social and behavioral scientists from COSSA member institutions:

• Steven T. Berry, Department of Economics, Yale University
• Phoebe C. Ellsworth, Department of Psychology and School of Law, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Alison Gopnik, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
• David B. Grusky, Department of Sociology, Stanford University
• Jun S. Liu, Department of Statistics, Harvard University
• Daniel S. Nagin, Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
• Scott Page, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Parag A. Pathak, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• James W. Pennebaker, Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin
• Marilyn N. Raphael, Department of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles
• Cecilia L. Ridgeway, Department of Sociology, Stanford University
• Mary C. Stiner, School of Anthropology, University of Arizona

"ASA’s Shifting the Academic Ecology to Support Community-Engaged Scholarship in Tenure and Promotion in Sociology project establishes a framework that can be used to incorporate community-engaged scholarship into tenure and promotion processes. The elements in this Toolkit are designed for use by sociology departments, faculty, and tenure and promotion reviewers as they work to address the persistent disconnect between the reward structures in institutions of higher education and the aspiration to use our scholarly work to address real-world problems."

ASA acknowledges the contributions of the sociology departments at George Washington University, Howard University, and the University of Maryland, College Park.

See the tool kit on the ASA website.

Update, May 8:

Late Friday, May 2, Mosaic Theater received devastating news: the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) terminated their $15,000 grant awarded last year. The grant was designated to support their Catalyst Series of New Play Development, an initiative dedicated to bringing together nationally-recognized artists to work with local artists and audiences on the creation of bold new plays. 

Mosaic writes, "Many of you have already reached out with words of encouragement and asking how you can help. If you'd like to stand with us during these troubling times, we would be grateful for your support."

Original post from April 10:

The DC Sociological Society honors Mosaic Theater Company with the 2025 Anna Julia Cooper Award for Public Sociology by a Community Organization.

Founded in December 2014, Mosaic Theater Company’s first leadership team (Ari Roth from Theater J, Serge Seiden from The Studio Theater, and Jennifer L. Nelson from the African Continuum Theatre Company) began building a mission-driven theater focused on intercultural narratives, social justice issues and civic discourse. In 2016, Mosaic became a resident partner at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, an H Street NE venue on a corridor connecting “East of the River” neighborhoods and Maryland counties to downtown DC. In 2021, as Mosaic welcomed audiences back to the theater, DC-based director, producer and new play advocate, Reginald Douglas, was appointed Mosaic’s Artistic Director.

Mosaic asserts a mission to “produce bold, culturally diverse theater that illuminates critical issues, elevates fresh voices, and sparks connection among communities throughout our region and beyond.” The company articulates values grounded in the pursuit of shared goals and recognition of shared humanity in the process of inquiry into social issues, and engages this sociology-informed process in making art against oppressive systems—art infused by the different backgrounds and experiences among artists and audiences in a space that honors marginalized voices.

Two recent productions (among many possibilities) illustrate Mosaic’s movement toward sociological understanding of and challenges to systemic oppression: The Till Trilogy has at its core the racist violence that has long been inflicted on Black bodies. cullud wattah illuminates the structural embeddedness of racist violence.

In fall 2022, The Till Trilogy (by Ifa Bayeza and directed by Talvin Wilks) contemplated the life, death, and legacy of Emmett Till, whose murder in 1955 remains a pivotal moment in American history. Three plays (The Ballad of Emmett Till, Benevolence, and That Summer in Sumner) present ten actors performing in rotating repertory. With music, poetry, and sociological imagination, the trilogy portrays the ongoing fight for racial justice and offers audiences of all ages an opportunity for collective reckoning.

The current production cullud wattah (by Erika Dickerson-Despenza and directed by Danielle A. Drakes) centers the Flint water crisis. Set in 2016, it has been 936 days since Flint, Michigan, has had clean water. Third-generation General Motors employee Marion is on the verge of a promotion when her sister begins participating in social protests accusing the company of poisoning the water. The situation pushes the tight-knit family to confront their past and weigh their options for the future.

DCSS is pleased to honor Mosaic Theater Company with the 2025 Cooper Award acknowledging the company’s mission and values; the crucial social problems they seek to confront by deepening their sociological understanding of systemic oppression through engagement with social movement analysis; and their compelling productions coupled with sociology-informed programs of public engagement. Artistic Director Reginald Douglas will accept the award at the 2025 awards celebration on April 30. We encourage all DCSS members and supporters to attend!

Photo (l to r): Serge Seiden, Managing Director; Gay Young, DCSS President; Cathy Solomon, Board President; Reginald L. Douglas, Artistic Director. Photo by Alexandra Rodriguez.

Updated with a photo (below). Original post from April 10:

Dr. Nicol Turner Lee is the recipient of the 2025 Morris Rosenberg Award for Outstanding Sociological Achievement from the DC Sociological Society.

Sociology has had limited engagement with structural studies of media and technology, although this has shifted in recent years. By contrast, Dr. Turner Lee has focused on these subfields for many years through her applied work. In her most recent roles, she has amplified sociological perspectives regarding inequality and social justice within technology policy circles, and she often speaks publicly on these topics in a clear and approachable manner.

In 2024, Dr. Turner Lee published Digitally Invisible: How the Internet Is Creating the New Underclass. The book offers a robust view of the digital inequities experienced by multiple communities in the United States. It engages with the sociological imagination and the always present tension of structure and agency. For example, although she calls out the ways that the digitally invisible are “trapped by their demography, geography, and circumstance,” Dr. Turner Lee centers efforts led by local mobilizers to balance policy debates with local community needs in addressing digital inequity — “[people] who are steadfast within their institutions and communities even when everything else is shuttering around them…”

Nicol Turner Lee is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, the director of the Center for Technology Innovation, and serves as co-editor-in-chief of the TechTank blog and the TechTank Podcast. She graduated from Colgate University magna cum laude and has an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University.

DCSS will present Dr. Turner Lee with the Rosenberg Award at the 2025 awards celebration on April 30. We encourage all DCSS members and supporters to attend!

Nicol Turner Lee (left) and DCSS President Gay Young. Photo by Alexandra Rodriguez.

"Why Social Science?" is a project of the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA).

The most recent "Why Social Science?" post comes from Mark Mather and Beth Jarosz from the Population Reference Bureau who write about the importance of demography and how it can help community leaders, policymakers, business leaders, advocates, and residents plan effectively for a thriving future.

Read the blog post online here.

"GradSense is a website to help you plan financially for graduate school – whether you’re already enrolled or just considering your options. Learn what funding options are available for which degrees, plan your future with our debt to earnings calculator, and create a budget that will see you through your program. Then, go deeper with interactive quizzes, inspiring stories from recent graduates, and links to additional financial planning resources. GradSense is an initiative of the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) generously supported by TIAA."

From the Social Science Research Council

"Pilot Pitchfest aims to connect local researchers with city agencies and employees, in order to accelerate public sector innovation in cities. Eight out of ten top research universities are in US cities, yet local experts are under-utilized in accelerating public sector innovation. Pitchfest aims to bolster government innovation capacity, modernize city procurement processes, and coordinate startup support infrastructure."

The first Pilot Pitchfest is in New York City. If you are interested in bringing the program to your city, click the link at the bottom of that page.

Update from Democracy Forward:

"Harmful Attacks on Educational Programs Paused by Court in Case Brought By Educators" (Press Release April 24, 2025)

"Federal Court Issues Nationwide Order Pausing Unprecedented Assault on Public Schools, Teachers and Students. Court Blocks 'Dear Colleague Letter' Purporting to Prosecute or Cut Funding Based on Teaching History, Sociology, Or Other Lessons That Reference Race or Racism."

Original item 2/26/25 "ASA Joins Lawsuit against the Department of Education"
From Democracy Forward:

"The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), AFT-MD, and the American Sociological Association have filed a lawsuit challenging the Department of Education’s “Dear Colleague Letter,” which is a new policy that threatens to withhold federal funding for any education institutions that do not comply by February 28 with its unprecedented weaponization and undermining of civil rights laws. In addition to withholding funds, the letter also threatens educators and schools with potential investigations and prosecutions.

"The suit, filed in federal court in Maryland, is brought by the AFT, AFT-MD, and the American Sociological Association. The complaint challenges a “Dear Colleague Letter” published by the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights on February 14, 2025, which threatened that federal funding would be withheld from education institutions that teach accurate history and lessons about slavery, diversity and inclusion, among other efforts. The complaint argues that the “Dear Colleague Letter” will do a disservice to students and ultimately the nation by weakening schools as portals to opportunity and incubators for creative, innovative, and critical thinking."

See the press release and full complaint on the Democracy Forward website.

See additional context on the "Dear Colleague" letter on our "Resources for Tracking Trump Administration Actions" page