The town of Vernon, Vermont borders Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Jim Pinkerton is a member of the Vernon select board. The select board is like a mayor and city council combined. In a voice phone interview on December 10, Pinkerton told the Valley Post that he is working to save 18 acres of prime farmland from being covered in solar panels. “The solar panels should go above parking lots,” he said.

A photo of solar panels above a parking lot in Amherst, Massachusetts is at the following web page – see page 4:

https://cpowerenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/U_MASS_WEB_MAR05.pdf

The USDA's definition of prime farmland is at:

https://efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov/references/public/CO/5a_Prime_Farmland_De...

Pinkerton said, “This farmland is in the center of our town. It's highly visible. About 50 people showed up to a public hearing to oppose the solar panels going on this farmland.”

The population of Vernon is about 2,000.

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BUHS is the public high school for Brattleboro and its surrounding Vermont towns. The school is part of the WSESD school district. The town of Dummerston, Vermont borders Brattleboro. Sarah Levine lived in Dummerston until she moved to North Carolina. On December 11, Levine gave the Valley Post permission to publish her letter that appeared in that day's Brattleboro Reformer daily newspaper. Here is Levine's letter:

On December 2, two articles about the WSESD lawsuit against former BUHS principal Steve Perrin were published; one in the Commons

(see www.commonsnews.org/issue/843/843perrin_appeal_fails )

and the other in the Reformer. Both articles included a statement from Perrin’s attorney, Ted Kramer, who disgustingly (though not shockingly) lambasted Jane Doe, the student who courageously came forward about the abuse that she had experienced — first from Perrin, and later from the school board.

The Commons article also included a statement from Jane Doe in response to the court’s upholding of the school board’s decision to fire Perrin; the Reformer article, upsettingly, did not include Doe’s statement. This is one of far too many examples of the ways in which the voices of survivors are tamped down, devalued, and disregarded.

This blatant disregard is also apparent in the fact that the school board continues to hide in the shadows by refusing to make a statement or release a report under the guise of “confidentiality” while the survivors involved – Doe included – have asked for transparency time and again. Doe’s voice, as well as the voices of many survivors, has been and continues to be silenced from multiple angles. This is plainly wrong.

We should be lifting up and listening to survivors, and learning from their bravery and perseverance. One way in which this can be done is for the Reformer to write another article that includes Doe’s voice; I am calling on them to do so. We need to listen, and we need to be accountable.

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At UMass Amherst on May 7, 2024 police arrested 134 people for protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza. Now UMass is expelling students for taking part in anti-genocide protests. UMass history professor Kevin Young emailed the Valley Post on December 7, 2025. In the email, he said that a news article about this issue that the Daily Hampshire Gazette newspaper published on December 5, 2025 contained two errors. Here is Young's email:

I noticed 2 significant errors and 1 important omission in the information that the UMass Amherst spokesperson provided to the Gazette.
 
 
Error 1: “At UMass, students can still take Arabic classes on campus or at Smith College and Arabic continues to be offered at UMass in Judaic and Near Eastern Studies.”
 
This claim is very misleading. The classes that are being cancelled are the only “4-skill” Arabic classes on this campus (i.e., reading, writing, speaking, listening). They are intensive and (about) communicative Arabic, as opposed to the written and classical Arabic that is taught in Judaic and Near Eastern Studies. The courses that are being terminated are the only courses on campus that would allow a student to reach a high level of proficiency in communicative, modern Arabic. With the elimination of these courses and the firing of the senior lecturer who has taught them for the past 14 years, UMass Amherst will no longer offer intensive and communicative Arabic.
 
It’s true that Smith College offers similar Arabic courses, but is it logistically realistic for students to travel from Amherst to Northampton and back again 3, 4, or even 5 times a week for intensive language courses, when they also have a full course load on the UMass campus? My students have trouble trekking across campus in the 15 minutes between classes; how can they realistically travel by bus 45 minutes each way, not counting time spent waiting for the bus? Making that trip so often would not only be onerous for the students but would also limit the courses they can take on this campus, since they wouldn’t be able to schedule courses in the time slots right before or after their classes at Smith. When I raised this point in a union meeting with the chancellor and provost on November 21, I asked them whether they ride the PVTA buses and could therefore speak to the feasibility of the commute. The answer was no. 
 
 
Error 2: “All decisions on which courses take place are made by faculty and not administrators, according to UMass.”
 
The claim is incorrect. Although permanent faculty have a large measure of control over the courses we teach, our control is not absolute. But more importantly, the statement is false for the particular courses and instructors referenced in the article.
 
The Arabic language classes are being cancelled unilaterally by the provost and the dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. The faculty in the instructor’s department (Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, or LLC) want her to continue teaching those courses. The provost and dean are overriding the faculty. The provost and dean are also denying the Faculty Senate’s jurisdiction by saying that there is in fact no Arabic “program” on campus. Elimination of a program would require the Faculty Senate’s approval. But if it’s not technically a program elimination, the administration feels it can axe the courses unilaterally without any faculty input. Program or not, eliminating modern Arabic—the fifth-most-spoken language in the world—is certainly a major change to the university’s curriculum. This decision is clearly a violation of the spirit of faculty governance to which the administration’s talking point alludes. It’s a downright lie to say that this decision was “made by faculty and not administrators.”
 
In the History case, the faculty member is in a contingent and temporary position, so he has much less say over his courses than permanent faculty do. The HFA dean initially refused to approve any Spring 2026 courses for the faculty member, including the Modern Middle East survey course (History 131) that is normally taught every spring. That would have amounted to dismissal since this faculty member is not on a long-term contract. The same dean later reversed her decision and approved History 131, and eventually approved a second course for him. I can’t say for sure what caused her reversal, but it’s interesting that the reversal came soon after student groups launched a letter-writing campaign directed at her office.
 
 
Omission: The Gazette article referenced my report and the administration’s talking points, but not my rebuttal to the talking points. I have created an online folder where anyone can view my report, the administration’s FAQ-style rebuttal, and my counter-rebuttal. My counter-rebuttal comes in two versions, a short one (included as a postscript on pp. 34-35 of the report) and a more detailed set of annotations directly within the administration’s FAQ document. The folder includes all these documents plus some other supplementary files. Here is the link: 

https://drive.proton.me/urls/VS9FJ3DT48#g5VO9wVaS1BD.
 
The administration now has my printed report, along with access to the online folder, so it can respond further if it wishes. The reason I know they have the report is a bit amusing. UMass spokesperson Emily Gest was at the December 4 press conference and heard me announce that I would give free hard copies of the report to members of the press. I couldn’t give them out to everyone because they were expensive to print. She approached me and requested a copy. She didn’t have a press badge, so I asked, “Are you press?” She hesitated awkwardly for a second and then said “Yes.” I gave her a copy and she walked away. I marvel at her ability to juggle two jobs: working as university spokesperson while moonlighting as a journalist. I haven’t been able to ascertain what press outlet she works for.