Julian Vasquez Heilig

We are living through a period when work can quickly become politicized. The pressure is especially visible in K–12 schools and higher education, but it is not confined to campuses or classrooms. Professionals in government, healthcare, law, business, philanthropy, technology, journalism, and the nonprofit sector are navigating many of the same tensions. People may find their work judged not…

History tells us that some of the most dangerous political violence is carried out not by individuals against one another, but by the government itself. Before I go on, I’d like to invite you to my online lecture tonight at 7 – 8:30pm EST entitled Sankofa, Shattered Trust, and the Price of Corruption in Politics and Policy. You can register here. Please mark your calendars and set an alarm and…

President Donald Trump delivered an incredibly disorganized prime-time speech intended to persuade Americans that the nation’s elections are fundamentally corrupt. He invoked China, voting machines, mail ballots, noncitizens, intelligence officials, and alleged fraud in Michigan, yet the evidence he presented did not establish that votes were altered or that an election was stolen. CNN’s…

I just spoke with CNN about what I witnessed at the Las Vegas airport. Yet speaking the words aloud has not made the experience easier to carry. I am still dealing with the trauma and grief of watching an older Asian man being violently attacked by ICE agents for, in their words, “overstaying his visa.” I watched two federal agents tackle him as he cried out in pain. I watched approximately ten…

I just had a traumatic experience. But I also witnessed courage. At the Las Vegas airport, I watched federal immigration officers attempt to take an older Asian man into custody. I do not know everything that happened before the commotion. I did not see a warrant. I cannot claim to know every legal detail. I can tell you what I saw. I saw an elderly man surrounded by ICE officers. Then I saw…

A public university classroom is not a political campaign podium. A federal appeals court has just reminded Florida of that, and in doing so, reminded the country of something we should never have forgotten. This week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit struck down the higher education provisions of Florida’s “Stop WOKE” Act. Diane Ravitch rightly called it a “stunning victory”…

What does courage mean in your own life if heroism does not arrive as a choice but as a crisis that drags you forward before you feel ready? That is the question that stayed with me after Project Hail Mary. Okay, okay. I am know I am late to the review, but they just released the film on streaming last week. The movie’s plot is not only about saving humanity from impending disaster. It is about…

The warning signs are no longer theoretical. Schools are closing. Colleges are preparing layoffs. Faculty buyouts are spreading. Academic programs are disappearing. Dorm beds are sitting empty. Classrooms are thinning out. Tax revenue is weakening. State appropriations are uncertain. Consultants are being hired and paid millions to identify “efficiencies.” Boards are quietly discussing mergers…

Have you ever trusted someone to do what they said they would… only to discover that, when it mattered most, they didn’t? Now ask yourself the same question about an organization. When I was in elementary school, one of my teachers insisted on reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books to our class every afternoon during lunch. Even then, I never particularly enjoyed them. As I grew…

Some films entertain us for two hours. Others quietly measure the passage of our lives. There are very few film franchises that can honestly claim they have accompanied an entire generation from childhood into parenthood, but Toy Story is one of them. I still remember watching the original Toy Story in the 1990s, and I probably watched that VHS tape on my square Sony Trinitron tube tv more times…

Given enough time something will eventually go wrong. For years I have been fascinated by science fiction stories in which someone discovers a way to send a message into the future.Those stories usually ask the same question. If you could messages to people who have not yet been born what would you say? I want to return to that idea at the end because I have come to believe that we are already…

Have you ever had someone suddenly disappear from an organization? I first saw this happen in the 1990s when I began working in the Research and Accountability Department of the Houston Independent School District after graduate school. It happened more than once. Each time it was a shock. One day someone was there. The next day they were gone. No explanation seemed to match what many of us had…

Juneteenth is often described as a celebration of freedom. It is. But it is also a reminder that freedom, opportunity, and recognition arrive later than they should. When enslaved people in Texas learned of their freedom on June 19, 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation had already been signed more than two years earlier. Freedom had been declared and the law had changed, yet the reality had not.…

A news story stopped me in my tracks this week. Following a UFC event held on White House grounds, fighter Josh Hokit used his post-fight remarks to repeat a false and offensive claim about former First Lady Michelle Obama. He stated, “And lastly, Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?” The comment generated immediate controversy. UFC President Dana White weakly condemned the statement,…

When the FIFA World Cup ends, everyone knows who won. In American life, everyone claims they are winning. Politicians are winning. Companies are winning. Universities are winning. Social media influencers are winning. The question is whether we still agree on what winning actually means. More importantly, who gets to decide? For most of human history, winning implied some relationship between…