Shay O’Brien
Sociologist and Stone Center Postdoc at MIT studying elite kinship networks (she/her)
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienICYMI @hebagowayed.bsky.social wrote about the companies profiting from ICE’s ethnic cleansing campaign and why a bipartisan consensus keeps the out-of-control agency funded for our newsletter Group Threat (please subscribe).
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienJoin us on 1/27 for a symposium on "Why Wealth Inequality Matters," with panel discussions including: ➡️ The Political Philosophy of Wealth Inequality ➡️ Wealth Inequality in the US ➡️ Authoritarianism & Wealth Inequality See the agenda & register: shapingwork.mit.edu/events/why-w...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienAfter becoming a congressional leader, a politician’s stock portfolio beats out those of peers by 47 (!!!) percentage points a year through trades timed around bills and firms that later get government contracts www.nber.org/papers/w34524 via @florianederer.bsky.social
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienNew York millionaires: threatening to flee the city since 2009
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienExcellent reporting from Heated and Atmos. It looks like some of the biggest investors in the anti-trans movement are fossil fuel billionaires who are trying to use trans issues to ensure that Republicans pass policies favorable to their industry. heated.world/p/fossil-fue...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienThis piece in WaPo by @zhoyoyo.bsky.social, "The two reasons Americans aren’t having babies, according to data," has an unusual amount of wrong things, starting with the incorrectly labeled figure at the very top www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/int...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienFor The Conversation, I wrote about how White Southerners are making sense of what it means to be White in these times. In a nutshell, it’s complicated. I hope you’ll read and share widely. theconversation.com/its-a-compli...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienThe thing about charging him with assault for throwing a sandwich is that it exposes the historic lie of “assaulting an officer.”
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienWe invite applications for two postdoctoral scholars! These 2-year positions start in Aug. 2026 and are based at the GC CUNY Stone Center in NYC. One is focused on #mobility and #poverty, the other on #wealth and/or wealth inequality. Apply by Nov. 3! #EconSky #Sociology #PoliSciSky bit.ly/40TZR6J
- Reposted by Shay O’Brienhow much of the money from the ICE/tax cuts bill is just going to go to scammers, do you think? www.richmonder.org/this-tuckaho...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienWe must see that our lives, our struggles and successes, are bound up in each other. What does collective action look like if you stop being optimistic your discipline's market will improve and instead think about academia as a whole?
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienAll of this is deeply right and sensible. www.thedriftmag.com/politics-is-...
- “When both sides of the political spectrum share an obsession with interrogating one’s racial purity, maybe it’s time to confront an uncomfortable truth: A lot of us are exactly who Donald Trump believes that we are.” @tressiemcphd.bsky.social
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienNew, from me - I wrote a piece on the alarming lessons for other universities from the Columbia settlement (Contains a lot of arguments I’ve floated about here before!) www.usnews.com/opinion/arti...
- I am soo excited to share my newest article, “Unnatural Wills.” It’s about inheritance disputes!!! Murder, gold diggers, sex work, racial passing, secret lesbian lovers…WOW this was fun to write, and I hope it’s fun to read, too.
- This is the first article I’ve written that isn’t exclusively about elites/the upper class. It’s meaningful to me because it’s brought queerness into my work in a generative, unexpected way. I guess I thought I would just be a lesbian studying straight (rich, dead, white) people forever? Anyway…
- Inheritance disputes are a sociological goldmine. They force people to describe how money actually works in their intimate lives, and how they think it SHOULD work, and why.
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View full threadAlso, if you’ll be at ASA in a couple weeks, I’ll be presenting this paper! In the Culture, Value(s) and Relationships in Economic Life session on Tuesday 8/12 from 12-1:30pm, alongside four fascinating other presentations.
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienThe national "housing wage" needed to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment is now $33.63 an hour. The federal minimum wage—unchanged for the past *sixteen* years—is just $7.25 an hour.
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienPersonally, I find it more concerning that the Commissioner of the NYPD is the daughter of a multimillionaire corporate CEO than that the mayoral candidate didn’t immediately recognize that CEO.
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienVery happy to be part of this special issue on "Gender and Wealth Accumulation" in @sasemeeting.bsky.social next to a fantastic group of scholars ✨ @dariatisch.bsky.social @schechtlm.bsky.social @nicolekapelle.bsky.social @pmlersch.bsky.social @shayobrien.bsky.social academic.oup.com/ser/article/...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienWhenever you hear conservative politicians preach from the gospel of "fiscal responsibility," remember that one of the biggest drivers of deficits lately are the Bush and Trump tax cuts, which have added nearly $10 trillion to the national debt.
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienA ProPublica investigation found Musk paid less than $70,000 in federal income tax between 2015 and 2017 and paid $0 in 2018. “Elon Musk reposted.”
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienBuying political influence is a bargain. Warren Stephens purchased an ambassadorship with $7 million. He purchased his house in Carmel (a decade ago!) for $31 million. Jeff Bezos paid $250 million for the Washington Post but twice that for his yacht. newrepublic.com/article/1961...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienBreaking: Transgender people lose Skrmetti, SCOTUS rules that Tennessee's law banning gender affirming care is not subject to heightened scrutiny. I'll be reading and reporting more fully today. Terrible day for transgender people. Full decision here: www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienAt the blog I focus on a few recent articles by the one and only Deirdre Bloome. One of them: be careful about interpreting trends in absolute mobility (the % of people who outearn their parents). This measure tends to privilege trends of higher income kids. asocial.substack.com/p/inequality...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienThe recent vandalism of a lynching site historical marker in Dallas is part of that city’s longstanding war with its past. I write about it here: open.substack.com/pub/drmphill...
- Reposted by Shay O’Brientrans people are real and bathrooms and sports are made up. if you act like that's the other way around i do not have to hear your argument because it is based on a false premise
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienA long long time ago, in a far away galaxy... the US used to tax the rich
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienIn what might be the logical endpoint of American Zionism, the Heritage Foundation has declared that pro-Palestinian activism is not just antisemitic, but is in fact a shadowy global conspiracy … led by Jews. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/u...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienAs SCOTUS debates the MAGA regime's effort to overturn birthright citizenship, let's remember that Black people guaranteed birthright citizenship in this country. Ending this would be spitting in the face of our abolitionist ancestors who won this through the passage of the 14th amendment
- Reposted by Shay O’Brien“In the first three months, the Trump family has become $3 billion wealthier, so that’s a billion dollars a month.”
- Reposted by Shay O’Brien[This post could not be retrieved]
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienVideo stills of Rümeysa Öztürk being released from ICE custody via NBC 10 Boston
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienEvery book published in the United States is sent to the Library of Congress. Also, if you are under 16 you cannot use the reading room or order books.
- Reposted by Shay O’Brien“The Trump administration has scrapped more than $800 million worth of research into the health of LGBTQ people, abandoning studies of cancers and viruses that tend to affect members of sexual minority groups and setting back efforts to defeat a resurgence of sexually transmitted infections.”
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienAs we’ve said before now confirmed. FOIA requests reveal that DOGE employees are pulling in six-figure salaries, with many holding the title of “Expert,” a specific Office of Personnel Management (OPM) designation that pays around $190,000 a year.
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienTexas conservatives who've championed book bans & anti-LGBT policies suffered big losses tonight in school board races. And They seem to have lost their working majorities to pass their policies in big school boards. I tracked these results in FOUR boards tonight. So a 🧵 on each ICYMI.
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienMohsen Mahdawi has been released from ICE detention. “I am saying it clear and loud. To President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you.” The first to be released. May Mahmoud, Rumeysa, Badr, and all the others be free insha'allah. Reporting by Zeteo: zeteo.com/p/breaking-m...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienI’m late to this but wow, feds are really combining the SWAT home invasion and asset forfeiture playbooks huh?
- The author disabled quotes.Please highlight this story. ICE stormed into the wrong house, trashed the place, and made women/girls stand outside in the rain in their underwear. ICE also stole phones, laptops, and cash savings from the family, who moved to OKC two weeks ago. kfor.com/news/local/w...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienAlito—like the homophobic plaintiffs in Mahmoud v. Taylor—thinks the mere depiction of a loving LGBTQ family is dangerous propaganda designed to brainwash children. But different kinds of families exist. And public schools have no obligation to shield students from them. slate.com/news-and-pol...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienIt is both darkly funny and deeply sick that Sam Alito is so consumed by homophobia that he lacks the reading comprehension and emotional intelligence of a kindergartner. slate.com/news-and-pol...
- Reposted by Shay O’Brien
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienA colleague at Stanford’s business school used The Stanford Daily to argue—poorly—against DEI. The piece was riddled with historical errors and left one searching for fact, so I broke my public writing hiatus to respond. I hope you’ll read and share the piece. stanforddaily.com/2025/04/22/w...
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienThere are so many ways one could provide context for this data. For example, in the last five years universities have received 52-55% of their research funding from the federal government. That's the lowest percentage since the 1950s. 1/x ncses.nsf.gov/surveys/high...
- This is such an honor!! Thank you so much to the committee. My paper “The Family Web” is open access:
- Reposted by Shay O’Brien🚨House Republicans just passed a bill that would disenfranchise 70 million married American women. Under the SAVE Act, women who took their spouse’s last name and don't have an updated passport or birth certificate would be turned away at the polls.
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienI know this sounds like pedantic scolding but I really do believe that doubling down on the idea that criminal records are a meaningful distinction is like carefully digging a pit that we can be shoved into.
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienCOMPARE: the results of fighting back to the results of not fighting back
- Reposted by Shay O’Brienthis is the worst thing ever and simultaneously the perfect metaphor for contemporary white wealth in the united states
- Reposted by Shay O’Brien*looks directly at camera*
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienWhich countries have the worst gender ratio among their economic elites? We just published in the @bjsociology.bsky.social the first systematic comparison between 16 countries answering this and many other questions! If interested, just unroll the following thread 🧶 by @chellersgaard.bsky.social ⬇️⬇️⬇️
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienThere are many wild things in Trump's EO about History but one that especially caught my eye was the complaint that the American Art Museum promoted the view that "race is not a biological reality." It's not! That's a true statement! The idea that race is biological was the foundation of racism!
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienIn 1854, a group of Boston abolitionists formed the Anti-Man-Hunting League to resist the Fugitive Slave Law. This diagram shows their plan to surround a kidnapper until he released his victim. "SH" means Slave Hunter. www.masshist.org/database/1668
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienThe NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER added the EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC to a PRINCIPALS COMMITTEE TEXT CHAIN set up for the DEFENSE SECRETARY about PLANNED MILITARY STRIKES. Here's a thread of involved parties talking about the need for secure communications (when Dems are involved):
- Reposted by Shay O’BrienBREAKING: Yuval Abraham, co-director of Oscar-winning documentary "No Other Land," says Israeli settlers beat his co-director Hamdan Ballal, injuring his head and stomach — and then Israeli soldiers invaded the ambulance he was in and seized him. Ballal's whereabouts are now unknown.
