Resisting GenAI & Big Tech in Higher Education
Jennie Stephens
25th November 2025. 8-9:30am PST, 11-12:30 pm EST, 4-5:30pm GMT, 5-6:30 CET
Virtual on ZOOM – REGISTER HERE: http://bit.ly/4qE27dB
Generative AI is permeating higher education in many different ways—it is increasingly embedded in university work and life, even if we don’t want to use it. But people are also sounding the alarm: Gen AI is disrupting learning and undermining trust in the integrity of academic work, while big tech’s energy consumption, use of water, and rapid expansion of data centers are exacerbating ecological crises. What can we do? How do we resist? Come learn about the environmental, social, economic, and political threats that AI poses and how we can individually and collectively resist and refuse. Come learn about how some are challenging the narrative of inevitability. Join an interactive discussion with international scholars and activists on resisting GenAI and big tech in higher education. Inputs from multiple scholar-activists including Christoph Becker (U of Toronto, CA), Mary Finley-Brook (U of Richmond, USA), Dan McQuillan (Goldsmiths U of London, UK), Sinéad Sheehan (University of Galway, Ireland), Jennie Stephens (National University of Ireland Maynooth, IE), and Paul Lachapelle (Montana State University, USA).
Co-sponsored by:
Climate Justice Universities Union
Climate Campus Network
Jennie C. Stephens, PhD (she/her/they)
Professor of Climate Justice / Ollamh le Ceartas Aeráide
ICARUS Climate Research Centre / ICARUS Ionad Taighde Aeráide
Maynooth University, Maynooth, Co Kildare, Ireland / Ollscoil Mhá Nuad, Maigh Nuad, Co. Chill Dara, Éire.
Climate Justice Universities Union Coordinating Team
Website: jenniecstephens.com Email: jennie....@mu.ie
Books
Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment, Co-Lead Author of Ch 13Oxford University Press, 2025
Climate Justice and the University: Shaping a Hopeful Future for All,Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024
Diversifying Power: Why We Need Antiracist, Feminist Leadership on Climate and Energy, Island Press, 2020
Recent Articles
Universities, Polycrisis and Redistribution: The Need for Radical Transformation. Review of Regional Research 2025
Gender Equity and Care for Transformative Climate Justice. Administration 2025
Profit-Seeking Solar Geoengineering Exemplifies Broader Risks of Market-Based Climate Governance. Earth System Governance. 2025
On Climate Change, Are Universities Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution. Times Higher Ed. 2025
Fossil Fuel Industry Influence in Higher Education. WIREs Climate Change. 2024
Ashwani Vasishth
I've come to the conclusion that, in sustainability--writ large--there are no "solutions," only trade-offs. Its good to look at costs. But we can not be blind. Either to the benefits, or the inexorable flows of socio-economic technological trends.
Its no longer should we, should we not. Its only how should we.
The time to argue for or against is long past. AI, in all its forms is here. Warts and all. Bubble or not. Like the dot com bubble of the 1990s, it will grow and morph as we act upon it. Bubbles rarely "burst." They only grow into nested systems.
The only standing question is, how do we come to live with AI?
Lets spend our time talking about boundaries. (And there will be more than just a few.)
--
Ashwani
Vasishth vasi...@ramapo.edu (323) 206-1858 (cell)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vasishth/
--------------------------------------------------------
Professor of Sustainability (RETIRED)
http://ramapo.edu/ramapo-green
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8272006/
Co-founder and Advisor, Sustainable Jersey City
http://www.sustainablejc.org
You can ALWAYS set up an Appointment with me, without negotiation, seven days a week,
at: calendly.com/vasishth/google-meet-30--
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Ashwani Vasishth
I've come to the conclusion that, in sustainability--writ large--there are no "solutions," only trade-offs. Its good to look at costs. But we can not be blind. Either to the benefits, or the inexorable flows of socio-economic technological trends.
Its no longer should we, should we not. Its only how should we.
The time to argue for or against is long past. AI, in all its forms is here. Warts and all. Bubble or not. Like the dot com bubble of the 1990s, it will grow and morph as we act upon it. Bubbles rarely "burst." They only grow into nested systems.
The only standing question is, how do we come to live with AI?
Lets spend our time talking about boundaries. (And there will be more than just a few.)
--
Ashwani
Vasishth vasi...@ramapo.edu (323) 206-1858 (cell)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vasishth/
--------------------------------------------------------
Professor of Sustainability (RETIRED)
http://ramapo.edu/ramapo-green
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8272006/
Co-founder and Advisor, Sustainable Jersey City
http://www.sustainablejc.org
You can ALWAYS set up an Appointment with me, without negotiation, seven days a week,
at: calendly.com/vasishth/google-meet-30
--
Rachael Shwom
The lack of governance of AI as it sweeps (and is pushed) into all domains of work and personal life is worrisome and, in my mind, “boundaries” can entail saying no to certain uses/aspects of it and contesting the inevitability that you state here.
I highly recommend following the podcast “You’re Undivided Attention” from the Center for Humane Technology (started by tech whistleblowers/ethicists) as they are often looking to other cases to guide governance and lessons for AI (i.e. forever chemicals and leading with safety, uncertainty and big tobacco, and globalization) particularly the episodes:
- Is AI productivity worth our humanity - https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/is-ai-productivity-worth-our-humanity-with-prof-michael-sandel
“Michael Sandel joins Tristan Harris to explore why the promise of AI-driven abundance could deepen inequalities and leave our society hollow. Drawing from his landmark work on justice and merit, Sandel argues that this isn't just about economics — it's about what it means to be human when our work role in society vanishes, and whether democracy can survive if productivity becomes our only goal.
We've seen this story before with globalization: promises of shared prosperity that instead hollowed out the industrial heart of communities, economic inequalities, and left holes in the social fabric. Can we learn from the past, and steer the AI revolution in a more humane direction?”
- Rethinking School in the Age of AI - https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/rethinking-school-in-the-age-of-ai
“AI has upended schooling as we know it. Students now have instant access to tools that can write their essays, summarize entire books, and solve complex math problems. Whether they want to or not, many feel pressured to use these tools just to keep up. Teachers, meanwhile, are left questioning how to evaluate student performance and whether the whole idea of assignments and grading still makes sense. The old model of education suddenly feels broken. So what comes next? In this episode, Daniel and Tristan sit down with cognitive neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf and global education expert Rebecca Winthrop—two lifelong educators who have spent decades thinking about how children learn and how technology reshapes the classroom. Together, they explore how AI is shaking the very purpose of school to its core, why the promise of previous classroom tech failed to deliver, and how we might seize this moment to design a more human-centered, curiosity-driven future for learning.”
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/fb6589a6-38bd-42d2-a6f1-5ab5c068a2a9%40ramapo.edu.
Ashwani Vasishth
Rachael, I truly appreciate the resources.
Words are slippery things. We don't disagree.
But "just say no"--historically--has not been an effective tactic. Remember prefixing Refuse to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle? How's that going?
I reinterpret the Wicked Problems meme to represent what we commonly call "a problem" as a misrepresentation of a nested constellation of sub-problems.
--
Ashwani
Vasishth vasi...@ramapo.edu (323) 206-1858 (cell)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vasishth/
--------------------------------------------------------
Professor of Sustainability (RETIRED)
http://ramapo.edu/ramapo-green
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8272006/
Co-founder and Advisor, Sustainable Jersey City
http://www.sustainablejc.org
You can ALWAYS set up an Appointment with me, without negotiation, seven days a week,
at: calendly.com/vasishth/google-meet-30
Jean Boucher
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/DM3PR14MB7547B33D4AD0AD3F4B7EC987E7D5A%40DM3PR14MB7547.namprd14.prod.outlook.com.
Robert Rattle
The chest-thumping EU buzzword
“sovereignty” has acquired a new definition. It now means the freedom to
set fire to our own rules when and how we want.
Fresh from Tuesday’s digital summit, where France backed Germany’s call to pause enforcement of high-risk AI rules,
the European Commission will today propose an array of snips to digital
legislation aimed at making life easier for tech companies.
Privacy campaigners are already alarmed. They fear the push to feed Europe’s AI companies with more training data will mean weakening personal data protections.
According to a draft
of the so-called digital omnibus seen by Euractiv, this is expected to
be done by narrowing the scope of what counts as personal data under the
now infamous GDPR
– a shift that could have knock-on effects for targeted advertising,
according to my colleague Claudie Moreau, a data and privacy specialist.
Commission
officials are adamant they’re not lowering existing safeguards. But
even if they’re to be believed – and it’s a big if – it doesn’t make
simplification a silver bullet for boosting business.
“The deep
roots of the relatively bad performance of EU digital companies are much
more complicated than just having slightly simpler rules on privacy,”
Antoine Mathieu Collin of Bruegel told a panel I moderated at the Cyprus
Forum on Tuesday. He pointed to structural issues like limited access
to financing, skilled labour shortages and single-market barriers – all
things not in today’s so-called omnibus package.
The proposal now enters what promises to be a bumpy political ride. The fight is likely to mirror the ferocity and dynamics of the first omnibus, which saw the EPP ally with the far-right to reach final talks. Socialists, liberals and Greens are already up in arms about the threat to privacy.
There
is, however, one area where there is mass consensus that cutting back
is good: cookies. Not the edible kind, nor are we talking about the EU’s
“unhealthy foods” tax – but rather the
ubiquitous pop-up banners that plague every website. The reforms to
cookies, years in the making, will go down a treat with consumers.
Whether
trimming parts of the EU’s digital rulebook will leave Europe’s tech
firms any healthier, though, remains far from certain.
Joe Zammit-Lucia
Actually, it's not sudden at all. Our model of education has been broken for a while - stuck in the 18th century didactic model and backward looking research.
Best
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/fb6589a6-38bd-42d2-a6f1-5ab5c068a2a9%40ramapo.edu.
Ashwani Vasishth
As is often the case, Joe, we resonate. Not as a "yes, but..." but simply as a "and also...", I think ONE root of this issue is that we've never--most of us, in most ways--actually come to terms with the fact that all socio-ecological "living systems" are evolutionary. Thinks persist over centuries, because each generation tacitly accepts the status quo as a default foundation from which to move.
The status quo has never held. For long. And we always have a voice in our own futures.
We use shorthand too easily. Climate change is not "a problem." It's merely emblematic of a host of nested problems, each of which may, in turn, be emergent from their own set of nested sub-problems. When faced with a constellation of issues, we need multiple responses.
And it will always take many voices, from many points of view, and with different purposes, to create anything approximating Peter Checkland's "rich depictions."
--
Ashwani
Vasishth vasi...@ramapo.edu (323) 206-1858 (cell)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vasishth/
--------------------------------------------------------
Professor of Sustainability (RETIRED)
http://ramapo.edu/ramapo-green
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8272006/
Co-founder and Advisor, Sustainable Jersey City
http://www.sustainablejc.org
You can ALWAYS set up an Appointment with me, without negotiation, seven days a week,
at: calendly.com/vasishth/google-meet-30