The Whitney module of a matroid is a natural analogue of the tensor algebra of the exterior algebra of a vector space that takes into account the dependencies of a matroid. In this paper we indicate the role that tableaux can play in describing the Whitney module. We will use our results to describe a basis of the Whitney module of a certain class of matroids known as freedom matroids (also known as Schubert, or shifted matroids). The doubly multilinear submodule of the Whitney module is a representation of the symmetric group. We will describe a formula for the multiplicity of hook shapes in this representation in terms of no broken circuit sets.

In this note we give a transparent proof of a result of da Cruz and Dias da Silva on the equality of symmetrized decomposable tensors. This will be done by explaining that their result follows from the fact that the coordinate ring of a flag variety is a unique factorization domain.

In this paper we prove instances of the cyclic sieving phenomenon for finite Grassmannians and partial flag varieties, which carry the action of various tori in the finite general linear group GL_n(F_q). The polynomials involved are sums of certain weights of the minimal length parabolic coset representatives of the symmetric group S_n, where the weight of a coset representative can be written as a product over its inversions.

We show how to derive new instances of the cyclic sieving phenomenon from old ones via elementary representation theory. Examples are given involving objects such as words, parking functions, finite fields, and graphs.