[76][77][78] Lukianoff recorded a video of students confronting Christakis's husband, who served as master of Silliman College, on the Yale campus. The video also featured footage of OKeefe, dressed up as the Constitution, attempting to engage with students walking through the campuses and asking female students for their phone numbers. [30], FIRE has challenged "free speech zones" on college campuses, claiming they are unconstitutional restrictions on First Amendment rights. January 2, 2023. Im more afraid of top-down attempts to control Twitter than I am of the cultural harm it produces.. Turning Point USA is also closely affiliated with the dangerous citizen journalist vigilante work of James OKeefe and Project Veritas, and the group recently delved into its own warped citizen journalism project with the launch of a McCarthyist Professor Watchlist project in late 2016. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is not required to disclose its funders but major foundation supporters can be found through their IRS filings. In truth, as I have argued, conservative political correctness doesnt need to shout as loudly as its progressive variant only because its already baked into every Economics 101 course and into the premises and protocols of career advancement that the larger society foists on undergraduates. Its also hard to accept at face value Lukianoffs claim that FIRE takes on so many liberals only because most professors and students are liberals, and are therefore behind most campus constraints on free speech. [65] In March 2022, the school settled the lawsuit. ", "The Worst Campus in America for Free Speech", "Film 'Mighty Ira' brings free-speech issues to screen at Columbus Jewish Film Festival", National Center for Charitable Statistics, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Foundation_for_Individual_Rights_and_Expression&oldid=1141690257, This page was last edited on 26 February 2023, at 08:37. (One of FIREs biggest funders, the Bradley Foundation, even paid for billboards in black neighborhoods that depicted a black man behind bars and the words Voting Fraud is Felony, a not-so-veiled example of voter intimidation.). ADF sometimes bills its university academic freedom litigation as part of its Center for Academic Freedom, and lists the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education as an affiliated group on its website page for academic freedom cases. 601 Walnut Street Suite 510, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Provost Marty Krauss informed Hindley in October 2007 that comments he made in his Latin American politics class violated the school's anti-harassment policy. [48], FIRE has argued that public schools are required to uphold First Amendment protections for their students and faculty members because they are government entities. Turning Point USA lists the Leadership Institute, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, National School Choice Week, Heritage Action, the Heartland Institute, and the David Horowitz Freedom Center among its partners.. [82], In 2022, FIRE released a series of advertisements in Boston, Massachusetts, accusing Emerson College of censoring free speech on campus. Maybe the Bard conferees will have better luck. Those doctrines have themselves become dangerous to democracy via casino-style financing (Donald Trump, anyone? The Foundation for Economic Education ( FEE) is an American conservative, libertarian economic think tank. Lukianoff said FIRE has raised $28.5 million for a planned three-year, $75 million litigation, opinion research and public education campaign aimed at boosting and solidifying support for free-speech values. Waiver of right of respondent United States to . In addition to funding medical research and more standard philanthropic endeavors, the F.M. . [22][23] Lukianoff and Perrino have written in support of "the right to speak even the thoughts we hate. Pushers of these protocols insist that free markets make free men, as the old saying had it, and Lukianoff travels the country touting the marketplace of ideas on campus after campus. Annual lobbyist employer reports. right-wing racists get together and say that they have been excluded from a public space that does not . OKeefe is a right-wing conservative video artist who specializes in recording undercover videos of progressive activists and campaign staffers and releasing edited and confusing versions of the footage to allege misconduct. [66] Later that year, the organization helped University of Washington professor Stuart Reges take action against the school after it recommended that he include a Native American land acknowledgment on his course syllabus. Now it's trying to sue its critics", "The World and Everything in It: September 5, 2022", "Stanford, Georgetown, U. of Florida listed among 10 'worst free speech colleges' in U.S.", "The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression ranks Penn second-to-last college in free speech", "Week 3: Can Protests Make A Difference? Jim Sleeper is a lecturer in political science at Yale, a former columnist for Newsday and the New York Daily News, and author of The Closest of Strangers: Liberalism and the Politics of Race in New York.. In 2014, the foundation gave a total of more than $24 million for use in educational programs, educational grants, and general operating support at these schools and organizations, including more than $11.8 million in 2014 to George Mason University, which hosts the conservative Mercatus Center and Institute for Humane Studies. It has an annual budget of more than $48 million and a network of more than 3,000 allied attorneys involved in litigating so-called religious freedom cases and spreading dangerous lies about LGBTQ people. Politico also wrote that FIRE would spend $10 million on "planned national cable and billboard advertising featuring activists on both ends of the political spectrum extolling the virtues of free speech. [71] The criticism led to the resignation of Charlene Allen, Columbia's program coordinator for the Office of Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Education, whose policies were at the center of the controversy. [67][68] FIRE is also representing conservative students at California-based Clovis Community College, where school administrators reportedly removed the students' anti-communism flyers from campus bulletin boards. The Mercatus Center is a conservative research center based at George Mason University thatfocuses on how markets solve problems. The center is also an associate member of the State Policy Network of conservative think tanks. [90] That month, FIRE challenged the New York State Senates practice of blocking critics on Twitter, representing a resident who had criticized gun control legislation. It has created a vacuum in the viewpoint-neutral defense of free speech, which FIRE has filled.. This past year represented a new level of achievement for FIRE and its cause on campus. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. Its always been the case that some people have believed absolutely crazy things. Students for Lifes funding is largely obscured, but it appears to have received at least some funding from DonorsTrust, a donor fund that allows wealthy individuals and groups to anonymously support right-wing causes. FIRE was renamed in June 2022, with its focus broadened to speech rights in American society in general. While FIRE has received praise from many free-speech advocates, some critics have said the group is a thinly veiled front for conservatives looking to promote their political agenda. Dunn's Foundation for the Advancement of Right Thinking: Foundation for Individual Rights in Education: $30,000: 2010 + 64: Earhart Foundation: Foundation for Individual Rights in Education: $35,000: FIRE receives substantial funding from a handful of conservative private donors, including $3.5 million from anonymous conservative donors through Donors Capital Fund and DonorsTrust, $1.3 million each from the right-wing Bradley Foundation and Sarah Scaife Foundation, and about $1 million between the Charles Koch Foundation and F.M. [31] The organization has provided legal support to students contesting free speech zones, while also supporting legislation to eliminate such zones. [62][63] The school eventually agreed to rewrite its speech policies, paying $650,000 to settle the lawsuit. CVCC decided that the comments were "disturbing" and a "threat", and used that reasoning to suspend the student. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization that aims to protect students' First Amendment rights at U.S. colleges and universities. Not surprisingly, FIRE is trying to put the best face it can on the PEN report, which stops short of blaming the conservative group for wielding the cudgel, and even credits the organization with calling attention to threats against free speech. Students for Life of America (also known as Students for Life or SFLA) is an anti-choice group primarily focused on supporting a young generation of what it calls abortion abolitionists on campuses. ADF has received substantial funding from the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, as well as small donations from anonymous conservative donors through DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. The PEN report misses this broader context, conscientious though it is in distinguishing real threats to campus free speech from hyped and imagined ones. The groups funding connections amount to an almost encyclopedic list of conservative organizations, the vast majority with ties to the Koch network of organizations. Thinking that free speech is the problem here is, I think, missing the point, Lukianoff said. The ACLU faced internal upheaval in 2017 after its Virginia chapter provided legal assistance to white-nationalist groups seeking a permit to demonstrate in Charlottesville, Va. FIREs move seems likely to face an uphill battle with many on the political left disillusioned about unfettered free speech following former President Donald Trumps successes at perpetuating misinformation. And while the ACLU and its affiliates are involved in hundreds of court cases each year in 19 policy areas ranging from voting rights to privacy to immigration, FIRE had only six cases in active litigation in the last fiscal year, according to its annual Internal Revenue Service filing. Weve said it before: The greatest threat to democracy from the media isnt disinformation, its the paywall. Belgi (Nederlands) FIRE is justified, up to a point, in criticizing black protesters who shout down and intimidate classmates and professors by branding their colleges as racist, and in challenging feminist government and university bureaucrats who impose unfair standards and procedures when judging sexual assault charges. Once the ACLU backs off its traditional role, who else is there? Glasser asked. Greg Lukianoff speaking at the 2015 International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington. 2018, the petition had 89,488 signatures); and Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Letter to Fresno University President Joseph Castro, . Students for Liberty is a network of pro-liberty students from all over the world that claims to organize almost 3,000 local student groups and 1,400+ leaders around the world in training students to become a new generation of libertarian leaders. [80] Wallace's diploma was initially put on hold for the email, prompting FIRE to contact Stanford in his defense. Right-wing extremists have redefined the notion of freedom by detaching it from any sense of the common good and ethical considerations while reducing any vestige of liberty to an individual and . Here things turn Orwellian, indeed: As Ive mentioned, the same foundations that fund FIREs pretensions at championing campus free speech also fund David Horowitzs speech-chilling Academic Bill of Rights, for which Lukianoffs predecessor at FIRE, David French, testified favorably before the Pennsylvania legislature. It was founded and is funded by the Koch brothers; it is one of several centers and departments at George Mason that together received just under $80 million from Koch foundations from 2005 to 2014. [100], In 2020, FIRE partnered with College Pulse and RealClearEducation to release the College Free Speech Rankings, a comparison of student free-speech environments at America's top college campuses. [49] Although private schools are not bound by the First Amendment, FIRE has said contractual promises related to free speech or academic freedom should be upheld. The Mercatus Center has received more than $9 million from the Charles Koch Foundation, and a combined $9.3 million from dark-money ATM DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund in recent years. And lets hope that theyll ask Lukianoff to explain his funding, premises, and the pattern and practice of his propaganda and provocations and omissions, which surround and often undermine his groups legitimate complaints. Ordered By: Year (Newer to Older) Export CSV. "[25][26] Ira Glasser, former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), serves on FIRE's Advisory Council. Rankings, in general, are a weak tool for understanding schools' individual characteristics they hide nuance and context, encourage rigid thinking, and by rolling all metrics into one overall number, both reflect and obscure the biases of the list-maker. 223 transactions on record as a recipient. Its great to have the ACLU fighting for racial and reproductive justice and gay rights. (Response due August 20, 2021) Blanket Consent filed by Petitioner, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, et al. [40], FIRE also targets situations where students and faculty are adjudicated outside the bounds of due process afforded to them by Constitutional law or stated university policy. 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