[38], In 2014, FIRE assisted the Kalamazoo Peace Center in its lawsuit against Western Michigan University, after the university said the peace center could only invite rapper Boots Riley to speak on campus if it paid a security fee. We must defend all speech without apology | Opinion", "The Coddling of the American Mind review how elite US liberals have turned rightwards", "The Coddling of the American Mind 'Is Speeding Up', "ACLU free-speech icon Ira Glasser profiled in new film", "Free to State with Paul Clement, Jonah Goldberg, Stephen Hayes & Nadine Strossen", "Pierce College's 'free speech zone' will expand after LA Community College District settles lawsuit with student", "Georgia passes law banishing free speech zones", "U. of Delaware Halts Residence-Life Program That Was Criticized as 'Thought Reform', "A-T challenges UMC interview guidelines", "FIRE Demands Dartmouth Rescind College Republicans Fee | Inside Higher Ed", "UC Berkeley to settle free speech lawsuit for $70K", "Campus security bills for speakers challenged", "Lawsuit says WMU policies restrict free speech, prevented Boots Riley visit to campus", "WMU to pay $35,000 to settle free-speech lawsuit filed by Kalamazoo Peace Center", "Student sues university over 'no-contact' orders after Christian statements", "Conservative Students Sue Clovis Community College | Inside Higher Ed", "USF student, professor file lawsuit challenging Florida's 'Stop WOKE Act', "PolitiFact - Trump's education pick donated to Philly group with controversial campus rape stance", "Former U-Va. law student files suit challenging federal sexual assault directive", "2011 Dear Colleague Letter Critic Adam Kissel Hired by Dept. 02/22/23 12:31 PM EST, Video & Audio Kirby Foundation. In the U.S., its operations include a virtual academy and virtual reading groups; conferences; speaker and movie screenings series; and sponsorship of campus groups activism and leadership development. Lukianoff acknowledged disappointment with major liberal foundations, who have balked at supporting FIREs efforts. FIRE was renamed in June 2022, with its focus broadened to speech rights in American society in general. ", "Who Funds Conservative Campus Group Turning Point USA? Waiver of right of respondent Victim Rights Law Center, Equal Rights Advocates, Legal Voice, et al. 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. Reports indicate that the Charles Koch Foundation is one of several Koch funding groups donating to universities and think tanks to forward their political goals and to build a talent pipeline of libertarian-minded students. The foundation supports free-market teachings at the university level, including by funding individual faculty positions. Faculty at public colleges and universities can also call FIRE's Faculty Legal Defense Fund Hotline at 254-500-FLDF (3533). The unvetted work from Campus Reform also served as the sole evidence for Turning Point USAs recent McCarthyist Professor Watchlist project, which publicly listed photos and details about specific college professors and administrators who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom. Top contributors to the Leadership Institute in recent years include the anonymous conservative donor funds Donors Capital Fund and DonorsTrust, and the Charles Koch Foundation. College campuses have long served as unique places for the free exchange of ideas -- but increasingly theyve also become playgrounds for ideologically driven, right-wing billionaires and the dark-money groups they fund. He also has ties to the Trump administration, asProject Veritas has received funding from the Donald J. Trump Foundation. Faces an Identity Crisis", "Fighting for Free Speech on America's Campuses", "Ilya Shapiro controversy: Georgetown Law students speak out against liberal intolerance, cancel culture", "Free-speech group will spend millions to promote First Amendment cases", "Nonfiction Book Review: The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses by Alan Kors", "A Maverick Mogul, Proudly Politically Incorrect", "State of Conflict: How a tiny protest at the U. of Nebraska turned into a proxy war for the future of campus politics", "Colleges settle free speech lawsuits as FIRE promises more litigation", "The ACLU Just Got Some Much-Needed Free Speech Competition", "As the ACLU Recedes From Its Core Mission, FIRE Expands To Fill the Void", "The Conservatives Behind the Campus 'Free Speech' Crusade", "First Amendment Organization | Right to Freedom of Speech & Expression", "Foundation For Individual Rights In Education Inc - Nonprofit Explorer", "FIRE announces $75 million expansion into off-campus free speech advocacy, defense", "Foundation for Individual Rights in Education", "Opinion | Please, Georgetown. 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. Josh Gerstein wrote in Politico that "part of the push may challenge the American Civil Liberties Union's primacy as a defender of free speech." The David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC) is an anti-Muslim hate group founded and run by extremist David Horowitz, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center has called a driving force of the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black movements. DHFC says it combats the efforts of the radical left and its Islamist allies to destroy American values, and that it focuses this endeavor on our nations campuses, where the Freedom Center protects students from indoctrination and intimidation and works to give conservative students a place in the marketplace of ideas from which they are otherwise excluded. DHFC operates several projects, including an online outlet called FrontPage Magazine and DiscoverTheNetworks.com, a so-called Guide to the Political Left which largely claims to show connections between anybody on the left and the terrorists. DHFC has also launched anti-Muslim campus campaigns in recent years, including Stop the Jihad on Campus and Stop the Jew Hatred on Campus, and peppered campuses with offensive posters that sometimes cite individual students or professors by name and call them terrorists. The DHFC utilizes information from a dangerous doxxing website called Canary Mission -- which compiles information about individuals who support the BDS movement, including publishing photos of professors and students and links to social media profiles -- to inform its posters and campaigns. [4] [5] [6] Founded in 1946 in New York City, FEE is now headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. But first, some context. In addition to pushing hate in state laws, court cases, and public schools, ADF has also represented Turning Point USA in at least one lawsuit alleging campus discrimination against a conservative student, and has partnered with chapters of Students for Life to create draft legislation for newly elected Republican legislatures in 2010. " Steven Bahls charges the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education with engaging in "imbalanced sensationalism." Specifically, Bahls argues that for purposes of our speech code ratings, we "lump" colleges with policies banning alcohol-related expression in with colleges that maintain far broader restrictions on speech. Kirby Foundation also gives substantially to several billionaire-funded groups designed to seed campus chapters of conservative organizations. Its major grants come from the ultraconservative Earhart, John Templeton, and Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundations; the Scaife family foundations; the Koch-linked Donors Trust, and funders that sustain a myriad of conservative campus-targeting organizations that include FIRE, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the David Horowitz Freedom Center (whose Academic Bill of Rights would mandate more hiring of conservative faculty and would monitor professors syllabi for balance), and Campus Watch (which tracks and condemns liberal professors comments on the Middle East). FIRE, by contrast, raised under $16 million in its last fiscal year. Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Romero, the ACLU chief, said Monday that he agrees free speech is under increasing attack in the U.S. and is pleased that FIRE is branching out. 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. The foundation supports free-market teachings at the university level, including by funding individual faculty positions. The foundation has also poured millions into organizations focused on promoting conservative values (and sometimes, hate) on college campuses. [2][5] Silverglate had served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts. It also operates a campus leadership program that identifies, organizes, and trains conservative college students to promote and defend their values on campus. The institutes national field program boasts more than 1,878 campus groups that advocate for limited government, the free market, traditional values, and national defense.. OKeefes overhyped videos often fall flat and rarely match their billings. 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, . Part of the push may challenge the American Civil Liberties Unions primacy as a defender of free speech. . It detailed a $75 million expansion plan over three years to focus on "litigation, public education, and research," with $10 million for a nationwide advertising campaign. Many of FIREs founders and backers are former leaders of the ACLU who have grown disillusioned with the group under its current executive director, Anthony Romero, who left the Ford Foundation to take over the storied civil liberties organization in 2001. Foundation For Individual Rights in Education filed a lobbying registration on April 13, 2012 for in-house lobbying efforts, effective March 1, 2012. "[10], FIRE has received major funding from groups which primarily support conservative and libertarian causes, including the Bradley Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the Charles Koch Institute. Ordered By: Year (Newer to Older) Export CSV. 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. Feb 25. Which funding types raised the most money? Lukianoff declined to detail who has contributed the $28 million for the new initiative or what prompted them to offer funding. (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.). [35], FIRE has opposed security fees some campuses charge to groups which host controversial speakers. 2012. [86] FIRE also launched the website "Emerson Kinda Sus" in response. The F.M. [59][60] The lawsuit eventually ended with nearly $1 million in damages and fees awarded. I also argued, in The New York Times, that free speech is alive and well on campus, and that demands for safe spaces, trigger warnings, and speaker cancellations, while real and sometimes chilling, are far less prevalent and dangerous than FIRE insists. In the past, CPAC has typically featured remarks from, and panel discussions with, leading and up-and-coming conservative voices, including many presidential candidates in election years. On October 20 at a Bard College conference, PEN executive director Suzanne Nossel will have an opportunity to question FIRE President Greg Lukianoff, the crusades most prominent national leader, about that overreaching. 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 . The Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation (also operating as the DeVos Urban Leadership Initiative) is a private philanthropic group within the billionaire DeVos familys network of conservative giving. [28], FIRE has opposed campus speech codes. As of August 2020, SPN's membership totals 162. [87] Later that year, FIRE announced a lawsuit challenging Floridas "Stop Woke Act", claiming the bill unconstitutionally suppresses certain discussions of race and sex on college campuses. The Foundation for Economic Education ( FEE) is an American conservative, libertarian economic think tank. [6] It was founded to be non-ideological and nonpartisan. 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