The State Policy Network (SPN) is a web of right-wing "think tanks" and tax-exempt organizations in 50 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, and the United Kingdom. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is an active anti-LGBTQ hate group that bills itself as a Christian legal organization. DonorsTrusts tax forms from 2012 to 2014 detail several grants made directly to universities to support scholarship on free market policies. Faculty at public colleges and universities can also call FIRE's Faculty Legal Defense Fund Hotline at 254-500-FLDF (3533). 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. Its tax forms list single grants ranging from $301 to more than $11 million awarded to a wide range of institutions of higher education as well as major conservative-leaning think tanks and news outlets. 601 Walnut Street Suite 510, Philadelphia, PA 19106. It has also frequently weighed in on sexual misconduct cases, arguing that the definition of sexual harassment should not include large amounts of constitutionally protected expression, such as any unwanted sexual comments, gestures, jokes, or looks, and defended campus organizations that use hateful rhetoric or seek to exclude potential group members based on sexual orientation. ), predatory lending, and ever more intrusive, degrading consumer marketing. [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 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. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville's "Responsible Use Policy" forbids using computing resources "for partisan political purposes" or to "offend" or "annoy" others. Which funding types raised the most money? Do I believe bad actors are abusing this? Argentina. 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. When you support The American Prospect, youre supporting fellow readers who arent able to give, and countering the class system for information. [27] Former ACLU President Nadine Strossen is also an advisory board member. [64], In 2021, FIRE filed a First Amendment lawsuit on behalf of an Eastern Virginia Medical School student who said his free speech rights were violated when the school denied recognition to a club that he was trying to establish because it supported universal health care. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is a legal and advocacy organization that claims to defend and sustain individual rights at Americas colleges and universities. FIRE primarily handles case submissions from students who believe their free speech rights were violated, connecting some to attorneys, including through its national program designed to file targeted, high-profile cases against public universities. Krauss placed a monitor in Hindley's class and ordered him to attend racial sensitivity training. This beacon provides an assessment of a charity's financial health (financial efficiency, sustainability, and trustworthiness) and its commitment to governance practices and policies. Without Yiannopoulos, CPACs speakers list was still full of individuals pushing xenophobic and discriminatory agendas and figures associated with the extremist so-called alt-right movement. Lukianoff acknowledged disappointment with major liberal foundations, who have balked at supporting FIREs efforts. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. [91], Since 2011, FIRE has published a list of the "worst colleges for free speech. Australia. [2][7][8][9] According to The New York Times journalist Cecilia Capuzzi Simon, "There are other groups that fight for First Amendment rights on campus, but none as vocalor pushyas FIRE. Demonstrators hold signs as they stage a protest on the steps of Sproul Hall on the UC Berkeley campus on March 08, 2022 in Berkeley, California. Examples of bias on campus from this week include: a professor who reached out to a black student about an upcoming class that would focus on slavery and white nationalism; a school supporting an emergency fund for immigrant students; and a school hosting a seminar on pay inequity and salary negotiation for women students. Recently, FIRE took up the cause of defending student groups that did not want to pay extra security costs for hosting serial harasser Milo Yiannopoulos on his campus speaking tour, during which he engaged in targeted public harassment of individual students. 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. 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. Rick DeVos (one of the children of Betsy DeVos and grandchildren of Richard and Helen DeVos) sits on the board of the Student Free Press Association -- a fact that The College Fix did not disclose in its supportive posts about DeVos until it was reported by Inside Higher Ed in February. 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. Educated hope provides the basis for dignifying the labor of teachers; it offers up critical knowledge linked to democratic social change, affirms shared responsibilities, and encourages teachers and students to recognize ambivalence and uncertainty as fundamental dimensions of learning. 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. Glasser, who serves on a FIRE advisory board, said in an interview that he strongly encouraged FIRE to broaden its free-speech work in part because the ACLU seems to be abdicating that role. An upcoming conference at Bard College could shed important light on the right-wing funders behind a deceptive campaign to protect free speech while advancing conservative ideology on liberal campuses. 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. 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. 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.. 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.. Thank you! CVCC decided that the comments were "disturbing" and a "threat", and used that reasoning to suspend the student. [79], In 2021, FIRE advocated on behalf of Stanford University student Nicholas Wallace, who satirized the Federalist Society and Republican political figures in an email to his peers. [103][104], In February 2022, FIRE produced an advertisement featuring National Basketball Association (NBA) player Enes Kanter Freedom for the 2022 Winter Olympics in China, supporting freedom of speech. [4] [5] [6] Founded in 1946 in New York City, FEE is now headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Ive sent these questions to FIRE myself, three times, but have never received an answer. 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 . This post may be updated with further groups and financial connections in the future. 02/21/23 11:14 AM EST, Video & Audio [36][37] These fees are charged to pay for extra security, which colleges say is necessary due to the likelihood of demonstrations and disruption of events. Challenges to free speech are proliferating from both the left and the right, and the nation needs more organizations dedicated to upholding our most fundamental right.. Now a thorough, mostly well-balanced report by the PEN (Poets, Essayists, and Novelists) American Center confirms that the conservative free speech crusade has gone too far. In 2020, FIRE released Mighty Ira, a laudatory documentary film about Romeros predecessor, Ira Glasser, focusing on the ACLUs work from the 1970s through the 1990s. Its tax forms list single grants ranging from $301 to more than $11. [31] The organization has provided legal support to students contesting free speech zones, while also supporting legislation to eliminate such zones. Its also donated nearly half a million dollars to the anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom. Kirby Foundation also gives substantially to several billionaire-funded groups designed to seed campus chapters of conservative organizations. Even Lukianoffs Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate was published in 2014 by the right-wing Encounter Books, which also publishes such conservative mainstays as Kimball and William Kristol, and which has been funded with at least $6 million by the Bradley Foundation. Original Filing: 300460117.xml Issue(s) they said they'd lobby about: The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending . [82], In 2022, FIRE released a series of advertisements in Boston, Massachusetts, accusing Emerson College of censoring free speech on campus. Although the details are purposely obscured, its likely that the DeVoses -- like Charles and David Koch -- have additionally contributed to groups in this list through the anonymous donor funds DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. The rise of 1964 Republican nominee Barry Goldwater, with his hostility toward federal anti-discrimination legislation and social safety-net programs, was a direct result of white people's anger . Its given $15 million to Young Americas Foundation, more than $8 million to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, as well as smaller donations to the Leadership Institute. FIREs new expansion is also a challenge of sorts to the ACLU, which has faced criticism in recent years for drifting from its unapologetically pro-free-speech roots and taking a more direct role in partisan political fights. 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. Through the foundation, Amway founder Richard DeVos Sr. and his spouse, Helen, (parents-in-law of Betsy DeVos, Trumps secretary of education) give millions to right-wing think tanks, model-legislation mills, and political groups, as well as numerous philanthropic endeavors and local right-wing groups in their home state of Michigan. [101][102] That year, FIRE also released Mighty Ira, a documentary about Glasser. OKeefes overhyped videos often fall flat and rarely match their billings. The organization, which has worked for more than 20 years to defend free expression on college . Once the ACLU backs off its traditional role, who else is there? Glasser asked. " 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. right-wing racists get together and say that they have been excluded from a public space that does not . To say the least, we have not solved the campus free-speech problem, but we started to realize if we wanted to save free speech on campus we have to start earlier and we have to do things not on campus, the groups president, Greg Lukianoff, said. The video didnt make much of a splash.. [7] [8] FEE offers publications, lectures, and student workshops promoting free market principles. Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. The voices that think of free speech as a dirty word on campus or on Twitter are actually a pretty small minority.. He has had to issue public apologies, has been arrested for trespassing, and has foiled his own plots, yet his videos have been promoted by President Donald Trump. Other groups, including the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, say that standard strips away a student's right to due process. Tel: 215-717-3473; Fax: 215-717-3440; e-mail: fire@thefire.org; Web site: http://www.thefire.org Publication Type: Reports - Descriptive Education Level: High Schools; Higher Education Audience: N/A Language: English Sponsor: N/A Today, free-market globalization is undermining the individual rights, civic virtues, and republican sovereignty that conservatives claim to cherish. The group is sponsoring a lawsuit that challenges the . 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. The Charles Koch Institute, later formed as a separate organization from the foundation, bills itself as an organization specifically dedicated to educating the next generation of professional leaders with libertarian-minded internships and professional development courses. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), formerly known as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, is a non-profit civil liberties group founded in 1999 with the aim of protecting free speech rights on college campuses in the United States. History Founded in 1946, The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is a libertarian economic think-tank dedicated to the "economic, ethical, and legal principles of a free society." FEE publishes books, daily articles and hosts seminars and lectures. 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. 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). According to tax filings, the Alliance for School Choice has received substantial funding from right-wing philanthropists, including at least half a million from the Gleason Family Foundation. The American Conservative Union is a conservative political organization that oversees the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a massive annual conference with organizing workshops and speeches from prominent right-wing politicians and leaders. Web the foundation for individual rights in education, or fire, is an american organization that defends individual rights, especially the right to free speech, in higher. more about "Foundation for Individual Rights in Education" RDF feed Page status Help:Seed Guide + Page type Article + Thing type Organization + [28], FIRE has opposed campus speech codes. [2][11][12][13] Among its other donors is the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation. An advocacy group that has spent more than two decades fighting for free expression on college campuses is broadening its efforts to fight so-called cancel culture and other perceived threats to free speech across American society. Dunn's Foundation for the Advancement of Right Thinking. 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