Kirby Foundation has granted at least $2.3 million to Young Americas Foundation, $2.2 million to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, about half a million dollars to the Leadership Institute, and at least $375,000 to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. 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. Freedom of speech is our right as Americans and we must do everything we can to protect it, Lynum says over images of Martin Luther King Jr. and a young anti-abortion activist. 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. op-ed titled as "Neoliberalism and . Once the ACLU backs off its traditional role, who else is there? Glasser asked. Argentina. There are several questions that I hope Nossel and another panelist, Angus Johnston, will ask Lukianoff. [53], FIRE sparred with the University of New Hampshire in 2004 over its treatment of student Timothy Garneau, who was expelled from student housing after he wrote and distributed a flier joking that female classmates could lose the "freshman fifteen" by taking the stairs instead of the elevator. 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. 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. 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. [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. 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. [45] In 2011, FIRE opposed the Education Department's "Dear Colleague" letter that urged universities to use a "preponderance of the evidence" standard instead of the criminal justice system's "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard in sexual assault cases. [28], FIRE has opposed campus speech codes. "[92] In 2022, Columbia University finished in last place. The organization has received millions in funding from the Charles G. Koch Foundation, the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, and the Stand Together Trust ." Funding Rounds Number of Funding Rounds 1 Total Funding Amount $2.5M Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has raised a total of $2.5M in funding over 1 round. [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. After FIRE publicly criticized the decision, Garneau was reinstated. 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.. Last month, I disclosed the conservative-movement funding, premises, strategy, and practices of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which purports to protect free speech on college campuses, but expends more energy blamingand chillingpolitically correct activists and administrators. Its leader, Kristan Hawkins, has also praised Tony Perkins of Family Research Council, another anti-LGBTQ hate group. A major focus of CPAC panels and training sessions has always been on recruiting a new generation of right-wing leaders, particularly on college campuses. The ACLU enjoyed a massive surge in funding following Trumps victory in 2016 and now brings in almost $400 million to its coffers each year. [2][11][12][13] Among its other donors is the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation. [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. Kirks group claims to have a presence on 1,000 college and high school campuses nationally. The ACLU later recalibrated its free-speech advocacy, urging that its lawyers considering what cases to take also consider offense to marginalized groups. Romero also said it would not defend those seeking to engage in protests while armed. [105] Freedom also shared his personal story about censorship in his home country of Turkey. 03/01/23 10:55 PM EST, Video & Audio The public list of supposedly biased professors -- which included individuals photos and asked for public submissions of video/photo evidence of alleged bias -- mostly cited right-wing student reporter website Campus Reform, as well as conservative student blog The College Fix, hate group David Horowitz Freedom Center, The Blaze, FoxNews.com, and unfounded videos from Project Veritas. The megaphone social media platforms have given to voices spouting untruths has also prompted some former free-speech devotees to reconsider their views. [31] The organization has provided legal support to students contesting free speech zones, while also supporting legislation to eliminate such zones. Never mind that, as FIRE keeps discoveringbut never invites us to ponderthe college trustees and deans whom it condemns rightly enough for restricting speech are serving not politically correct pieties, but market pressures to satisfy student customers and avoid negative publicity, liability, and losses in brand or market share.. 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. 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. The video didnt make much of a splash.. [9] [10] In response, officials from several of the schools criticized OKeefes attempts at shoddy journalism, and noted that the administrators featured in the videos were attempting to do their jobs by assisting a student who appeared to be experiencing a mental health crisis. [86] FIRE also launched the website "Emerson Kinda Sus" in response. [88][89], In August 2022, FIRE defended the nonprofit group NeuroClastic, which had been threatened with a defamation lawsuit by the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center after criticizing the Center's use of electro-shock devices. 03/02/23 7:59 AM EST, Video & Audio Its been frustrating, he said, adding, Most of FIREs staff leans to the left politically.. 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. FIRE educates Americans about the Read more about this organization Issue Areas Include Education Human Rights & Civil Liberties Legal Assistance "[51], FIRE joined with a number of other civil liberties groups in the case of Hosty v. Carter, involving suppression of a student newspaper at Governors State University in Illinois,[52] and has been involved in a case at Arizona State University where it condemned the listing of certain sections of a class as open only to Native American students. 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. [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. . CVCC decided that the comments were "disturbing" and a "threat", and used that reasoning to suspend the student. Today's SPN is the tip of the spear of far-right, nationally funded policy agenda in the states that undergirds extremists in the Republican Party. 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. Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) is a small nonprofit organization geared toward student libertarians. Kirby Foundation. This is a welcome development, Romero said in a statement. 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. FIRE is unable to take other submissions by phone. University president Ronald Zaccari misconstrued a caption of the proposed garages as the "Ronald Zaccari Memorial Parking Garage" as a threat to himself. I think for FIRE to spread its wings is very constructive, said Summers, who served as president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006 and was National Economic Adviser for from 2009 to 2011 under President Barack Obama. Summers told POLITICO hes troubled that a stifling conformity in discussions about issues related to identity on college campuses seems to be spreading. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is renaming itself the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and keeping the "FIRE" acronym as it launches a drive to. January 2, 2023. 601 Walnut Street Suite 510, Philadelphia, PA 19106. In recent years, OKeefe has strongly aligned himself with the so-called alt-right, offering exclusives of his videos to Breitbart.com and befriending dangerous online trolls like Lucian Wintrich, Gavin McInnes, and Milo Yiannopoulos. [6] It was founded to be non-ideological and nonpartisan. But first, some context. It has created a vacuum in the viewpoint-neutral defense of free speech, which FIRE has filled.. 02/21/23 11:14 AM EST, Video & Audio The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression's (FIRE's) mission is to defend and sustain the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thoughtthe most essential . Lukianoff acknowledged disappointment with major liberal foundations, who have balked at supporting FIREs efforts. Known as Higher Educations Internet Outrage Machine, Campus Reform posts several poorly sourced articles each day alleging professorial bias against conservative students or policies. 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: [82], In 2022, FIRE released a series of advertisements in Boston, Massachusetts, accusing Emerson College of censoring free speech on campus. It offers guidance and resources to students for starting and supporting campus chapters, including an abolish abortion app, recruitment strategies and materials, and activism kits. SFLAs resources for students push numerous myths about womens reproductive health care in an effort to demonize choice. FIRE took the side of the student. Jeffrey Tucker, in this collection written between 2015 and 2017, argues that . 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. The same foundations also fund a campaign pretending to champion voting rights by passing voter ID laws that would actually disenfranchise voters, including many college students. "[2] The Times also referred to FIRE as a "familiar irritant to college administrators" and said FIRE "bristles at the right-wing tag often applied to them". Please, become a member, or make a one-time donation, today. 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. Feb 25. 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. He also has ties to the Trump administration, asProject Veritas has received funding from the Donald J. Trump Foundation. (Response due August 20, 2021) Blanket Consent filed by Petitioner, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, et al. When you support The American Prospect, youre supporting fellow readers who arent able to give, and countering the class system for information. 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. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is a right-wing free speech elitist organization. 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. 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. Ordered By: Year (Newer to Older) Export CSV. He nearly missed getting his diploma", "Just kidding! The Bill of Rights Institute, established in September 1999 by the Charles G. 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