Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism
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Formation | 2021 |
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Founder | Bion Bartning |
Headquarters | New York City |
Website | www |
The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) is an American nonprofit organization, founded in 2021, that campaigns against diversity and inclusion programs, ethnic studies curricula, and antiracism initiatives rooted in critical race theory (CRT).[1][2][3][4][5] It instead favors rooting them in liberalism and provides such programming along those lines such as its own ethnic-studies curriculum based on liberal ideals instead of CRT.[6]
Founding and advisors
FAIR was founded in early 2021 by Bion Bartning, a co-founder of
The organization is structured as a nonprofit, and utilizes United Charitable, an organization that works with wealth advisors and donors to minimize tax liability, for fundraising.[10] Monica Harris, a lawyer and business executive, is the organization's Executive Director.[13]
FAIR describes itself as non-partisan and "pro-human".[13][10][14] Bartning is a self-described independent who says he grew up with liberal values.[15] FAIR has a multi-racial, multi-ethnic board of advisors comprising around 50 people, including journalists, academics, artists, and human rights activists.[16] Advisors include former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, anti-racist activist Daryl Davis, human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, linguist John McWhorter, economist Glenn Loury, and writers Bari Weiss and Abigail Shrier.[8][17][18] The organization resists claims of partisanship,[10] and its board includes cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, a Democratic Party donor, as well as venture capitalist and Republican donor Alexander Lloyd.[15][11] Conservative activist Christopher Rufo was formerly an advisory board member.
Activism and positions
Opposition to critical race theory
Almost all the cases profiled on FAIR's website involved battling
Critics have likened their approach to an All Lives Matter mentality, which was a response to the Black Lives Matter movement that sought to delegitimize the notion that Black people have been systematically discriminated against in the United States.[2] According to experts and educators interviewed by Lancaster Online, what FAIR calls CRT is not CRT, but a catch-all term for anything race-related. CRT is a legal study of the ways in which race has been created, defined, and embedded into law throughout American history.[2][3]
In January 2021, a mother in Nevada claimed that her biracial son could not opt out of a mandatory sociology class that "appeared to be teaching students critical race theory and intersectionality". Her case was supported by Schoolhouse Rights, a project of the anti-LGBTQ group International Organization for the Family, the anti-LGBT Alliance Defending Freedom, and FAIR.[20]
In April, a federal grant program supporting American history and civics education projects that, among other criteria, “incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives” was opposed by Mitch McConnell and FAIR. FAIR also highlighted, as a "profile in courage", a legal challenge to a debt relief program for Black farmers.[1]
In June, FAIR started a campaign to support Dana Stangel-Plower, who resigned from the Dwight-Englewood School due to what she called "essentialist, racialist thinking". In her resignation letter, which was published by FAIR, she stated "this year, administrators continue to assert D-E's policy that we are hiring 'for diversity,' D-E has become a workplace that is hostile toward educators based solely on their immutable traits."[19][21]
In August, approximately 50 people gathered at the American Legion in Island Pond to criticize CRT. Featured speakers included state Senator Russ Ingalls, who has criticized teaching about race, and Ben Morely, who started the Vermont chapter of FAIR. Morley encouraged the crowd to vote down school budgets, file Freedom of Information Act requests to find what teachers are teaching, and take legal action against school districts if they found "evidence of indoctrination or discrimination". In December, Morley announced that he was running for a seat on the Lake Region Union High School board in Orleans County, Vermont.[17] Local papers in Vermont published commentaries from parents that copied, word-for-word, a template letter from FAIR.[22]
In September, conservative speakers at a Springfield forum about CRT denounced diversity education curriculums ahead of a school district discussion about the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion education in Springfield schools. Gregory Thayer, the founder of Vermonters for Vermont, objected to the term "equity" and advocated for the curricular approach outlined by FAIR.[23]
In May 2022, FAIR wrote a letter to the Superintendent of Evanston/Skokie School District 65, Devon Horton, claiming that lessons teach young children that people are in danger because of whiteness, that racism is exclusively associated with whiteness, and that it claims without qualification that white people have more opportunities than "non-white" people.[16]
In June, the University of California shelved a draft for a proposal that would add a semester of ethnic studies as a requirement for admission to UC. The new requirement would substitute for an elective or be the focus of an English or history course and not an additional course. FAIR wrote a letter opposing the policy, claiming it would lead to content that is highly political and ideological. The letter said that the proposed model promotes "divisive and radical ideas that pressure students to become activists to foment a political revolution".[24]
A statement from the El Paso/Teller County chapter of FAIR opposed the equity policy adopted by the Colorado Springs School District 11 in May 2020. The policy, which was developed with input from more than 2000 community members in 2019, said that the district would support the equitable allocation of funding, diverse hiring practices, and a "culturally responsive" curriculum and training for staff about historic achievement inequities between white and nonwhite students.[25][26]
In January 2022, Joseph Boyle of the El Paso-Teller chapter of FAIR criticized an audit by the
Members of FAIR criticized the equity push as another form of racism and "race essentialism". Alexis Knox-Miller, the newly appointed equity director, hosted "equity cafes" where parents and community members could discuss the reports. Boyle repeatedly asked questions and was told that he was not allowed. Knox-Miller stated that FAIR "followed me to every community cafe" and were "poisoning the room". Knox-Miller stated Boyle's complaint that equity work looked at the world through a racial lens felt personal to her, stating "I'm a Black woman, and I'm sorry, the world looks at me through a racialized lens. We're not colorblind."[5]
In September, Jeff Campbell, leader of the Twin Cities chapter of FAIR, wrote a statement to the Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) criticizing their new standards, which included language requiring teachers to acknowledge the various backgrounds and
Emory Free Speech Forum
In November 2021,
Gender
In September 2021, Ben Morley, who started the Vermont chapter of FAIR, wrote a letter to his son's teacher, which was posted on the conservative online publication True North Reports, questioning why his son was asked to share his pronouns in an eighth-grade humanities class.[17]
In December, Letitia Kim, managing director of FAIR's legal network, argued that a school questionnaire at Jamesville-Dewitt (NY) Central School District which asked students their preferred pronouns violated the
In May 2022, FAIR suggested that lessons on gender and pronouns in the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 may be unconstitutional. FAIR stated that "teaching students that they must use alternative pronouns and announce their own may also violate their religious rights" and argued that lessons on pronouns were not age appropriate for those aged 4–9 since they "believe there are significant concerns as to whether these subjects are appropriate for such young children" who are "not yet developed or informed enough to fully understand, analyze, or critique those concepts."[16]
When asked about local schools and treatment of LGBTQIA+ issues, Joel Sternstein, leader of the Evanston FAIR chapter, stated they don't get into hypotheticals.[10]
In 2022, the Fairfax County School Board added protections for transgender students encountering misgendering in school in the 2022-2023 Student Rights and Responsibilities (SR&R) handbook. FAIR raised concerns that it would conflict with the First Amendment's free speech protections. FAIR attorney Leigh Ann O'Neill was pleased to see the term "malicious" in the document to discern between events of malintent and free speech and stated "I think that was a positive adjustment that the school board made because it is taking into account the intention of the student who might have a sincerely held belief that prohibits them from using another student's chosen pronoun."[32]
In August, a parent at New Trier High School submitted an anonymous complaint to FAIR complaining that surveys given to students asked for their preferred pronouns and who those pronouns could be used around. FAIR alleged in a letter to the district that requiring students to announce their pronouns violates free speech pronouns under the First Amendment because it forces them to adhere to an ideology that can conflict with religious beliefs. Letitia Kim stated that teachers should instead encourage students to tell teachers which pronouns they use without compelling others to do the same. She stated it can get tricky in instances where a student refuses to use a classmate's pronouns, and that "we do encourage everybody to be respectful of everybody else but we also recognize that the use of pronouns is a little bit more complicated, it's not like giving a name or giving your address or giving something similar. It really carries with it a set of underlying beliefs that some students and some individuals may not accept or may not believe in". The letter also stated that withholding a student's gender identity or pronouns from a parent infringes on parental rights, referencing the
In 2022, FAIR opened six chapters in Ontario alone. Their main focus has been opposing Bill 67, which would require boards to implement anti-racist policies and redefine racism to include systemic and unconscious forms. FAIR Ontario claimed that the new definition "endorses racism against white people". One of FAIR's most prominent allies is Parents As First Educators (PAFE), an Ontario-based organization founded in 2011 to protest progressive changes to the Catholic School Board's sex education curriculum, such as introducing the concept of gender identity and mentioning contraception in elementary school, in favor of an abstinence-first curriculum. PAFE then began to campaign against federal bills banning conversion therapy. The "Blueprint for Canada" campaign is a shared policy platform intended to be adopted by candidates who support at least 80% of its points. Blueprint for Canada was forced to take down its lists of recommended anti-LGBTQ2S+ candidates over potential violations of provincial election regulation.[33]
On October 17, FAIR hosted a webinar titled "Understanding Gender Dysphoria and Its Impact on Clinical Care" with
The
In May 2023, FAIR sponsored a letter
Other lawsuits
In 2020, complaints from various colleagues prompted
In June 2021, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno arrested a 10-year-old boy for allegedly making written threats to commit a school shooting at his elementary school in text messages to a friend. Letitia Kim stated that the messages did not contain any kind of threat but did include Google images of assault rifles. At the time of the arrest, Marceno deemed the messages to be a "fake threat", but arrested him anyways stating "this child made a fake threat, and now he's experiencing real consequences". The boy's father maintained his son's innocence, stating the texts about money and guns were a bad joke about scamming a friend out of money and were not a threat. FAIR filed an official request to the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the sheriff's office for law enforcement misconduct.[38][39][40]
In June 2022, Brown University expanded eligibility for a "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction" teacher training class that had originally restricted enrollment exclusively to racial and ethnic minorities. FAIR submitted a complaint via letter to Brown University President Christina Paxson which accused the university of segregating the class and violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The class was subsequently opened to all students. Eric Loucks, the director of Brown's Mindfulness center, stated "the intent is to reach future teachers who have a special interest in or history of personal engagement with the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and/or Latino/Latina/Latinx peoples and others who have been underrepresented in the mindfulness field, this is regardless of the participant's race".[41]
The same month, Keith Ray, a part-time teaching artist at New 42, filed a lawsuit supported by FAIR accusing the organization of discriminating against white employees, saying that the institution’s diversity trainings were themselves discriminatory.[42]
In May, FAIR filed an amicus brief in the case
In July, Meg Smaker allied with FAIR to argue that her documentary "
Medical issues
Dr. Carrie Mendoza leads the medicine chapter of FAIR, and has opposed race-conscious policies in health care, saying they can interfere with doctor-patient relationships.[47]
In response to the omicron surge in December 2021, the New York State and City health departments issued guidance on the use of COVID-19 drug treatments and therapies that were then in limited supply. The state guidance specified "non-white race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity should be considered a risk factor, as longstanding systemic health and social inequities have contributed to an increased risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19" and the city guidance contained similar language. FAIR filed a lawsuit asking the guidance to be blocked, claiming that it discriminated against white people and also members of minority racial and ethnic groups by labeling them as more prone to disease and therefore contributing to stigma and by subjecting them to experimental treatment. The National Medical Association, which represents African American physicians, filed an amicus brief strongly supporting the guidance.[48]
Reception
Xusana Davis, Vermont's director of racial equity, called FAIR's use of rhetoric around positivity and inclusion a clever “minimization tactic" and stated “they insist on being positive and moving forward as a way to ignore or avoid the acknowledgment of harm and the consequential repair of harm,” she said.[22]
References
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- ^ a b c Salhotra, Pooja (July 13, 2021). "Critical race theory debate hits New York City public schools". Chalkbeat. Retrieved January 31, 2023.
- ^ a b Geli, Alex (October 3, 2021). "Are Lancaster County schools 'indoctrinating' children with critical race theory? Educators, experts say no". Lancaster Online. Retrieved January 31, 2023.
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