When the Maps Disappear

In this essay, Lucas Fondevila explores the growing gap between inherited expectations and the guidance available to the next generation. He examines the importance of mentorship, positive role models, and shared responsibility in helping young people develop capability, character, and purpose. Rather than romanticizing, Fondevila calls for constructive alternatives to old ‘maps’ that encourage independent judgment, emotional maturity, and meaningful contributions to society.

“Schools, workplaces, families, and communities can offer these opportunities without prescribing a single acceptable life. Experienced workers can teach skills alongside ethical standards; parents can invite responsibility while providing guidance. Online guidance should likewise strengthen independent thought, allow questions, and encourage engagement beyond the community. This connects with FAIR's pro-human emphasis on individual dignity and shared humanity. Communities should make room for disagreement while encouraging respect for women and for people whose experiences differ from one's own. Young people can learn to defend their convictions while recognizing the dignity of those who challenge them.”

Read the Full Article

Debate Bro Rhetoric and its Role in Civil Discourse

FAIR Board of Advisors member examines the growing popularity of confrontational online debate and asks what it means for meaningful public discourse. Drawing on Aristotle’s understanding of rhetoric, Smith argues that effective communication requires more than simply choosing between civility and confrontation. Instead, we must recognize when different approaches are appropriate while keeping the pursuit of truth at the center of discussion. He makes the case for a more comprehensive understanding of rhetoric—one that balances empathy, persuasion, and intellectual rigor to encourage more productive disagreement and strengthen civil society.

“Neither incivility nor a focus on compassion—instead of persuasion in general—are inherently bad things, but focusing solely on one or the other is misguided. The persuasive potential of a variety of rhetorical modes should be taught.

Read the Full Article

The Most Important Civics Lesson Schools Can Teach

FAIR Board of Advisors member explores how an increasingly pessimistic approach to education may leave students feeling disconnected from their communities and less motivated to participate in civic life. Drawing on research into primal world beliefs, he argues that the way children perceive the world shapes how they navigate their experiences and envision their futures. Rather than shielding students from hardship or injustice, schools should balance honest discussions of difficult realities with optimism, gratitude, and opportunity. Pondiscio makes the case for education that cultivates resilience, civic responsibility, and a sense of belonging, reminding us that young people are more likely to invest in a world they believe is worth contributing to.

“A school is not just where children learn civic engagement. It is where they experience the civic engagement of others. If their first encounter with a public institution is chaotic, ideological, or infused with despair, why would we expect them to trust any public institution that follows or to become active, engaged citizens? But if that first encounter is with stability, competence, gratitude, and optimism, then maybe we can form adults willing to engage, contribute, and believe their communities and country are worth their investment and effort.”

Read the Full Article

Boys are Pulling Away. Mentorship Can Bring Them Back

As more boys and young men experience loneliness, social isolation, and mental health challenges, mentorship offers a meaningful path toward rebuilding connection and belonging. Artis Stevens and Tiffany Benjamin explore how consistent relationships with caring adults can help boys develop emotional resilience, find purpose, and feel supported. They argue that addressing this growing crisis requires more than recognizing the problem; it requires adults willing to show up, listen, and provide positive examples of guidance and connection. Ultimately, mentorship benefits not only the next generation but also the communities that invest in them.

“Few interventions build belonging as reliably as mentorship. A caring adult who shows up week after week, who asks real questions and sticks around for the answers, can completely transform a young person’s trajectory. Young people who have a mentor are 54% less likely to be arrested, 41% less likely to engage in substance abuse, and 20% more likely to enroll in college.”

Read the Full Article

Join the FAIR Community

• Join us and become a member of FAIR.

• Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.

• Sign up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.

• Help fund our work

Dear FAIR community,

The midterms are behind us. The ads are off the air and the yard signs are coming down. For the first time in months, we have space to think about something other than politics, and FAIR would like to use it for a conversation that should never have been partisan: what happened to our children during the pandemic, and what we owe them now.

Next Wednesday is Veterans Day. We’ll honor the men and women who served to protect our freedoms and the civil society those freedoms make possible. That evening, FAIR in Film will screen Generation COVID, a documentary co-directed by Andrew James and Jennifer Sey. We at FAIR can’t think of a better way to honor our veterans’ service than to look honestly at how we protect the generation coming up behind us.

Some children came through the lockdowns relatively unscathed, but millions did not. Lengthy school closures and isolation left lasting damage: lost learning, stalled development, and a mental health toll we are still measuring. Generation COVID goes straight to questions at the heart of FAIR’s work: What happens when the institutions entrusted with our children’s well-being stop listening to the people they serve? And what happens to a society when questioning the “official” consensus starts to feel dangerous? After the film, I’ll sit down with Jennifer for a live conversation and Q&A, and I’d love for you to be part of it.

Here’s everything you need to reserve your seat:

Wednesday, November 11
7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT
Film (approx. 2 hours), followed by a live conversation and Q&A with Jennifer Sey
Tickets: Suggested donation of $10-25
Purchase tickets here

*This screening is virtual

Generation COVID is the second of three fall FAIR in Film screenings supporting our 2027 Artist Grant campaign. When you register, you help showcase and fund artists who are brave enough to make honest, independent work.

If you can’t join us on the 11th, mark your calendar for Eli Steele’s White Guilt on Tuesday, December 1.

The political season is behind us, but the work of repairing what our children lost is not. I hope you’ll spend Veterans Day evening with us.

One last favor: if a parent, teacher, or friend comes to mind as you read this, please forward it to them. This film is for anyone who cares about kids, and I’d be delighted to welcome them.

I hope to see you Wednesday!

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

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Donate

Help us find your chapter

FAIR in Film presents: An Exclusive Screening of Generation Covid

An entire generation of children and families were deeply harmed by the response to Covid, resulting in half of American public schools being closed for nearly two years. The fallout has been a society-destroying scandal that our elected officials are still too afraid to address. Long past the time when adults resumed normalcy, American school children were onerously restricted, locked out of school and other social and developmental activities, kept alone and isolated and forced onto screens – all in spite of clear data showing Covid posed little threat to the young and healthy.

Generation Covid is the story of a forgotten generation who endured the biggest civil rights violations in a century, the largest propaganda campaign in American history and industrial scale censorship in spite of clear, incontrovertible evidence that lockdowns, school closures, vaccine mandates and forced masking were useless and harmful. Politicians and public health officials’ worst authoritarian impulses took hold and the press failed to hold power to account, leaving children voiceless.

Despite clear and incontrovertible real-time evidence of the harms being done, especially to the poor and working class, powerful forces sought to censor, silence and vilify anyone who questioned the efficacy of these unprecedented and unscientific decisions, and our children are still paying the price.

We all are.

Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2026

Time: 7pm EST/4pm PST (until about 10:00pm EST)

Film: ~120 minute run time + 30 minute discussion

*This screening is virtual

Register Here

Introducing: Arts After Hours

FAIR in the Arts is launching Arts After Hours, a monthly Zoom gathering for FAIR artists, members, and guests to meet one another, exchange ideas, share opportunities, and strengthen the courageous creative community we are building together.

This isn’t a webinar or a formal presentation. It’s a gathering.

Come tell us what you’re working on. Bring an idea you’d like to explore, an opportunity you’d like to share, a question or project for other artists, or simply come to meet writers, actors, filmmakers, musicians, visual artists, and other creative people who believe that art flourishes through curiosity, independence, open inquiry, and the courage to create authentically.

We’ll gather thereafter on the third Wednesday of every month.

FAIR in the Arts is becoming more than a place to defend artistic freedom. We want it to be a place where artists can use that freedom to create, connect, collaborate, and help shape the culture around us. I really hope you’ll join us.

Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2026

Time: 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT.

Every month on the third Wednesday.

Register Here

Educators Alliance

FAIR is continuing the Educators Alliance for the 2026-2027 school year to equip PK–12 educators with the knowledge, strategies, and community support they need to foster schools that are more enriching and free from bias for students and educators.

We are at a turning point for education—and with the relaunch of FAIR’s Educators Alliance, we have an opportunity to step beyond polarization and create classrooms rooted in curiosity, dignity, and respect.

Each monthly gathering will open with updates and presentations from FAIR staff, fellows, Chapter Leaders, and occasional guest speakers. Together, we’ll explore strategies for supporting educators, communities, and local chapters—and for advancing positive change at the local, regional, and national levels. Following presentations, participants will have space for open forum discussions to connect, seek advice, and coordinate on pressing issues in their schools. Breakout rooms will be divided into PK-6 and 7-12 grade levels with experienced teachers facilitating those conversations.

Educators will also be invited to contribute to a new FAIR in Education newsletter, showcasing stories, strategies, and resources from across the FAIR network.

Whether you are a teacher, paraprofessional, or administrator, join us as we continue the FAIR Educators Alliance and shape the future of education together.

There are 7 meetings to sign up for down below. Scroll up and down below to see all of the sessions!

Dec 3, 2026 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Every month on the First Thu, until Apr 1, 2027, 1 hr sessions, 7 occurrences

Register Here

Note: Despite Zoom’s notice down below, FAIR maintains strict confidentiality of contact information provided.

Note to readers: We have paused the FAIR News podcast. If you prefer listening rather than reading these newsletters, an audio version is available directly on the Substack app. Thank you for tuning in!

Join the FAIR Community

• Join us, and become a member of FAIR.

• Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.

• Sign up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.
  

What happens when old guides for living lose legitimacy before new ones emerge with comparable clarity? For young men trying to understand adulthood amid conflicting demands on their attention, this question concerns the kind of person they can imagine becoming.

I do not want to idealize the past. Traditional models of family, authority, and masculinity often contained injustices that deserved to be challenged. Women’s gains in education, work, and public life expanded human freedom. Older ideals built on domination, emotional silence, or automatic male authority should not be recovered. But dismantling a model and replacing it are different tasks.

When inherited frameworks weaken, the needs they manage remain: purpose, responsibility, belonging, and direction. A person can have more choices than their grandparents, but less clarity about them. One can encounter abundant information without knowing how best to judge it, or stay connected all day without a credible example of responsible adulthood.

My argument is that part of the crisis of masculinity—the difficulty some young men face in finding direction, belonging, and a positive model of adulthood—can be understood as a crisis of intergenerational transmission. By transmission, I mean how adults pass on practical skills, ethical standards, and responsibility through shared work and sustained guidance. The crisis, in this framework, is a weakening of the relationships that carry those lessons. This does not explain every difficulty facing men. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, men earned 41% of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the United States in 2021–22. A 2025 Pew Research Center survey found that 38% of men, compared with 54% of women, would be extremely or very likely to turn to a friend for emotional support. These findings provide context; they do not establish a common cause. My question is whether adults and institutions help young people turn freedom into responsibility—and model that responsibility themselves.

Criticism alone cannot accomplish that task. A culture may describe harmful behavior precisely while struggling to describe admirable leadership in positive terms. Warnings against cruelty, entitlement, and control establish necessary boundaries. They leave another question unanswered: what is worth becoming? Someone told only what to avoid still needs a destination, mentorship, and opportunities to practice the virtues being recommended.

Richard V. Reeves’s Of Boys and Men examines structural difficulties in education, work, and family. Christine Emba’s reporting explores the search for a positive masculine identity. Together, they help frame a question: how can institutions address obstacles while adults offer examples of responsible agency?

The film Fight Club offers a vivid illustration, though fiction cannot establish a sociological claim. Its narrator has employment, possessions, and consumer choices. What he lacks is a convincing answer to the question of what his life is for – an introspective question that transcends gender. Before the violence, he seeks relief in support groups, where listening and recognition briefly provide connection.

The film’s character, Tyler Durden supplies rules, ordeal, brotherhood, certainty, and a shared mission. The danger lies in how legitimate needs are redirected: men seeking identity become interchangeable followers; men seeking purpose serve someone else’s project. I read the film as a warning about destructive guidance becoming attractive when constructive guidance is missing. A dangerous map can feel preferable to no map at all.

Some online communities aimed at men offer a version of that promise. Their first message may be practical: train, work, develop competence, manage money, accept responsibility. Some of that advice is useful. The trouble begins when improvement is bundled with contempt, superiority, or hostility toward women. Mocking the audience misses what made the initial message persuasive: a promise of direction and belonging. A constructive response must offer credible guidance and opportunities to contribute, alongside criticism of harmful ideas.

The internet can introduce people to credible teachers and communities unavailable locally. But reach and accountability differ. A mentor can observe how advice works and revise it; a platform may reward whatever sustains attention. Confidence on screen offers little assurance of judgment.

The distinction becomes clearer when considering what a mentoring adult provides. A father, mother, teacher, coach, relative, or experienced colleague can make values visible over time. A young person watches how someone handles frustration, keeps promises, manages money, admits mistakes, and treats people who offer no advantage. These ordinary encounters reveal whether responsibility survives inconvenience and whether authority can coexist with humility.

Proximity lets a learner test advice against conduct. An adult who preaches discipline while evading commitments teaches more than they intend. So does someone who apologizes without excuses or keeps working when enthusiasm fades. The point is not perfection: watching a person acknowledge failure and repair its consequences teaches maturity. Young people need visible examples of these habits.

Good mentorship should ultimately make the mentor less necessary. Its purpose is to cultivate independent judgment. A young person needs room to question inherited values, adapt them to different circumstances, and reject what is unjust. Constructive transmission equips the next generation to improve what it receives. Otherwise, guidance can become another route to dependency.

Constructive guidance should also prepare young people to live among people who disagree with them. A mentor can show how to listen carefully, represent another person’s argument fairly, and challenge an idea without humiliating its speaker. A young person can practice these habits by welcoming a newcomer, helping neighbors solve a shared problem, or keeping a difficult conversation open. Community leadership begins with ordinary acts: earning trust, making room for others, and accepting responsibility for how we treat one another when agreement is out of reach.

I find three ideas useful for describing that constructive alternative: capability, character, and purpose. Capability concerns what a person can do. Character concerns how he uses that ability, especially under pressure or without an audience. Purpose concerns what his efforts serve. Capability without character can become destructive; character without capability may struggle to act; both without purpose can remain absorbed in personal status.

This framework allows strength to mean usefulness, leadership to include accountability, and ambition to coexist with ethical restraint. Emotional maturity includes expressing vulnerability and managing impulses. Independence can coexist with connection. These virtues are available to everyone. Giving young men a positive account of them does not require claiming they belong exclusively to men, or measuring male success against women’s losses.

Older rites of passage often marked this transition through work, service, ceremony, or family expectations. Some were coercive or exclusionary and deserve no revival. Their underlying function still raises a useful question: how do we help young people develop the judgment and habits needed to meet adult responsibilities? The need to earn a living, pay bills, and care for others can make those obligations apparent quickly. Learning to meet them with competence, self-command, and care is a longer process, often extending well into adulthood. Legal age marks a threshold; relationships, guidance, and practice help people grow into the responsibilities beyond it.

Contemporary alternatives include apprenticeships, responsibility within a team, caring for a relative, or completing a demanding project that benefits others. None guarantees maturity, but each can connect effort to consequences and contribution to recognition, offering meaningful responsibility with support rather than demanding adult outcomes.

Schools, workplaces, families, and communities can offer these opportunities without prescribing a single acceptable life. Experienced workers can teach skills alongside ethical standards; parents can invite responsibility while providing guidance. Online guidance should likewise strengthen independent thought, allow questions, and encourage engagement beyond the community. This connects with FAIR’s pro-human emphasis on individual dignity and shared humanity. Communities should make room for disagreement while encouraging respect for women and for people whose experiences differ from one’s own. Young people can learn to defend their convictions while recognizing the dignity of those who challenge them.

That returns the question to my own generation. Before asking why today’s youth lack direction, I should ask what adults are making available to them. Are promises kept? Is authority accountable? Can young people observe strength joined to compassion, work joined to contribution, and independence joined to care? A credible answer requires lives worth observing, not merely persuasive messages.

Intergenerational transmission has always carried errors alongside wisdom. Its renewal therefore requires discernment, not nostalgia. When constructive channels weaken, the search for guidance continues elsewhere. The task is to offer relationships that transmit competence and values while preserving autonomy. Old maps need not be obeyed forever. A better inheritance teaches young people to read the terrain, choose responsibly, and eventually draw better routes for those who follow.

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How “Virtuous Nonsense” Broke the University

In this essay, examines two new books exploring how ideological conformity and the suppression of dissent have undermined academic inquiry. Drawing on Cynthia Burack’s How Gender Studies Broke the University and the anthology Virtuous Nonsense: Progressive America’s Epistemic Crisis, Dudley explores how universities have moved away from evidence-based scholarship and open debate toward moral policing, political dogmatism, and enforced consensus.

“These books offer a compelling window into the ways in which so many Americans are trapped in their own epistemic bubbles, which are often amplified by their preferred media. What is of concern here is that these epistemic political bubbles are occurring inside what should be neutral institutions. Both How Gender Studies Broke the University and Virtuous Nonsense are essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of the academy and—more troublingly—that of the world it has helped to shape in its image.”

Read the Full Article

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure

FAIR Board of Advisors member and Greg co-author Lukianoff examine how a culture of safetyism and fear of discomfort can undermine critical thinking and open debate on college campuses. They argue that shielding students from challenging ideas can leave them less prepared to navigate disagreement and complexity. Their work explores how universities can better foster intellectual humility, constructive disagreement, and the freedom to question prevailing ideas.

“Lukianoff’s biggest concern was that the rationale for justifying increased campus censorship was becoming medicalized, with students claiming that encountering certain kinds of content impaired their ability to function. Stated simply, Lukianoff’s hypothesis was: “Many university students are learning to think in distorted ways, and this increases their likelihood of becoming fragile, anxious, and easily hurt.”’

Read the Full Article

In Defense of Free Speech and the Mission of the University

FAIR Board of Advisors member and co-author John Villasenor argue that treating widely held beliefs as unquestionable truths undermines the university’s mission of open inquiry. They examine how assumptions about discrimination, social change, and identity can limit the questions scholars ask and the perspectives considered in academic discussions. The authors call for greater recognition of differing viewpoints and a willingness to question the beliefs that shape teaching, research, and campus policy.

“Open inquiry is supposed to be the foundation of the academic endeavor. And yet today, that endeavor is constrained by a set of unacknowledged beliefs that administrators, faculty and students at colleges and universities increasingly treat as unassailable truths.”

Read the Full Article

What Does Intellectual Humility Look Like?

In this article, psychologist Mark Leary examines how recognizing the limits of our own knowledge can improve decision-making, relationships, and open discussion. Drawing on psychological research, he explains how intellectual humility encourages people to evaluate evidence, consider opposing viewpoints, and reconsider their beliefs when presented with new information. Leary argues that acknowledging the possibility of being wrong can lead to better outcomes in both academic and everyday life.

“None of us thinks that our beliefs and attitudes are incorrect; if we did, we obviously wouldn’t hold those beliefs and attitudes. Yet, despite our sense that we are usually correct, we must accept that our views may sometimes turn out to be wrong. This kind of humility isn’t simply virtuous—the research suggests that it results in better decisions, relationships, and outcomes. So, the next time you feel certain about something, you might stop and ask yourself: Could I be wrong?”

Read the Full Article

My fight to save the novel from ‘progressive’ publishers

In this article, novelist argues that ideological expectations and social media algorithms are narrowing the scope of contemporary fiction. Drawing on her own experiences in publishing, she describes how pressure to conform to prevailing social and political themes can limit writers’ creative freedom and discourage complex, unconventional characters. Tait calls for a renewed commitment to artistic independence, originality, and the freedom to tell stories that challenge expectations.

“At the hands of ideology and technology, the purpose of the modern novel is no longer to provide originality and illumination – the ‘axe for the frozen sea within us’, as Kafka described it. Novels have become a means to an end, serving a collective instead of the individual. Oscar Wilde is no doubt turning in his grave.”

Read the Full Article

School Libraries in Crisis: Rebuilding Book culture for Canadian children

In this study, Paul W. Bennett examines the decline of school libraries and the growing displacement of books by digital resources and multipurpose learning spaces. He argues that shrinking collections, the removal of classic literature through equity-based screening policies, and declining emphasis on sustained reading threaten students’ cultural literacy and critical thinking. Bennett proposes restoring libraries as spaces for reading and reflection, strengthening knowledge-rich curricula, and combining literary classics with significant Canadian works to rebuild a shared foundation of knowledge and support informed citizenship.

“Recent controversies over school libraries demonstrate that both sides in the “culture war” pursue “book bans” to cleanse collections. Activist parents, professional library associations, and pressure groups on the left and the right demand that school libraries shield children from words and ideas that contain what they deem to be the “wrong” models for living.² Both assume that by limiting what students read, they can change society to reflect their worldview… The deeper and more hidden crisis is the one posing an existential threat to book culture itself and affecting an entire generation of children.”

Read the Full Study

Join the FAIR Community

• Join us and become a member of FAIR.

• Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.

• Sign up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.

• Help fund our work

Dear Friends of FAIR,

On Tuesday, Americans head to the polls for the midterm elections. For many of us, the weeks before Election Day bring a sense of exhaustion and a familiar strain. Yard signs go up, group chats get tense, and a family dinner can start to feel like a debate stage. Under that pressure, even thoughtful people can forget that the neighbor with the opposing sign is still a neighbor.

At FAIR, we believe the health of our democracy depends less on the outcome of any single election than on how citizens treat one another before, during, and after the votes are counted. Elections can and should demonstrate how a free people settle disagreements peacefully. They work only when we grant our fellow citizens the same right to their convictions that we claim for ourselves. FAIR does not endorse candidates or parties, but we do take a side on one principle: the way we disagree matters.

As Election Day approaches, we invite every member of the FAIR community to rise above the temperature of the moment. A few commitments can go a long way:

• Assume good faith. Most people who vote differently from you want many of the same things: safe schools and communities, equal rights and treatment, and opportunity for their children. They simply weigh those goods differently.

• Listen to understand. Ask a question before making a point. “What matters most to you about this issue?” opens more doors than “How could you possibly believe that?”

• Argue with ideas, not identities. Challenge a policy on its merits, and leave a person’s race, religion, or background out of it.

• Lower the volume online. Before you post or share, ask whether it informs or only inflames.

• Remember November 4. Whatever the results, we all wake up the next morning sharing the same towns, workplaces, and families.

None of these habits comes naturally. Respectful disagreement must be learned and practiced, which is why civil discourse sits at the heart of Many Stories, One Nation, FAIR’s high school ethnic studies curriculum. Every unit includes lessons where students apply the skills they’ve learned to questions on which thoughtful people genuinely disagree.

Along the way, students build a practical toolkit. They learn to steel-man, stating the strongest version of a view they don’t hold rather than knocking down a caricature, and to star-man, looking for the best intentions behind someone else’s position. Through lessons like the historical Periwig Controversy, they also discover that most public disputes are not right versus wrong but legitimate values in tension: liberty and security, tradition and change.

Ultimately, young people learn how to disagree with one another by watching the adults around them. Right now, they are watching viral takedowns and comment sections where contempt passes for argument. A diverse democracy cannot function if citizens see opponents as enemies. Equipping students to listen carefully, reason honestly, and disagree with dignity is civic preparation as essential as learning how a bill becomes law.

Many of today’s high school students will cast their first ballots in 2028. The question is whether they arrive at the polls having seen only the worst of public life, or whether someone has shown them a better way.

In the days ahead, model the conversation you hope to see. Vote, encourage others to vote, and then extend grace to those who vote differently. If you know a teacher, administrator, school board member, or homeschooling family who cares about these skills, please introduce them to Many Stories, One Nation or reach out to our curriculum team for more information.

Whatever happens on November 3, the work of building a nation where every person is treated fairly continues on November 4. We are grateful to walk that road with you.

With appreciation,

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

Subscribe now to receive FAIR News weekly in your inbox.

Donate

Help us find your chapter

Educators Alliance

FAIR is continuing the Educators Alliance for the 2026-2027 school year to equip PK–12 educators with the knowledge, strategies, and community support they need to foster schools that are more enriching and free from bias for students and educators.

We are at a turning point for education—and with the relaunch of FAIR’s Educators Alliance, we have an opportunity to step beyond polarization and create classrooms rooted in curiosity, dignity, and respect.

Each monthly gathering will open with updates and presentations from FAIR staff, fellows, Chapter Leaders, and occasional guest speakers. Together, we’ll explore strategies for supporting educators, communities, and local chapters—and for advancing positive change at the local, regional, and national levels. Following presentations, participants will have space for open forum discussions to connect, seek advice, and coordinate on pressing issues in their schools. Breakout rooms will be divided into PK-6 and 7-12 grade levels with experienced teachers facilitating those conversations.

Educators will also be invited to contribute to a new FAIR in Education newsletter, showcasing stories, strategies, and resources from across the FAIR network.

Whether you are a teacher, paraprofessional, or administrator, join us as we continue the FAIR Educators Alliance and shape the future of education together.

There are 7 meetings to sign up for down below. Scroll up and down below to see all of the sessions!

Nov 5, 2026 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Every month on the First Thu, until Apr 1, 2027, 1 hr sessions, 7 occurrences

Register Here

FAIR in Film presents: An Exclusive Screening of Generation Covid

An entire generation of children and families were deeply harmed by the response to Covid, resulting in half of American public schools being closed for nearly two years. The fallout has been a society-destroying scandal that our elected officials are still too afraid to address. Long past the time when adults resumed normalcy, American school children were onerously restricted, locked out of school and other social and developmental activities, kept alone and isolated and forced onto screens – all in spite of clear data showing Covid posed little threat to the young and healthy.

Generation Covid is the story of a forgotten generation who endured the biggest civil rights violations in a century, the largest propaganda campaign in American history and industrial scale censorship in spite of clear, incontrovertible evidence that lockdowns, school closures, vaccine mandates and forced masking were useless and harmful. Politicians and public health officials’ worst authoritarian impulses took hold and the press failed to hold power to account, leaving children voiceless.

Despite clear and incontrovertible real-time evidence of the harms being done, especially to the poor and working class, powerful forces sought to censor, silence and vilify anyone who questioned the efficacy of these unprecedented and unscientific decisions, and our children are still paying the price.

We all are.

Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2026

Time: 7pm EST/4pm PST (until about 10:00pm EST)

Film: ~120 minute run time + 30 minute discussion

Register Here

Introducing: Arts After Hours

FAIR in the Arts is launching Arts After Hours, a monthly Zoom gathering for FAIR artists, members, and guests to meet one another, exchange ideas, share opportunities, and strengthen the courageous creative community we are building together.

This isn’t a webinar or a formal presentation. It’s a gathering.

Come tell us what you’re working on. Bring an idea you’d like to explore, an opportunity you’d like to share, a question or project for other artists, or simply come to meet writers, actors, filmmakers, musicians, visual artists, and other creative people who believe that art flourishes through curiosity, independence, open inquiry, and the courage to create authentically.

We’ll gather thereafter on the third Wednesday of every month.

FAIR in the Arts is becoming more than a place to defend artistic freedom. We want it to be a place where artists can use that freedom to create, connect, collaborate, and help shape the culture around us. I really hope you’ll join us.

Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2026

Time: 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT.

Every month on the third Wednesday.

Register Here

Note: Despite Zoom’s notice down below, FAIR maintains strict confidentiality of contact information provided.

Note to readers: We have paused the FAIR News podcast. If you prefer listening rather than reading these newsletters, an audio version is available directly on the Substack app. Thank you for tuning in!

Join the FAIR Community

• Join us, and become a member of FAIR.

• Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.

• Sign up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.
  

In a famous 2018 essay, Andrew Sullivan observed that “we all live on campus now,” arguing that rampant identitarianism and the culture of mobbing and cancellation then being seen in higher education would inevitably affect society. These tendencies in higher education have been instrumental in stoking public expressions of moral outrage and exacerbating political polarization.

The impacts of an increasingly illiberal academia are articulated with particular brilliance in two important new books, both from Virginia-based publisher Pitchstone: Cynthia Burack’s How Gender Studies Broke the University, and the anthology Virtuous Nonsense: Progressive America’s Epistemic Crisis, edited by Lawrence Eppard, Jacob Mackey, and Lee Jussim. While Burack’s book is a frankly personal yet biting indictment of the illiberal state of the academy, Virtuous Nonsense gathers together diverse perspectives on institutional progressivism drawn from previously published articles.

That both were released by Pitchstone reflects the publisher’s belief that “the best way to arrive at reality-based conclusions…is through the application of evidence-based reason and the pursuit of good-faith debate.”

The recognition of this drift away from “reality-based” scholarship and debate drives the narrative of Burack’s book, as the author recounts how she went from a full participant in gender studies to questioning it—at some personal and professional cost. Burack retired from Ohio State University in 2025, having taught in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies for 26 years. The author of five books and numerous scholarly articles, she has made a particular study of the impact of Christian fundamentalism on LGBTQ rights, most recently in 2022’s How Trump and the Christian Right Saved LGBTI Human Rights: A Religious Freedom Mystery.

While the title of her latest book isn’t quite literal–she does address the ideological capture of other fields as well–Burack stresses that “gender studies had a key role in creating an alarmingly effective habitat for anti-intellectualism, political dogmatism, and…authoritarianism” (Burack 14). Her focus is what she refers to as “academic progressive illiberalism,” noting ironically that “the very scholars who have labored most to condemn totalizing theories and binary accounts of every issue are some of the most binary, totalizing and moralizing thinkers I’ve ever encountered” (46).

The book’s first chapter is entitled “Mea Culpa,” and relates not only her own journey through academia but the trajectory of women’s studies itself, which went from an interdisciplinary perspective in the 1970s to its growing institutional isolation and illiberalism in the 1990s and beyond. Because gender studies would come to frame disagreement as “betrayal,” what had started as an admirable and necessary corrective that excavated the many formerly hidden accomplishments of women throughout history became instead a project championing and valorizing “sacralized victim groups” (69).

Because the conclusions of gender studies scholars are “not up for debate” (82), the findings in the field are also frequently presented as unprecedented—not because scholars didn’t conduct a proper database search but because they deliberately cull any published scholarship that doesn’t “share their values and commitments.” This includes any “scholarship that can be dismissed as patriarchal, cisheteronormative, or insufficiently antiracist” (Burack 83). In ignoring or rejecting findings for non-epistemic reasons, this tendency not only undermines the scholarly enterprise, but serves to enforce ideological conformity.

Burack explains that faculty are expected to account for the hierarchy of various identity groups through what is known as “progressive stacking”: giving speaking priority in the classroom to representatives of the most “oppressed” groups first (134-5). Burack would run afoul of this rule, resulting in complaints from students as part of a nearly two-year investigation into her “nefarious pedagogical activities” (11) which included engaging her students in a “non-consensual thought experiment” (173) (a complaint which, if broadly applied, would certainly eliminate virtually all pedagogy in philosophy!).

While the policing of language and institutionalization of “bias reporting systems” comprise an infrastructure that has enabled the academy (faculty and administrators both) to function as if they’re “primarily in the business of enforcing morality” (Burack 202), it is the silencing of opposing viewpoints that Burack finds to be immoral. Her own painful experience enduring an investigation into her teaching underscores much of the book, in particular Chapter 4, “Enemies of the People,” in which she details how universities punish dissent and create the “illusion of consensus” by creating a culture of conformity borne of fear of official punishment and ostracism by colleagues. “Something,” she concludes, “has gone terribly wrong” (Burack 263).

The contributors and editors of Virtuous Nonsense would wholeheartedly agree with Burack’s assessment, but see the problem as a broader “epistemic crisis” that is not confined to universities, but has infected almost all of America’s institutions.

The editors of Virtuous Nonsense are well-recognized: Lawrence Eppard is Director of the Connors Institute for Nonpartisan Research and Civic Engagement at Shippensburg University, and a regular contributor to the work of the Heterodox Academy; while Jacob Mackey is an Associate Professor of Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture at Occidental College in Los Angeles and co-founder of Free Black Thought; and Lee Jussim is a distinguished professor of social psychology at Rutgers University who has written and spoken extensively on DEI, anti-racism trainings and stereotyping. Most recently, Jussim co-authored a Health and Human Services paper linking support for gender identity ideology to support for authoritarianism and political violence. All three editors previously collaborated on co-editing the book The Poisoning of the American Mind, which addresses how Americans across the political spectrum “are retreating into their own information bubbles, seceding from a common reality.”

Part one focuses exclusively on the epistemic crisis in the academy, starting with Jonathan Haidt’s now-famous 2016 HxA essay, “The University Must Choose One Telos” in which Haidt argues that academics can either use their research to pursue social justice or the truth—but not both. Musa Al-Gharbi (author of 2024’s We Have Never Been Woke) follows with a plea for ideological diversity in the academy, pointing out that the dramatic underrepresentation of conservative academics tends to narrow the range of questions asked in the social sciences and humanities, but leaves out the perspectives of rural and working-class individuals: “Conservative” he reminds readers “is not a synonym for “[w]hite” (Eppard et al 82).

Part two delves into the seemingly contradictory debates over the role of gender identity ideology—which denies the existence and salience of biological sex—and those over gender equity between men and women, for which sex is central. Like Cynthia Burack, biologists Jerry Coyne and Luana Maroja argue that their field has been disastrously malformed by gender ideology, which has resulted in the needless cordoning off of entire avenues of inquiry. Similarly, Kay Hymowitz argues that “gender identity, with its vision of autonomous children in touch with their innermost authentic desires, negates all we know about adolescence [from child psychology], just as it does early childhood” (Eppard et al 208). Meanwhile, to help explain the appearance of a gender pay gap, Eppard and Katie Bonomo urge social scientists not to dismiss the possibility that “occupational segregation may stem from differences in the characteristics of men and women themselves” and the types of work they tend (on average) to choose (176).

On matters of race, contributors question the conventional research on “microaggressions” (Jussim) and “implicit bias” studies (Carol Tavris), while Michael Huemer and Robert VerBruggen give closer scrutiny to both the eyewitness accounts and data on police shootings of black suspects, with the latter arguing that, based on data alone, “bias [on the part of police] is extremely difficult to detect and prove. It appears and disappears as researchers consult different data and use different methods” (Eppard et al 255). This is not to argue that racial bias on the part of some police does not exist, but rather that it resists straightforward empirical metrics.

In the concluding essays Mackey cites his 2023 coining of the term “virtuous lie” as “misleading information that carries a positive moral valence” in service of what the speaker believes is a good cause (Eppard et al 397). This type of assertion, says Mackey, is “a catastrophizing misrepresentation of the oppression to which some ‘marginalized’ group is subjected by ‘oppressor’ groups” (399). Finally, Michael Huemer warns that these “virtuous lies” lead to misguided public policy interventions that will inevitably fail, thereby harming the very constituencies they were intended to help. Ultimately, Huemer argues, the critical social justice imperatives bound up in race, sex, and gender identity—and the repetition of calumnies against one’s nation or demographic—can only serve to fuel conflict and reduce social trust.

While very different in purpose and tone, these two books draw the same conclusion: That the academy has been transformed from an institution of knowledge, discovery, and transmission into an enforcer of a new moral order, with real-world consequences.

Burack’s anger is, accordingly, palpable as she writes in her book that,

[w]e should be outraged that academics and universities came to treat so many of their colleagues as enemies, forcing them into silence, conformity, apologies, preemptive obedience, and sometimes punishment…It’s hard to imagine a greater violation of the ethics of scholarly institutions than to insist that all ideas outside the ambit of progressivism cause harm and, therefore, must be silenced (Burack 202-203).

These books offer a compelling window into the ways in which so many Americans are trapped in their own epistemic bubbles, which are often amplified by their preferred media. What is of concern here is that these epistemic political bubbles are occurring inside what should be neutral institutions. Both How Gender Studies Broke the University and Virtuous Nonsense are essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of the academy and—more troublingly—that of the world it has helped to shape in its image.

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We welcome you to share your thoughts on this piece in the comments below. Click here to view our comment section moderation policy.

The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Fair For All or its employees.

In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diverse range of voices and to encouraging compassionate, good-faith discourse.

We are actively seeking perspectives on this topic and others. If you’d like to join the conversation, please send completed drafts to submissions@fairforall.org.

Speechless: An Exclusive Look at Democracy Today

In his essay, reflects on his experiences at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State, tracing the shift from spirited campus debate to self-censorship and fear of offending. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Ric Esther Bienstock’s documentary Speechless explores this transformation through controversies at Evergreen State, York College, and Stanford Law, as well as political battles over DEI in Florida. Examining intolerance across the political spectrum, the film and essay asks what happens to democracy when free expression gives way to silencing dissent. Join FAIR for an exclusive screening on October 28 at 7 p.m. ET, ahead of the film’s U.S. release.

“37% of students say they have self-censored on campus at least once or twice a month. 72% of students say shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus is acceptable, at least in rare cases. 34% of students say using violence to stop someone from speaking on campus is acceptable, at least in rare cases.”

Read the Full Article

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Resisting Cancel Culture:…Free Speech in the College Classroom

FAIR Board of Advisors member examines how campus culture has increasingly discouraged open discussion and encouraged self-censorship. Drawing on survey data and her experience as a law professor and former ACLU president, Strossen explores how social pressure and fear of reprisal can silence students and faculty, undermining the university’s mission of intellectual inquiry. She argues that resisting cancel culture requires more than defending the right to speak: educators must actively foster debate, encourage students to engage with opposing viewpoints, and create classrooms where controversial ideas can be examined rather than dismissed.

“Overall, a full 62% of respondents concurred that “the political climate these days prevents me from saying things I believe because others might find them offensive.” Moreover, almost onethird of respondents—32%—say they worry they could miss out on job opportunities or get fired if their political views became known.”

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In Defense of Free Speech and the Mission of the University

FAIR Board of Advisors member makes the case that universities must protect the freedom to explore and debate even deeply controversial ideas. Responding to calls for campus censorship amid rising antisemitism, George argues that restricting speech based on viewpoint threatens the university’s core mission of truth-seeking and risks empowering administrators to silence dissent. He contends that genuine intellectual inquiry requires humility, a willingness to question our deepest convictions, and the courage to engage arguments we find offensive or wrong.

“When university administrators, professors, or students forbid the expression of certain points of view precisely because they consider them false, wrongheaded, or even spectacularly offensive, they are undermining the epistemological norms that must be heeded in order for the truth to be pursued authentically and well. Pursuing truth is often a difficult and uncomfortable process. It can even be terrifying—since it could be the case that certain things we desperately want to be true are in fact false, and things that we desperately want to be false are in fact true. And, of course, our wanting things to be true (or false) doesn’t make them so.”

Read the Full Article

In this episode, Jon Kay speaks with filmmaker Ric Esther Bienstock about her decade-long project Speechless, a sweeping documentary examining the rise of cancel culture, campus activism, and the social consequences of dissent.

From the Evergreen State College protests to the cultural aftershocks of The Coddling of the American Mind, the film traces how debates over language, identity, and power have reshaped public discourse.

Bienstock embeds herself inside some of the most controversial flashpoints of the past decade—featuring figures like Bret Weinstein, Kathleen Stock, Carol Hooven, and Christopher Rufo—while attempting something rare: to document, rather than judge.

“…whatever the reasons are to kind of uh give a little lift to people who might need that lift. I am 110% for that. I just don’t like that it hardened into an ideology where you force professors to make a a DEI pledge when they’re teaching physics.” (30:27)

Register Here

This Song Of Love

In “This Song of Love,” explores how music connects us across generations, from America’s folk traditions to today’s country charts, and how technological and cultural shifts are reshaping the music industry. Through the lens of astrology and music history, she examines how new platforms and corporate influence are changing who controls creative expression, arguing that music’s enduring power to bring people together across differences makes it all the more important to preserve creativity, independent expression, and human connection in times of division.

Read the Full Article

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• Join us and become a member of FAIR.

• Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.

• Sign up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.

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Dear Friends of FAIR,

This week, FAIR launched an Open Letter calling for approval of a federal advisory committee’s recommendation to suspend, for one year, the federal recognition of the American Psychological Association’s Commission on Accreditation (APA-CoA). By signing the letter, professionals and the public can make their views known before the final decision is made.

The letter makes one request: that the U.S. Department of Education accept the recommendation of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) in full, without softening it.

On September 24, NACIQI voted 7–4 to recommend the suspension after finding that the Commission “failed to address the pervasive culture of antisemitism within the programs that it accredits.” APA-CoA oversees more than 1,300 doctoral, internship, and postdoctoral programs in health-service psychology, the programs that train the nation’s future clinicians.

FAIR makes three arguments.

First, oversight cannot be outsourced. The Commission renewed accreditation for George Washington University’s clinical psychology program in 2025, months after the university entered a resolution agreement with the Department’s Office for Civil Rights over complaints that included allegations from Jewish and Israeli students in that program. The Commission later said it had never been informed of the complaints. An accreditor that learns about civil rights problems in its own programs only after federal investigators have done the work is not providing credible, independent oversight.

Second, a little-used complaint channel is a warning sign, not a defense. The Commission has noted it received only two antisemitism complaints in its accredited programs. Students took their concerns to universities, federal investigators, and Congress — but not to the body responsible for their programs. This shows the Commission’s system is not reaching the people it exists to protect.

Third, the remedy is proportionate. A suspension would not close any program, revoke any degree, or touch any psychologist’s license. As a programmatic accreditor, APA-CoA is not a gatekeeper for federal student aid, and the Commission would remain recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. The suspension would hold the field’s accreditor, for one year, to the standard it applies to everyone else, and leave a clear path to restored recognition.

The letter builds on FAIR’s broader work on accreditation reform. In September, FAIR filed a formal comment supporting the Department’s proposed rules requiring accreditors to act neutrally with respect to viewpoint and to consider whether the schools they accredit protect academic freedom. At the NACIQI hearing, Douglas Novotny, Ph.D., Director of FAIR in Medicine testified on APA-CoA’s renewal.

NACIQI listened. The committee reached an independent judgment after hearing from the public and departed from the recommendation of the Department of Education’s own staff, who had advised continued recognition. Now the people who care about fair treatment in professional training have a chance to make sure that recommendation stands.

No deadline has been announced for the Under Secretary’s decision, which makes early support especially valuable. Signatures gathered now will be delivered to the Department of Education. Add your name today to the Open Letter to the Department of Education, and share it with colleagues who believe every student and trainee deserves equal treatment.

In just a few weeks, FAIR has filed a formal comment on federal accreditation rules, testified before NACIQI, and launched this Open Letter. Accreditation decisions shape what future clinicians, lawyers, and educators are taught, and FAIR is making sure the public’s voice is part of that process.

Donate today to help FAIR expand this work across the professions, from psychology and medicine to law and education. Every contribution, no matter the size, keeps FAIR in the rooms where these decisions are made.

Thank you for standing with FAIR.

With gratitude,

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

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FAIR in Film presents: An Exclusive Screening of “Speechless”

Private first time screening to a US audience.

Join FAIR for an exclusive screening of Speechless, a provocative documentary exploring the battle over free speech on college campuses and what it means for the future of higher education and democracy.

The film—which is now available to a U.S. audience for the first time—is a gripping investigation into the breakdown of open inquiry in the very institutions meant to protect it, and what happens to a democracy when it loses faith in free speech, honest disagreement, and the hard work of conversation.

The post-film discussion will include several renowned panelists, offering a range of perspectives on the issues explored in the film.

Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2026

Time: 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT.

Film: ~120 minute run time + 45 minute discussion

Register Here

Introducing: Arts After Hours

FAIR in the Arts is launching Arts After Hours, a monthly Zoom gathering for FAIR artists, members, and guests to meet one another, exchange ideas, share opportunities, and strengthen the courageous creative community we are building together.

This isn’t a webinar or a formal presentation. It’s a gathering.

Come tell us what you’re working on. Bring an idea you’d like to explore, an opportunity you’d like to share, a question or project for other artists, or simply come to meet writers, actors, filmmakers, musicians, visual artists, and other creative people who believe that art flourishes through curiosity, independence, open inquiry, and the courage to create authentically.

Our first After Hours gathering will be held Wednesday, October 21 at 7:00 PM ET, and we’ll gather thereafter on the third Wednesday of every month.

FAIR in the Arts is becoming more than a place to defend artistic freedom. We want it to be a place where artists can use that freedom to create, connect, collaborate, and help shape the culture around us. I really hope you’ll join us.

Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2026

Time: 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT.

Every month on the third Wednesday.

Register Here

Educators Alliance

FAIR is continuing the Educators Alliance for the 2026-2027 school year to equip PK–12 educators with the knowledge, strategies, and community support they need to foster schools that are more enriching and free from bias for students and educators.

We are at a turning point for education—and with the relaunch of FAIR’s Educators Alliance, we have an opportunity to step beyond polarization and create classrooms rooted in curiosity, dignity, and respect.

Each monthly gathering will open with updates and presentations from FAIR staff, fellows, Chapter Leaders, and occasional guest speakers. Together, we’ll explore strategies for supporting educators, communities, and local chapters—and for advancing positive change at the local, regional, and national levels. Following presentations, participants will have space for open forum discussions to connect, seek advice, and coordinate on pressing issues in their schools. Breakout rooms will be divided into PK-6 and 7-12 grade levels with experienced teachers facilitating those conversations.

Educators will also be invited to contribute to a new FAIR in Education newsletter, showcasing stories, strategies, and resources from across the FAIR network.

Whether you are a teacher, paraprofessional, or administrator, join us as we continue the FAIR Educators Alliance and shape the future of education together.

There are 7 meetings to sign up for down below. Scroll up and down below to see all of the sessions!

Nov 5, 2026 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Every month on the First Thu, until Apr 1, 2027, 1 hr sessions, 7 occurrences

Register Here

FAIR in Film presents: An Exclusive Screening of Generation Covid

An entire generation of children and families were deeply harmed by the response to Covid, resulting in half of American public schools being closed for nearly two years. The fallout has been a society-destroying scandal that our elected officials are still too afraid to address. Long past the time when adults resumed normalcy, American school children were onerously restricted, locked out of school and other social and developmental activities, kept alone and isolated and forced onto screens – all in spite of clear data showing Covid posed little threat to the young and healthy.

Generation Covid is the story of a forgotten generation who endured the biggest civil rights violations in a century, the largest propaganda campaign in American history and industrial scale censorship in spite of clear, incontrovertible evidence that lockdowns, school closures, vaccine mandates and forced masking were useless and harmful. Politicians and public health officials’ worst authoritarian impulses took hold and the press failed to hold power to account, leaving children voiceless.

Despite clear and incontrovertible real-time evidence of the harms being done, especially to the poor and working class, powerful forces sought to censor, silence and vilify anyone who questioned the efficacy of these unprecedented and unscientific decisions, and our children are still paying the price.

We all are.

Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2026

Time: 7pm EST/4pm PST (until about 10:00pm EST)

Film: ~120 minute run time + 30 minute discussion

Register Here

Note: Despite Zoom’s notice down below, FAIR maintains strict confidentiality of contact information provided.

Note to readers: We have paused the FAIR News podcast. If you prefer listening rather than reading these newsletters, an audio version is available directly on the Substack app. Thank you for tuning in!

Join the FAIR Community

• Join us, and become a member of FAIR.

• Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.

• Sign up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.
  

Among my peers, I have a unique vantage point regarding cancel culture. I graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1982, when memories of the Free Speech Movement were still fresh. After retiring, I went back to school and earned an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State in 2019. During this time, I witnessed how free speech, a concept that had been revered in my undergraduate days, was actively being suppressed. One could never be certain what might raise the ire of fellow students. I had many awkward moments when the culture of political correctness won out over the right of free speech and self-expression: one time I was chastised for including a few words of Spanish in a play because it was not my native language.

In contrast to my undergraduate experience, it now felt as though speech had become weaponized, vocabulary circumscribed, and the promotion of free expression minimized. Students were censoring themselves, afraid to use language or take positions that might offend. I began to act the same way. Even at my advanced age, retired after a successful career, I wanted to get along and make friends with other students. Who wants to be a pariah? It’s not surprising to me that the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (F.I.R.E.), an organization that surveys students regarding freedom of expression, states that across universities in California today:

• 37% of students say they have self-censored on campus at least once or twice a month.

• 72% of students say shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus is acceptable, at least in rare cases.

• 34% of students say using violence to stop someone from speaking on campus is acceptable, at least in rare cases.

For anyone curious how this radical transformation came to be, a fantastic new film has the answer. Speechless is a documentary by Canadian filmmaker Ric Esther Bienstock. The film chronicles the emergence of cancel culture across a swath of college campuses over the last decade. It has screened in Canada and the U.K. but has yet to open in the U.S., which is why FAIR’s upcoming screening on October 28th at 7pm ET is so special!

Based on Bienstock’s interviews, early reviews, and podcast transcripts, the film seems to track what I experienced. The power of telling these stories is that they give everyone the opportunity to witness the cultural shift that has so radically transformed the college experience.

Bienstock, a self-described “lefty,” is an accomplished filmmaker. She has won an Emmy Award, two Edward R. Murrow Awards, and multiple Canadian Screen Awards. Her previous works include a documentary about the transatlantic slave trade hosted by Samuel L. Jackson. She also graduated from university in the early ’80s and begins her exposé by telling viewers:

“For me, university was a place where you wrestled with new ideas. Sex, politics, religion, war – we argued about all of it. But somewhere along the way, the climate changed. Students didn’t just disagree with ideas. They felt harmed by them. And the only way to feel safe was to silence the people expressing them.”

In 2015, after reading the essay The Coddling of the American Mind, by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, which described alien concepts like “safe spaces,” “micro-aggressions” and “cultural appropriation,” Bienstock wondered what had caused university life to change so much. It appeared to her that, in an effort to include and protect, we had inadvertently created new, more easily twisted forms of exclusion and censorship. That her own children were of university age added extra urgency to her concern. She decided to put her camera to work, hoping to document this alarming cultural phenomenon.

Speechless captures the rise of cancel culture as it emerged from left-leaning politics and began to spread across the political spectrum. The story begins in 2017 at Evergreen State College in Washington, where a white biologist objected to the school’s “Day of Absence,” which asked that white people stay off campus for the day in recognition of the contributions made by people of color. His resistance ignited a firestorm that reportedly sizzled on camera. According to one review, Bienstock herself is branded a white supremacist for asking a student basic questions. At York College in Pennsylvania, a black rhetorician was vilified after challenging a colleague who insisted that forcing students to learn standard English is a form of white supremacy. The colleague states his case, not surprisingly, in standard English. And at Stanford Law School, Tirien Steinbach, the associate dean of diversity, stepped to the podium as protesters drowned out—effectively canceling—a conservative judge. We hear her side of things after her resignation, having been blamed for her handling of the situation.

But Speechless is no left-wing hit piece. After exploring the impact on campus of the Hamas attacks of October 7 and Israel’s subsequent response, Bienstock moves on to reveal the reactionary intolerance on the right. She brings us into the present moment as she and her team trail conservative activist Christopher Rufo while he carries out Governor Ron DeSantis’s crusade against progressive pedagogy and dismantles various DEI programs at New College in Florida.

College campuses today appear to be as polarized as ever. Speechless doesn’t set out to offer solutions, but instead shows how we got here. The film promises a front-row seat for anyone interested in this aspect of the culture wars. Those wondering how we went from lionizing Mario Savio on the steps of Sproul Hall to widespread self-censorship, and then to the defunding of DEI programs, will want to see it. I know I do.

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We welcome you to share your thoughts on this piece in the comments below. Click here to view our comment section moderation policy.

The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Fair For All or its employees.

In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diverse range of voices and to encouraging compassionate, good-faith discourse.

We are actively seeking perspectives on this topic and others. If you’d like to join the conversation, please send completed drafts to submissions@fairforall.org.

Has a Loss of Community Created a Mental Health Crisis for Today’s Youth?

Zarina Macha () examines the growing mental health crisis among young people and asks whether declining social connection may be part of the problem. Macha explores the effects of smartphones and social media alongside the decline of religion, civic life, and other sources of shared purpose and belonging. She considers what secular society can offer in their place, arguing that young people need meaningful community, structure, and a sense of purpose—not necessarily a return to traditional belief.

“People need community to feel connected to something greater than themselves. We need not return to superstitious beliefs to achieve this. What we need is a philosophy of how to live well, how to treat others, and how to take responsibility for ourselves and our communities — without asking the individual to disappear, and without leaving the individual to invent a whole moral world alone.”

Read the Full Article

Illustration by Anna Broadhurst.

Generation Anxiety: smartphones have created a gen Z mental health crisis – but there are ways to fix it

FAIR Board of Advisors member Jonathan Haidt examines the rise in anxiety, depression, loneliness, and self-harm among young people and the potential role smartphones and social media have played.

Haidt argues that Gen Z was the first generation to experience adolescence with constant access to an online world, contributing to a decline in face-to-face interaction, physical play, and other forms of real-world social connection. He describes this shift as a “Great Rewiring of Childhood” and argues that addressing its effects will require collective action from parents, schools, and communities.

“People don’t get depressed when they face threats collectively; they get depressed when they feel isolated, lonely, or useless…”

Read the Full Article

One Reason People Are Spending So Much Time Alone

As young people face rising levels of loneliness and social isolation, one question is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: have we designed human connection out of everyday life? In The Atlantic, Gabe Bullard examines how modern conveniences—from delivery services to self-checkout and other frictionless technologies—can quietly eliminate the small, ordinary interactions that once brought people together. His piece offers a broader perspective on the social disconnection explored in Zarina Macha’s essay, asking whether a culture built around convenience and individual choice may also be making community harder to sustain.

“When showing up for others feels hard, some strugglers have lately steeled themselves with a version of this maxim: “Inconvenience is the cost of community.” It’s a reminder, oft-repeated on social media these days, that if you don’t want to be lonely—if you want to have robust relationships—you should occasionally do things that are effortful or even irritating…”

Read the Full Article

Join the FAIR Community

• Join us and become a member of FAIR.

• Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.

• Sign up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.

• Help fund our work

Dear Friends of FAIR,

For the past four years, FAIR in the Arts has provided grants to 30 artists and arts organizations. Those grants have helped pay for rehearsal space, performers, production costs, marketing, pitch materials, and other practical necessities of making art. But money is only part of the story.

Again and again, grant recipients have told us that FAIR’s support provided something less tangible, and perhaps more consequential: the validation to be an independent artist, to resist conformity, and to trust the work they felt called to create.

It’s no surprise to even the most agreeable artist that our current artistic culture is burdened by fear, conformity, and self-censorship. Artists may have a responsibility to be faithful to their gifts, but fulfilling that responsibility requires courage -- the willingness to take risks, venture beyond what has already been culturally sanctioned, and discover what is authentic and genuinely new. That is why FAIR in the Arts awards Artist Grants.

FAIR believes art should be produced, published, curated, funded, and adjudicated according to the quality and integrity of the work; not according to an artist’s ideological alignment or identity category. Our goal is not to tell artists what they should say. Our aim is to help create a culture in which artists are free to discover what they have to say.

In our upcoming “Artists at Work” series, FAIR in the Arts interim director Karen Howes will explore what that support means in practice. We will introduce artists, disciplines, projects, and stories as we highlight how artistic courage is enabled when someone is willing to stand behind an artist’s work. Courage also surfaced during our September FAIR in Conversation discussion, “Is Woke Dead… or Just on Pause?” At the end of the discussion, participants agreed on a striking conclusion: cultural change ultimately requires individuals willing to resist conformity and act courageously.

Since artists have a particularly important role in that effort, and as we prepare for our 2027 Artist Grant Cycle, “Artists at Work” will demonstrate why FAIR in the Arts’ grants matter and why we need to fund many more. We believe that supporting an artist isn’t simply funding a project. It is helping create the conditions and culture in which artists are free to be courageous, resist conformity, and make the work that only they can make.

FAIR in Film Fundraisers: Launching the 2027 Artist Grant Fundraising Round

You can help make that work possible. We’re launching our 2027 fundraising round for the FAIR Artist Grants and FAIR’s broader mission by featuring three early release film screenings on topics that align with FAIR’s principles. These films are brand new and address today’s most challenging and thought-provoking issues. In each, a filmmaker shares their film and joins a discussion with the FAIR community, and every event raises funds for FAIR, including the Artist Grants program.

• Speechless by Ric Beinstock: Be part of the first U.S. audience to screen this amazing film. Speechless explores campus free speech battles through interviews and cases, including DEI conflicts, discrimination lawsuits, political shifts at colleges, and academic freedom debates across US institutions. Wednesday, October 28, 2026 @ 7 EST.

Registration link: Speechless Screening & Panel Discussion, Wed. 10/28 @ 7 EST

• Generation COVID by Andrew James and Jennifer Sey. While some children fortunately emerged from COVID lockdowns relatively unscathed, school closures had catastrophic effects on many others. The film reminds us of the mistakes we should never repeat. It’s not political. It’s about kids. Wednesday, November 11, 2026 @ 7 EST.

Registration link: Generation COVID Screening & Panel Discussion, Wed. 11/11 @ 7 EST

• White Guilt by Eli Steele: White Guilt is a documentary essay by Eli Steele, drawn from the lifework of his father, Shelby Steele. It is the story of a man who saw the evil that others could not, or would not, and who named it and refused to back off of it for fifty years. Tuesday, December 1, 2026 @ 7 EST.

Registration link: White Guilt Screening & Panel Discussion, Tues. 12/1 @ 7 EST

Each screening offers more than a chance to see a provocative new documentary. It’s an opportunity to engage directly with the filmmakers, explore the ideas and challenges behind their work, and join a community that values artistic courage and independent thought.

Your registration does more than reserve a seat. It helps fund FAIR and the next round of FAIR Artist Grants, giving more community members and artists the resources, encouragement, and freedom to bring their own uncompromising visions to life.

Join us for one or all three of these remarkable films. Registering for a $10 or $25 ticket goes a long way: watch the film, stay for the conversation, and help make the next generation of independent art possible.

With Gratitude,

The FAIR Team

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FAIR in Film presents: An Exclusive Screening of “Speechless”

Private first time screening to a US audience.

Join FAIR for an exclusive screening of Speechless, a provocative documentary exploring the battle over free speech on college campuses and what it means for the future of higher education and democracy.

The film—which is now available to a U.S. audience for the first time—is a gripping investigation into the breakdown of open inquiry in the very institutions meant to protect it, and what happens to a democracy when it loses faith in free speech, honest disagreement, and the hard work of conversation.

The post-film discussion will include several renowned panelists, offering a range of perspectives on the issues explored in the film.

Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2026

Time: 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT.

Film: ~120 minute run time + 45 minute discussion

Register Here

Introducing: Arts After Hours

FAIR in the Arts is launching Arts After Hours, a monthly Zoom gathering for FAIR artists, members, and guests to meet one another, exchange ideas, share opportunities, and strengthen the courageous creative community we are building together.

This isn’t a webinar or a formal presentation. It’s a gathering.

Come tell us what you’re working on. Bring an idea you’d like to explore, an opportunity you’d like to share, a question or project for other artists, or simply come to meet writers, actors, filmmakers, musicians, visual artists, and other creative people who believe that art flourishes through curiosity, independence, open inquiry, and the courage to create authentically.

Our first After Hours gathering will be held Wednesday, October 21 at 7:00 PM ET, and we’ll gather thereafter on the third Wednesday of every month.

FAIR in the Arts is becoming more than a place to defend artistic freedom. We want it to be a place where artists can use that freedom to create, connect, collaborate, and help shape the culture around us. I really hope you’ll join us.

Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2026

Time: 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT.

Every month on the third Wednesday.

Register Here

Educators Alliance

FAIR is continuing the Educators Alliance for the 2026-2027 school year to equip PK–12 educators with the knowledge, strategies, and community support they need to foster schools that are more enriching and free from bias for students and educators.

We are at a turning point for education—and with the relaunch of FAIR’s Educators Alliance, we have an opportunity to step beyond polarization and create classrooms rooted in curiosity, dignity, and respect.

Each monthly gathering will open with updates and presentations from FAIR staff, fellows, Chapter Leaders, and occasional guest speakers. Together, we’ll explore strategies for supporting educators, communities, and local chapters—and for advancing positive change at the local, regional, and national levels. Following presentations, participants will have space for open forum discussions to connect, seek advice, and coordinate on pressing issues in their schools. Breakout rooms will be divided into PK-6 and 7-12 grade levels with experienced teachers facilitating those conversations.

Educators will also be invited to contribute to a new FAIR in Education newsletter, showcasing stories, strategies, and resources from across the FAIR network.

Whether you are a teacher, paraprofessional, or administrator, join us as we continue the FAIR Educators Alliance and shape the future of education together.

There are 7 meetings to sign up for down below. Scroll up and down below to see all of the sessions!

Oct 1, 2026 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Every month on the First Thu, until Apr 1, 2027, 1 hr sessions, 7 occurrences

Register Here

FAIR in Film presents: An Exclusive Screening of Generation Covid

An entire generation of children and families were deeply harmed by the response to Covid, resulting in half of American public schools being closed for nearly two years. The fallout has been a society-destroying scandal that our elected officials are still too afraid to address. Long past the time when adults resumed normalcy, American school children were onerously restricted, locked out of school and other social and developmental activities, kept alone and isolated and forced onto screens – all in spite of clear data showing Covid posed little threat to the young and healthy.

Generation Covid is the story of a forgotten generation who endured the biggest civil rights violations in a century, the largest propaganda campaign in American history and industrial scale censorship in spite of clear, incontrovertible evidence that lockdowns, school closures, vaccine mandates and forced masking were useless and harmful. Politicians and public health officials’ worst authoritarian impulses took hold and the press failed to hold power to account, leaving children voiceless.

Despite clear and incontrovertible real-time evidence of the harms being done, especially to the poor and working class, powerful forces sought to censor, silence and vilify anyone who questioned the efficacy of these unprecedented and unscientific decisions, and our children are still paying the price.

We all are.

Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2026

Time: 7pm EST/4pm PST (until about 10:00pm EST)

Film: ~120 minute run time + 30 minute discussion

Register Here

White Guilt

White Guilt is a documentary essay by Eli Steele, drawn from the lifework of his father, Shelby Steele. It is the story of a man who saw the evil that others could not, or would not, and who named it and refused to back off of it for fifty years.

After the 1960s Civil Rights victories, white America stood accused and were desperate to regain moral authority and escape the stain of racism. That frantic need birthed white guilt, a moral collapse that replaced merit with victimhood, standards with excuses, and individual responsibility with grievance power.

The result: failing schools, dependency programs, racial division, riots, defund-the-police chaos—and now a global wave where Hamas’s October 7 atrocities are called “resistance,” campus antisemitism is tolerated, and anti-Western tribalism gains ground.

Date: December 1, 2026

Time: 7pm EST/4pm PST (until about 10:00pm EST)

Register Here

Note: Despite Zoom’s notice down below, FAIR maintains strict confidentiality of contact information provided.

Note to readers: We have paused the FAIR News podcast. If you prefer listening rather than reading these newsletters, an audio version is available directly on the Substack app. Thank you for tuning in!

Join the FAIR Community

• Join us, and become a member of FAIR.

• Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.

• Sign up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.
  

It’s no surprise to many that there is a crisis of mental illness sweeping those largely born after 1990. Young people are reporting substantially higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation than previous generations. Better reporting, destigmatisation and advances in psychological medicine account for some, but not all of these changes. Declining social connection is the more serious factor at play.

According to the World Health Organisation, one in seven 10-19-year-olds experiences a negative mental health condition. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among those aged 15–29. This is a crisis of disconnected youth, not only of diagnosis.

Mental illness is nothing new. Sylvia Plath, Vincent van Gogh and Virginia Woolf are infamous examples of artists who suffered from mental illness. Anguish existed long before smartphones; what has changed is the scale. In several wealthy countries, rates of poor mental wellbeing rose sharply in the early 2010s, as smartphones became ordinary. The crisis is exacerbated by the breakdown of social order in family, religion and community. Civic life had already been thinning for decades. The phone emerged into a social world weaker than it looked.

One of the ways humans have historically found community is through religion. Belief in a god offered a larger purpose, and a reason to ‘keep showing up’ among similar demographics. As the Western world moves away from traditional religious practice, fewer shared sources of meaning remain. Nietzsche was ahead of his time when he declared that “God is dead.” If a shared story about how to live no longer holds, people are left to invent one alone — a heavy task, especially for the young.

In many ways, we are living in the aftermath of isolationism. People now organise their lives around individual pursuits — personalised technology, social media, ideology — instead of community or a shared moral belief. The problem is not that individuals matter. Individuality inside a community is not the same thing as isolation with a social feed.

It is nearly impossible to navigate life today without a smartphone. Algorithms present polished and unattainable lifestyles, lock people inside political echo chambers, and push them into pointless, vitriolic arguments with strangers. People spend hours trying to be right on Twitter and Reddit rather than working with their fellow humans. While this speech is technically free, it is not collaborative, and so it offers little to any actual community.

Religion provided a framework for how to live well: an ethic, a sense of duty, and an explanation for how the world came to exist. According to the Pew Research Centre, people who attend religious services regularly are more likely to describe themselves as ‘very happy’ than those who are non-religious or only nominally religious. The ‘happiness-gap’ is not proof that metaphysics produces wellbeing. It suggests that practice matters: showing up, being known, and being answerable to other people. If we reject traditional religion, what replaces its social functions? Peer support, discipline, community, mutual accountability and shared values. Alain de Botton seeks to address this in Religion for Atheists.

Religion has also brought real harms. Unscientific belief has often licensed hatred of people deemed “different” or “unholy,” and denominations have fought one another over the “right” interpretation of their holy texts. Such examples include Catholics and Protestants, Hindus and Muslims, or Israelis and Palestinians. The point is not that only religion produces cruelty, as secular ideologies have done the same; rather that a source of belonging can also become a source of exclusion.

As an atheist myself, I appreciate the community-based aspects of religion while remaining concerned by the superstition, dogma and closed-mindedness that come with it. There ought to be a way to enjoy social cohesion and feel purposeful without believing in things that are not scientifically proven. The Ancient Greeks sought eudaimonia, human flourishing, and Confucianism emphasised personal ethics and family loyalty. Both start from the recognition that we cannot be closed off from each other. In a world this interconnected, there is no good future in a life organised only around the self.

What the present, particularly in the West, needs is a philosophy that does not require belief in spirits and deities, but still gives young people structure, stability, purpose and discipline. Secular Alcoholics Anonymous is a practical example. Traditional AA asks participants to surrender their will to a “Higher Power.” Secular meetings, and books such as Jeffrey Munn’s Staying Sober Without God, keep the fellowship and personal accountability without the prayer. The machinery that helped was never only the requirement for prayer.

Loss of religion is not the only reason for this unease. In the past, there were cows to milk, wool to spin and fields to plough. Comfort is not a moral failing. But as Western society has become more comfortable, more of us are free to ponder the meaning of life. That can bring joy — and dread. Affluence did not cause the crisis by itself. It left a space that community used to fill.

Social media then filled that space poorly. Young people have grown up glued to their phones, comparing themselves to filtered lives online. Jean Twenge, Jonathan Haidt and others have shown that adolescent distress rose after smartphones became ubiquitous, and that teens who spend more time on social media and less time in person report worse mental health. The US Surgeon General has called loneliness an epidemic. Among Americans aged 15 to 24, time spent in person with friends fell by nearly 70 percent between 2003 and 2020. A social media feed is not a substitute for reality.

News and culture have fragmented in the same way. People now build personalised information environments, and algorithms show them more of what they already engage with. Political disagreement becomes more hostile when people operate from different (and potentially inaccurate) pictures of reality. Two people of the same age can now inhabit completely different cultural worlds.

I am not in favour of banning social media. That would not only be a serious free-speech violation, but also damage networking and information sharing. YouTube, for example, has personally had a fantastic impact on my life. But it is hard for vulnerable young people to stop doomscrolling, or to avoid material that encourages them to see themselves mainly as victims, or to develop prejudice against those who do not share their worldview. That returns to the lack of a unifying philosophy in the West, and the abundance of divisive political identities.

The strain between young men and women belongs to the same story. A male loneliness epidemic, and Gen Z women decrying a hatred of men, cannot be good for anyone’s wellbeing. When old scripts for courtship and family collapse faster than new ones are built, dating becomes another arena of comparison and withdrawal. A 2022 Demographic Research Study found that parental divorce can have a larger negative impact on a child’s long-term educational attainment than the death of a parent.

What, then, can be done? No single hobby will reverse a cultural shift. A practical place to start is to rebuild the unglamorous thing religion and civic life once supplied: repeated contact with the same people. Meetup groups, sports clubs, book groups, volunteering, congregations or a shared hobby create face-to-face life for people who spend their days on screens. A group that meets once is an event. A group that meets every Tuesday is a community.

Individuals can construct meaning from what they find worthwhile and what requires sustained effort: reading, creative work, loved ones, physical activity, intellectual pursuits. Lives can be meaningful without superstition. That will not happen automatically. The substitutes for religious and civic life will have to be as regular, as demanding and as shared as the things they replace.

People need community to feel connected to something greater than themselves. We need not return to superstitious beliefs to achieve this. What we need is a philosophy of how to live well, how to treat others, and how to take responsibility for ourselves and our communities — without asking the individual to disappear, and without leaving the individual to invent a whole moral world alone. The Society Project has proposed “societism,” which seeks the wellbeing of society without sacrificing the significance of the individual. It illustrates the thinking secular societies will need if they want purpose and belonging after the old sources of those things have faded.

The mental health crisis among the young is not proof that modernity was a mistake. It is proof that a life rich in options and poor in belonging is harder to bear than we pretended.

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In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diverse range of voices and to encouraging compassionate, good-faith discourse.

We are actively seeking perspectives on this topic and others. If you’d like to join the conversation, please send completed drafts to submissions@fairforall.org.

“Banned”, Really?

In her latest FAIR in Libraries article, Dr. Anne examines the debate over what qualifies as a “banned” book and argues that the focus on definitions can distract from a broader question: whether public libraries provide readers with access to a range of perspectives. Her article raises questions about viewpoint diversity, collection practices, and readers’ ability to access competing arguments. Mulhern encourages patrons to take an active role in their libraries by examining catalogues, requesting titles that are missing or difficult to access, and reporting concerns to FAIR to help promote transparency and accountability.

“The public libraries are promoting one point of view aggressively, and the other point of view is being hidden from the sight of patrons.”

Read the Full Article

There’s No Such Thing as a Reading Test

In this article, FAIR Board of Advisors member Robert Pondiscio and education scholar E.D. Hirsch argue that reading comprehension depends on more than decoding words and practicing reading strategies; it also requires background knowledge and familiarity with the subject matter. They examine how an emphasis on standardized testing and generalized reading skills can leave students without the knowledge they need to understand what they read. The authors advocate for an approach to literacy that integrates reading instruction with subjects such as science, history, and literature, helping students build the knowledge necessary for deeper comprehension. Their argument highlights the importance of ensuring students have access to a broad, coherent education that equips them to engage with a wide range of ideas and information.

“Rather, too many of our schools labor under fundamental misconceptions about reading comprehension — how it works, how to improve it, and how to test it…The more domain knowledge our children receive, the more capable they will become as readers.”

Read the Full Article

Building Resilient Libraries: Protecting Against Book Bans

In this article, Catherine Hollerbach examines how libraries can defend intellectual freedom amid increasing efforts to challenge and restrict access to books. She outlines the importance of transparent collection-development policies, consistent procedures for reconsidering challenged materials, and legal protections for libraries and their staff. Hollerbach also explores legislative efforts to safeguard access to books and the creation of book sanctuaries that preserve access to challenged titles. Her article emphasizes libraries’ responsibility to serve communities with diverse interests and perspectives while upholding readers’ freedom to choose what they read.

“Customers have the right and responsibility for what they and their children choose to check out, and for reviewing items before their kids check them out, if that is their preference. They do not, however, have the right to dictate what other parents may and may not have access to checking out.”

Read the Full Article

Join the FAIR Community

• Join us and become a member of FAIR.

• Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.

• Sign up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.

• Help fund our work

Dear Friends of FAIR,

On October 5, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice sent a joint letter to every state attorney general with a straightforward request: help make sure schools follow federal parental rights laws. The letter asks attorneys general to work with school districts on compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA).

FAIR members may recognize the subject. In September, we shared the Department of Education’s annual back-to-school guidance on these same two laws. The joint letter goes a step further by asking state officials to take an active role in enforcement, so districts will likely feel more pressure to get their practices right.

One practice gets particular attention: mental health screenings. According to the Departments, some schools continue to administer these screenings without first getting written permission from parents. Before a student completes a mental health screening or any similar evaluation, the Departments say, schools must notify parents and obtain prior written consent. An opt-out form sent home does not meet that standard.

Under PPRA, which has been federal law for decades, students in programs funded by the U.S. Department of Education cannot be required to take part in a survey, analysis, or evaluation that reveals certain sensitive information without a parent’s prior written consent. The law lists eight protected areas, including political beliefs, mental or psychological problems of the student or family, sexual behavior or attitudes, religious practices, and family income.

The difference between “opt in” and “opt out” may sound like a technicality, but in practice, the two mechanisms can produce very different results.

An opt-out puts the burden on parents because the family has to notice the form, read it, understand what is being asked, and return it before a deadline. A notice buried in a back-to-school packet can easily slip by a busy household. Written consent, by contrast, reverses the burden: nothing happens until a parent has seen what the school plans to ask and said yes.

Students feel the difference, too. When a teacher or counselor hands a child a questionnaire, most children assume they have to fill it out. Asking parents first protects kids who would never think to say no.

PPRA’s requirements vary depending on how a survey is funded and whether participation is required, and the joint letter reflects the Departments’ reading of the statute. Some districts may push back on the details. The goal of asking isn’t to win an argument, but to learn what your school actually does and to get that answer in writing.

FAIR’s FERPA & PPRA Parental Rights Template Letter makes that easy. The letter asks your district to confirm in writing that it obtains written parental consent before administering any sensitive survey or mental health screener, does not keep “unofficial” student records beyond parents’ access rights under FERPA, and makes curriculum available for parent review on request. Download the template letter here.

A few other steps worth taking this fall:

• Find your district’s annual notice. Districts that receive federal funds must notify parents of their FERPA and PPRA rights each year. If you don’t remember seeing one, ask where it was posted.

• Ask to see any survey or screener in advance. You have the right to review these materials before they reach your child.

• Keep a record. Save copies of your requests and the district’s responses.

FAIR approaches this as a civics and transparency issue, not a partisan one. Families of every political view, faith, and background benefit when schools are open about what they ask children and what records they keep. Clear consent rules build trust between parents and educators.

If your school has administered a survey or screening without your written consent, or has denied you access to your child’s records, we want to hear from you. Reach out through your local FAIR Chapter or submit a report through FAIR Incident Reporting.

Resources like this template letter are free to every family because FAIR members and donors make them possible. If this tool helps you or someone you know, please consider making a gift to FAIR today.

With gratitude,

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

Subscribe now to receive FAIR News weekly in your inbox.

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Help us find your chapter

OTI Conference on Political Bias and Mental Health

Earlier this year, FAIR announced its collaboration with the Open Therapy Institute. Read Here.

FAIR members are invited to join the Open Therapy Institute‘s Conference on Political Bias and Mental Health, October 9–11, in Washington, DC.

The program features a live podcast recording with Rob Henderson and Erica Komisar, a panel with Sally Satel, and more. A total of 9.25 CE credits are available.

Use code OTISPECIALRATE2026 for 50% off.

We hope to see you in DC!

Register Here

FAIR in Film presents: An Exclusive Screening of “Speechless”

Private first time screening to a US audience.

Join FAIR for an exclusive screening of Speechless, a provocative documentary exploring the battle over free speech on college campuses and what it means for the future of higher education and democracy.

The film—which is now available to a U.S. audience for the first time—is a gripping investigation into the breakdown of open inquiry in the very institutions meant to protect it, and what happens to a democracy when it loses faith in free speech, honest disagreement, and the hard work of conversation.

The post-film discussion will include several renowned panelists, offering a range of perspectives on the issues explored in the film.

Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2026

Time: 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT.

Film: ~120 minute run time + 45 minute discussion

Register Here

Introducing: Arts After Hours

FAIR in the Arts is launching Arts After Hours, a monthly Zoom gathering for FAIR artists, members, and guests to meet one another, exchange ideas, share opportunities, and strengthen the courageous creative community we are building together.

This isn’t a webinar or a formal presentation. It’s a gathering.

Come tell us what you’re working on. Bring an idea you’d like to explore, an opportunity you’d like to share, a question or project for other artists, or simply come to meet writers, actors, filmmakers, musicians, visual artists, and other creative people who believe that art flourishes through curiosity, independence, open inquiry, and the courage to create authentically.

Our first After Hours gathering will be held Wednesday, October 21 at 7:00 PM ET, and we’ll gather thereafter on the third Wednesday of every month.

FAIR in the Arts is becoming more than a place to defend artistic freedom. We want it to be a place where artists can use that freedom to create, connect, collaborate, and help shape the culture around us. I really hope you’ll join us.

Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2026

Time: 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT.

Every month on the third Wednesday.

Register Here

Educators Alliance

FAIR is continuing the Educators Alliance for the 2026-2027 school year to equip PK–12 educators with the knowledge, strategies, and community support they need to foster schools that are more enriching and free from bias for students and educators.

We are at a turning point for education—and with the relaunch of FAIR’s Educators Alliance, we have an opportunity to step beyond polarization and create classrooms rooted in curiosity, dignity, and respect.

Each monthly gathering will open with updates and presentations from FAIR staff, fellows, Chapter Leaders, and occasional guest speakers. Together, we’ll explore strategies for supporting educators, communities, and local chapters—and for advancing positive change at the local, regional, and national levels. Following presentations, participants will have space for open forum discussions to connect, seek advice, and coordinate on pressing issues in their schools. Breakout rooms will be divided into PK-6 and 7-12 grade levels with experienced teachers facilitating those conversations.

Educators will also be invited to contribute to a new FAIR in Education newsletter, showcasing stories, strategies, and resources from across the FAIR network.

Whether you are a teacher, paraprofessional, or administrator, join us as we continue the FAIR Educators Alliance and shape the future of education together.

There are 7 meetings to sign up for down below. Scroll up and down below to see all of the sessions!

Oct 1, 2026 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Every month on the First Thu, until Apr 1, 2027, 1 hr sessions, 7 occurrences

Register Here

FAIR in Film presents: An Exclusive Screening of Generation Covid

An entire generation of children and families were deeply harmed by the response to Covid, resulting in half of American public schools being closed for nearly two years. The fallout has been a society-destroying scandal that our elected officials are still too afraid to address. Long past the time when adults resumed normalcy, American school children were onerously restricted, locked out of school and other social and developmental activities, kept alone and isolated and forced onto screens – all in spite of clear data showing Covid posed little threat to the young and healthy.

Generation Covid is the story of a forgotten generation who endured the biggest civil rights violations in a century, the largest propaganda campaign in American history and industrial scale censorship in spite of clear, incontrovertible evidence that lockdowns, school closures, vaccine mandates and forced masking were useless and harmful. Politicians and public health officials’ worst authoritarian impulses took hold and the press failed to hold power to account, leaving children voiceless.

Despite clear and incontrovertible real-time evidence of the harms being done, especially to the poor and working class, powerful forces sought to censor, silence and vilify anyone who questioned the efficacy of these unprecedented and unscientific decisions, and our children are still paying the price.

We all are.

Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2026

Time: 7pm EST/4pm PST (until about 10:00pm EST)

Film: ~120 minute run time + 30 minute discussion

Register Here

Note: Despite Zoom’s notice down below, FAIR maintains strict confidentiality of contact information provided.

Note to readers: We have paused the FAIR News podcast. If you prefer listening rather than reading these newsletters, an audio version is available directly on the Substack app. Thank you for tuning in!

Join the FAIR Community

• Join us, and become a member of FAIR.

• Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.

• Sign up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.
  

“Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools” – Thomas Hobbes

A few days ago, I walked into my local public library to pick up some books and I saw the seasonal display of so-called “banned” books. I laughed out loud, and then I took photographs so that I would have a record of every book that the library calls “banned”, since none of them are.

Then I went online and I saw the same old tedious argument by redefinition going on around the word “banned”.

There are two competing definitions of this word “banned”, and while the verbal combatants thrust their competing definitions at each other like two hoplite phalanxes in a permanent deadlock, the real problem of ongoing systemic censorship in public libraries is obscured by this relentless rain of verbal chaff.

Here are the definitions:

1. This is the ALA’s definition, which is often the one appealed to. It has an extraordinarily expansive definition of “banned”, which defies common sense.

“A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.”

2. The second definition is a restrictive definition with a common-sense ordinary meaning and no official wording; your best source is probably an older dictionary of reasonable quality. A book is “banned” if the government of a geographic region has made it illegal to possess, sell, or publish a book in that region. This is an excellent definition, because it is common or ordinary, and because it has for centuries been a common practice of governments to ban books in this sense and to cruelly punish those who possess them.

These definitions are mutually exclusive. If a book is “banned” by Definition (1) it cannot be “banned” by Definition (2), and vice-versa. If it is illegal for a person to possess some book (2), no government library will carry it, and so it cannot be removed from that library (1). Hence the argument of definitions.

I prefer using common ordinary words with their common ordinary meaning. Definition (1) is obviously meant to confuse and obfuscate. Definition (2) is precise, clear, and useful. I’m sticking with Definition (2).

Those “banned” (1) books I saw in the library can’t possibly be banned (2), they are in the library!

It seems that those who use this excellent Definition (2), possibly because they are so exhausted by the people endlessly reiterating Definition (1), are not prepared to think further. Having played the word game to what they feel is a tie, they are unwilling to enter the reality game; they are unwilling to acknowledge that it even exists. But the reality game does exist, and it’s just as important as the word game, because it is reality.

The reality is one of systematic bias throughout the publishing industry and in public and school libraries throughout the United States. Rather than describing the many mechanisms of this systematic bias, since there are many articles that cover it, some referenced in my previous article for FAIR, I’ll talk about just one “banned” book in my library’s display of “Banned” books, “The 1619 Project”.

First, the basics. We know this book is not banned, because the library is displaying it. Has someone somewhere objected to its presence in some government run library? I think that’s very likely; it probably is “banned” in the sense of Definition (1). Perhaps it has even been removed from a school library somewhere. I’m unwilling to be distracted by this possibility because what I care about is the extreme political bias displayed in my local public library system’s collection.

It turns out that there are “counterweight” books available, books that seek to counteract the narrative of “The 1619 Project”, but in my local library system of about 35 libraries they are mostly unavailable. The library catalogs throughout my state are dominated by one point of view; the political bias is extreme.

There are 45 copies of “The 1619 Project” in my local public library system, counting every format. This is more than one per library. What about Mary Grabar’s “Debunking the 1619 Project” which offers an explicit counter-narrative? It is available as an audiobook on Hoopla, that is it. What about “The New York Times’ 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History”? There is an ebook on Hoopla that I can check out. “1620” by Peter Wood? I can check it out from Hoopla either as an audiobook or as an ebook. “The 1619 Project Myth” by Philip W. Magness? Hoopla offers it, but my library has removed the book from the list of books it is offering through Hoopla, so it is not available to me. The public libraries are promoting one point of view aggressively, and the other point of view is being hidden from the sight of patrons.

I experience forebodings, because the public libraries are always hinting that they’ll drop Hoopla from their offerings. If my public library drops Hoopla then not one of these books is available to me in any format whatsoever from my local library system; the bias within the system is not just enormous, it is infinite.

Here is my challenge to readers who believe that since they know what a banned book is their work is done. Go into your local library and look at the books in your local library’s “banned” books display. We already know that there will be lots of copies of that book available throughout your library system. Now see if you can think of a book that presents some different point of view. Can you get that book from your local public library system? Likely not, or only with great difficulty.

Be an active patron and citizen and request that your library purchase the book. If it doesn’t, let FAIR know all about the circumstances using the FAIR Incident Report Form, as without evidence there can be no accountability.

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We welcome you to share your thoughts on this piece in the comments below. Click here to view our comment section moderation policy.

The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Fair For All or its employees.

In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diverse range of voices and to encouraging compassionate, good-faith discourse.

We are actively seeking perspectives on this topic and others. If you’d like to join the conversation, please send completed drafts to submissions@fairforall.org.

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Dear FAIR Community,

This Wednesday marks three years since October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists brutally murdered 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostages. For many of you, that day was never distant news. It was a phone call from a relative or friend you will never forget, a name you recognized, and a grief that has not eased with time.

We take this moment to honor the lives taken, the families still mourning, and everyone who carries that day with them. Zichronam livracha. May their memories be a blessing.

In the months after October 7, antisemitism in the United States rose to levels not seen in generations — and by many measures, the climate has worsened. A June AP-NORC poll found that only one in three Jewish Americans feels safe in this country, and 40% are now less likely to wear anything that identifies them as Jewish. The ADL’s 2025 audit recorded 6,274 incidents of antisemitism, which were fewer than the year before but included a record number of physical assaults and three killings.

Each of these numbers represents a person: a student who stopped wearing a Star of David to school, a parent wondering whether to mention an antisemitic slur to a principal, a congregation that now includes armed security in its budget. No community in America should have to live this way, and no one who believes in equal dignity should accept this climate as normal.

Much of today’s antisemitism arises from a simple but corrosive error: treating Jewish Americans as stand-ins for the government of Israel. The ADL found that almost half of all antisemitic incidents in 2025 were related to Israel or Zionism. This conflation has become so prevalent that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s working definition of antisemitism, adopted by many state and local governments as well as school districts, names it explicitly: holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the State of Israel.

The IHRA also states that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” FAIR believes this distinction matters. The IHRA definition is a tool for identifying harassment and discrimination, not for policing political opinion or freedom of expression. Students and citizens remain free to criticize any government, including Israel’s. What they may not do is target, exclude, or harass a Jewish person because of that government’s actions.

Jewish Americans hold a wide range of views on Israel and its government, just as Americans of every background hold a wide range of views on every government, including their own. Some feel a deep and passionate connection to Israel; others are critical of it; many hold views that are more complicated and nuanced. Yet none of these views is a condition for dignity, safety, or belonging.

No one should have to declare a political position before being welcomed into a classroom, a workplace, or a community. No one should be blamed for the actions of a government they did not elect. A Jewish person should never be pressured to denounce Israel to earn acceptance, nor should they be presumed to speak for it.

FAIR’s answer to hatred has always been the same: see every person as an individual, not as a label or category. This principle asks something of each of us.

Speak up early. Antisemitism rarely begins with violence. It starts with a joke that goes unchallenged, a slur scrawled on a desk, a student excluded from a group project. Naming these moments clearly, before they escalate, is one of the most protective things we can do.

Keep talking across differences. Our membership includes people with very different views on the Middle East. We can disagree vehemently about domestic and foreign policy and still agree that no one should feel unsafe in a classroom, a workplace, or their community because they are Jewish.

When Your Child’s School Falls Short. Schools have a legal duty to protect every student from a hostile learning environment. When a school applies its anti-harassment policies to some students and not others, parents have every right to ask why. If your child’s school is not taking antisemitism seriously, you don’t have to start from a blank page. FAIR has prepared a template letter for addressing antisemitism and a hostile environment in schools. You can adapt it to your situation and send it to your school or district.

We also recommend finding out whether your school district, city, or state has adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. If it has formally adopted the IHRA definition, cite that in your letter. A district or municipality that has taken this step has told its community how it recognizes antisemitism, and parents are entitled to ask it to apply that standard and take action.

Federal law also protects students. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, schools that receive federal funds must respond to harassment based on shared ancestry that creates a hostile environment. A clear, measured letter that documents what happened, cites the relevant policy, and asks specific questions often gets a faster and more serious response than a phone call.

Every day, FAIR works to make sure institutions treat all Americans as individuals deserving of equal dignity and respect. We equip parents with tools like the antisemitism template letter, advocate for institutions to apply policies consistently, and develop curricula that teach students to see one another as fellow citizens instead of representatives of a group.

If FAIR’s mission matters to you, please consider making a gift today. Every contribution helps us stand with families confronting antisemitism in schools and beyond.

Three years later, we remember and commit, once again, to a country where no one has to hide who they are to be safe.

With gratitude,

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

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Help us find your chapter

Educators Alliance

FAIR is continuing the Educators Alliance for the 2026-2027 school year to equip PK–12 educators with the knowledge, strategies, and community support they need to foster schools that are more enriching and free from bias for students and educators.

We are at a turning point for education—and with the relaunch of FAIR’s Educators Alliance, we have an opportunity to step beyond polarization and create classrooms rooted in curiosity, dignity, and respect.

Each monthly gathering will open with updates and presentations from FAIR staff, fellows, Chapter Leaders, and occasional guest speakers. Together, we’ll explore strategies for supporting educators, communities, and local chapters—and for advancing positive change at the local, regional, and national levels. Following presentations, participants will have space for open forum discussions to connect, seek advice, and coordinate on pressing issues in their schools. Breakout rooms will be divided into PK-6 and 7-12 grade levels with experienced teachers facilitating those conversations.

Educators will also be invited to contribute to a new FAIR in Education newsletter, showcasing stories, strategies, and resources from across the FAIR network.

Whether you are a teacher, paraprofessional, or administrator, join us as we continue the FAIR Educators Alliance and shape the future of education together.

There are 6 meetings left to sign up for down below.

Next Session: Nov 5th, 2026 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Every month on the First Thu, until Apr 1, 2027, 1 hr sessions, 7 occurrences

Note: Despite Zoom’s notice, FAIR maintains strict confidentiality of contact information provided.

OTI Conference on Political Bias and Mental Health

Earlier this year FAIR announced its collaboration with the Open Therapy Institute read here.

FAIR members are invited to join the Open Therapy Institute‘s Conference on Political Bias and Mental Health, October 9–11, in Washington, DC.

The program features a live podcast recording with Rob Henderson and Erica Komisar, a panel with Sally Satel, and more. 9.25 CE credits available.

Use code OTISPECIALRATE2026 for 50% off. Register here.

We hope to see you in DC!

Speechless Film Screening

Tickets Now on Sale - See Below

Join FAIR for an exclusive screening of Speechless, a provocative documentary exploring the battle over free speech on college campuses and what it means for the future of higher education and democracy.

The film—which is now available to a U.S. audience for the first time—is a gripping investigation into the breakdown of open inquiry in the very institutions meant to protect it, and what happens to a democracy when it loses faith in free speech, honest disagreement, and the hard work of conversation.

The post-film discussion will include several renowned panelists, offering a range of perspectives on the issues explored in the film.

The 102-minute film will be followed by a 45-minute discussion.

October 28 at 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT.

Register Here

Note to readers: We have paused the FAIR News podcast. If you prefer listening, rather than reading these newsletters, an audio version is available directly on the Substack app. Thank you for tuning in!

Join the FAIR Community

• Join us, and become a member of FAIR.

• Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.

• Sign up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.
  

Let’s Make Every Week “Freedom to Read Week”

In her latest FAIR in Libraries article, Dr. Anne challenges the way we think about censorship and intellectual freedom in public libraries. While Banned Books Week draws attention to books removed from library shelves, Dr. Mulhern asks readers to consider a different question: What about the books that never make it onto the shelves in the first place? Drawing on her experience as a former library trustee and her work documenting library collection practices, she examines how ideological bias can influence purchasing decisions and limit the range of perspectives available to patrons. Dr. Mulhern also introduces FAIR in Libraries’ new Incident Reporting initiative, which allows patrons to document cases where libraries resist clearly expressed community demand for particular books. She argues that making libraries genuinely open to every point of view requires more than celebrating banned books—it requires ensuring readers have access to the books they are asking for.

“When I was a child, it never occurred to me that political biases might determine a library’s purchasing choices. Even as an adult I did not worry much about this, since I assumed that even if there was some bias, it probably would not restrict my reading choices…I have realized that I was wrong to be complacent. There is so much to be concerned about.”

Read the Full Article

Before They Can Read

FAIR Board of Advisors member Robert Pondiscio explores the foundational role picture books play in children's literacy, cultural knowledge, and cognitive development. Rather than limiting children to a handful of recommended titles, Pondiscio argues for exposing young readers to a wide range of stories, subjects, languages, and cultural traditions. Drawing on research into vocabulary development and reading comprehension, he explains how picture books build the background knowledge children need to understand more complex texts later in life. He also makes the case for continuing to read aloud to children long after they can read independently, emphasizing that a rich literary foundation can cultivate curiosity, knowledge, and a lifelong love of reading.

“…the real aim ought to be exposing children to the widest possible range of stories, subjects, and language as possible. Picture books aren’t just charming artifacts of early childhood or a bulwark against a screen-based life. They are the foundation of literacy, cultural knowledge, and cognitive growth.”

Read the Full Article

Books Aren’t Disappearing From Schools

In a recent essay, FAIR Board of Advisors member Robert Pondiscio examines a new RAND report on whole-book reading in secondary English classrooms. While nearly 90 percent of ELA teachers report assigning at least one complete book each year, Pondiscio argues that the findings raise a more troubling question: which students are getting sustained access to books, and how often? Students in high-poverty schools, majority-nonwhite schools, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities appear less likely to encounter whole books. Pondiscio explores how testing, curriculum design, and an increasingly fragmented approach to reading may be contributing to the decline of sustained literary engagement—and makes the case for recovering a richer understanding of reading as an experience of language, knowledge, memory, and thought.

Read the Full Article

Out of Circulation: Expanding Censorship in Public Libraries

As debates over book bans continue, PEN America’s latest report, Out of Circulation: Expanding Censorship in Public Libraries, examines how censorship efforts are affecting public libraries across the country. The report documents not only challenges and removals of books, but also political pressure on librarians, restrictions on displays and programming, and efforts to influence library governance. Together, these developments raise broader questions about who decides what information remains available to the public—and what intellectual freedom means when censorship can extend beyond the removal of a single book.

“Public libraries can be a foundational democratic institution only if they can speak to everyone and only if librarians’ curation decisions can occur free from partisan pressure or restriction. However, ongoing political and public pressures are challenging these very principles.”

Read the Full Report

Join the FAIR Community

• Join us and become a member of FAIR.

• Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.

• Sign up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.

• Help fund our work

Dear Friends of FAIR,

Every October, Banned Books Week arrives with a familiar script: one side warns that censorship is sweeping the nation, and the other insists nobody is banning anything. Both camps dig in their heels, and the public walks away more confused than before.

This year, Banned Books Week runs October 4–10 and ends with Freedom to Read Day on October 10. FAIR believed this debate deserves better framing. We should ask not only which books are being removed, but which books never reached shelves at all.

When officials pull books from a public library because they dislike the ideas inside, intellectual freedom suffers. But a more insidious form of censorship often happens earlier, when the people choosing books decide certain perspectives simply don’t belong in libraries. As a result, a library can loudly celebrate Banned Books Week while stocking dozens of titles on one side of a contested issue and ignoring the others.

FAIR’s solution is simple: a neutral library that doesn’t tell patrons what to think, offers viewpoint diversity, applies its policies fairly, and trusts readers to decide for themselves. That is the mission of FAIR in Libraries (FiL).

FiL now has its own page on our website. This year, FiL has:

• Released the Neutrality & Viewpoint Diversity Toolkit

• Published a series of Substack articles on library neutrality and collection bias

• Built a collaboration with the Association of Library Professionals

• Developed the Library Watchers Project

Each of these resources gives parents, patrons, librarians, and board members practical tools to keep libraries open to every point of view, and your gift decides how far that work reaches. The Library Neutrality Fund supports FAIR’s library work, from new resources to the Library Watchers Project. If you have ever found your library’s shelves tilted in one direction, help us tip them back toward balance.

Library neutrality succeeds or fails one purchase decision at a time, and sometimes the clearest evidence comes from a single patron who asks. FiL member Dr. Anne Mulhern asked her local public library to add a book her community wanted, and her story — which we shared yesterday — became the seed of a new initiative.

Through our new Incident Reporting page FiL is now collecting cases where a public library excluded a book despite clearly expressed community demand. Reports are welcome from anywhere in North America. Library systems differ by region, and bias can show up in different ways. One story is easy to dismiss, but a documented record of incidents reveals the larger pattern.

For Banned Books Week, the FiL team has also refreshed its Banned Books Week Resources page, which curates perspectives from across the spectrum: PEN America and the ALA, FIRE, Heterodox Libraries, and scholars who question whether “book ban” counts tell the whole story.

Read widely and disagree freely. That’s the essence of library neutrality.

October is also Canadian Library Month, and this year’s theme is “Loud for Libraries.” We agree. Being loud for libraries means showing up at board meetings, requesting the books your community wants, and insisting that book collections reflect the full range of views your neighbors hold.

Few people understand this better than Cathy Simpson, who leads FiL. Cathy plans to submit her application for a seat on her local library board following the October 26th municipal elections in Ontario. Municipal councils are responsible for appointing library board members, typically within a few months of taking office. She will share her experience in an upcoming Substack article. Stay tuned.

This Banned Books Week, be bold. Pick up a book you expect to disagree with. Check whether your library carries it. If not, request it. And if your request goes nowhere, let us know so we can take action.

With gratitude,

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

Subscribe now to receive FAIR News weekly in your Inbox.

Donate

Help us find your chapter

Educators Alliance

FAIR is continuing the Educators Alliance for the 2026-2027 school year to equip PK–12 educators with the knowledge, strategies, and community support they need to foster schools that are more enriching and free from bias for students and educators.

We are at a turning point for education—and with the relaunch of FAIR’s Educators Alliance, we have an opportunity to step beyond polarization and create classrooms rooted in curiosity, dignity, and respect.

Each monthly gathering will open with updates and presentations from FAIR staff, fellows, Chapter Leaders, and occasional guest speakers. Together, we’ll explore strategies for supporting educators, communities, and local chapters—and for advancing positive change at the local, regional, and national levels. Following presentations, participants will have space for open forum discussions to connect, seek advice, and coordinate on pressing issues in their schools. Breakout rooms will be divided into PK-6 and 7-12 grade levels with experienced teachers facilitating those conversations.

Educators will also be invited to contribute to a new FAIR in Education newsletter, showcasing stories, strategies, and resources from across the FAIR network.

Whether you are a teacher, paraprofessional, or administrator, join us as we continue the FAIR Educators Alliance and shape the future of education together.

There are 6 meetings left to sign up for down below.

Next Session: Nov 5th, 2026 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Every month on the First Thu, until Apr 1, 2027, 1 hr sessions, 7 occurrences

Note: Despite Zoom’s notice, FAIR maintains strict confidentiality of contact information provided.

OTI Conference on Political Bias and Mental Health

Earlier this year FAIR announced its collaboration with the Open Therapy Institute read here.

FAIR members are invited to join the Open Therapy Institute‘s Conference on Political Bias and Mental Health, October 9–11, in Washington, DC.

The program features a live podcast recording with Rob Henderson and Erica Komisar, a panel with Sally Satel, and more. 9.25 CE credits available.

Use code OTISPECIALRATE2026 for 50% off. Register here.

We hope to see you in DC!

Speechless Film Screening

Save the Date: October 28, 2026

Join FAIR for an exclusive screening of Speechless, a provocative documentary exploring the battle over free speech on college campuses and what it means for the future of higher education and democracy.

The 102-minute film will be followed by a 45-minute discussion.

October 28 at 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT. More details and registration coming soon.

Note to readers: We have paused the FAIR News podcast. If you prefer listening, rather than reading these newsletters, an audio version is available directly on the Substack app. Thank you for tuning in!

Join the FAIR Community

• Join us, and become a member of FAIR.

• Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.

• Sign up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.
  

If you, like me, are a resident of the United States and visit your local library frequently, you will have noticed that every year your library will do some sort of observance of the American Library Association’s “Banned Books Week”. Likely there will be a display of “banned books” in the library and on its social media. Obviously, the books are not actually banned, since they are on display at your local library. So the point of the exercise seems to be to convey the following message:

What a lucky person, you, our patron, are! You live in a place where everyone, librarians especially, are dedicated warriors in the great ongoing battle against the vile spectre of censorship. Hurray for us (librarians and all other good people) and hurray for you!

Sadly, none of this is true.

When I was a child, it never occurred to me that political biases might determine a library’s purchasing choices. Even as an adult I did not worry much about this, since I assumed that even if there was some bias, it probably would not restrict my reading choices. Having served several years as a library trustee in Massachusetts during the great derangements of the COVID shutdown and ensuing years, I have realized that I was wrong to be complacent. There is so much to be concerned about.

I began writing about this problem more than two years ago, on Substack and for my local online newspaper. One of my articles demonstrated bias in public library collections. I’ve examined library-related legislation in Massachusetts and reported on an incident where library staff were bullied into cancelling a proposed talk at a Massachusetts library. In a previous article for FAIR I examined the dilatory response of public libraries to the suddenly increased demand for Charlie Kirk’s then most recently published book in the weeks after his murder.

And that’s just me! Many others have tried to address the censorship problems, by many means. In contrast to the ALA (American Library Association), the ALP (Association of Library Professionals) takes a clear and unambiguous stance on library neutrality. Others have contributed by examining and challenging the beliefs that undergird this problem of library censorship. An organization in Salado, TX has posted an excellent article about the bias in the entire book selection process of public libraries. A Canadian librarian has examined the extreme bias that public libraries display in their collections in support of gender identity ideology. There are many more examples.

I have also taken action beyond simply examining, documenting, challenging, and reporting: I launched the “Make Every Week Freedom to Read Week” project in October 2024. This project’s goal is to identify books that are not in public library collections but would be if libraries better represented their communities, and to change that situation by purchase requests, repeated as necessary. Last year, I documented the successes and failures of that effort in another Substack article. The project is turning two years old this month. I think every community could use a “Make Every Week Freedom to Read Week” project.

This year, FAIR in Libraries is ready to help make that vision a reality by collecting instances where a library excluded a book from its collection via its Incident Reporting page. We ask that you report instances where a public library has resisted clearly expressed community demand in its purchase decisions.

FAIR in Libraries welcomes incident reports from anywhere in North America. Different regions run their library systems in different ways, so library bias can be made evident in a number of different ways. The digital collections that a library may offer vary; I am familiar with Hoopla Digital and Overdrive/Libby. Here are the mechanisms that I have observed in Massachusetts:

• A library may simply refuse to purchase a physical item even when a library patron has requested it, or may simply ignore a patron’s request. (Some libraries do not have purchase request forms on their websites, in that case, an email to the director is the way to make the purchase request.)

• With Overdrive/Libby the situation is much the same as with physical books in terms of how purchasing is done. Libraries buy (or rent) a specific book from the Overdrive/Libby collection. You can request specifically an Overdrive/Libby copy. In this modern age, some people prefer to read books or listen to audio via a digital service rather than make use of a physical copy, so it is probably correct to view a digital copy as having equal stature with a physical copy. The responsibility for having made the purchase of a particular book is more diffuse with a digital service like Overdrive/Libby and so, where the book is controversial, a library may prefer an Overdrive/Libby purchase. Further, if an item is purchased for its Overdrive/Libby collection by any public library in any of several Massachusetts library consortia, that item becomes available to any patron in any of those consortia, via a sharing arrangement among the consortia. To request an item via Overdrive/Libby you should do the same as with a physical item, and, of course, your request may be ignored or refused. However, the Libby App offers a Notify Me service via its smart tagging system, so, if an item you requested is purchased, you will be notified immediately via the Libby app if you use that.

• With Hoopla Digital, the situation is different again. Hoopla offers its whole catalog to every library that uses its service. The catalogs are not shared among libraries. In recent years, Hoopla has given individual libraries the ability to exclude items in the Hoopla catalog. The default search via the Hoopla app shows only what the library allows you to check out. In the app, you can change the selection from “All Titles in Catalog” to “All hoopla Titles” and you will generally see more items. If you see an item only when you select “All hoopla Titles” then your library has excluded that item according to some rubric of its own. To request an item via Hoopla Digital you should do the same as for a physical item. Hoopla has a “Requests” feature, but there is no reason to believe that libraries monitor your Hoopla Requests. Of course, the library may refuse to unblock the item or ignore your request.

When reporting an incident where a library has refused to purchase, or in the case of Hoopla Digital, unblock an item, it is important to document everything as fully as possible. Most book request facilities are a simple web form; you may not receive any record of your request to keep for your records. So it is important when requesting an item to make a visual record of your request. Modern web browsers generally have good facilities for taking screenshots of your browser window and mobile devices have good facilities for taking screenshots of your whole screen. Save that image in an easy to find place, like a separate, clearly named folder, so you can use it to follow up with your library and if you report an incident to FAIR.

When you are ready to report an incident, use FAIR’s incident reporting portal, making sure to select “Public Library” for the “Type of Institution”. Your “Relationship to Institution” is most likely “patron”. Upload all supporting documents that you have available, including the shot of your original request, with dates. Make sure to include a screenshot demonstrating that for you, a patron, the book is unavailable and does not show up in your search results. This is absolutely essential evidence for requests for digital items, as it is usually impossible for anyone who has not logged in as a patron to see what selection a library is presenting to its patrons.

FAIR in Libraries looks forward to your submissions and thanks you for your contribution to making our public libraries fair for all.

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We welcome you to share your thoughts on this piece in the comments below. Click here to view our comment section moderation policy.

The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Fair For All or its employees.

In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diverse range of voices and to encouraging compassionate, good-faith discourse.

We are actively seeking perspectives on this topic and others. If you’d like to join the conversation, please send completed drafts to submissions@fairforall.org.

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For the past several years, watching a major entertainment awards show meant watching two events at once. First was the celebration of the actual talent - the performances, writing, directing, design, and hundreds of background artists and craftspeople who turn an idea into an event that connects with millions of people.

And then there was the politics.

Awards ceremonies have increasingly become platforms where artists are expected not merely to thank their collaborators and celebrate their work, but also to use their few minutes at the microphone to address the political issues of the moment and give audiences their passionate opinions.

But Monday night’s Emmy Awards was different. For the most part, the evening was about television. Oddly enough, an awards ceremony honoring television was about television, and the relative absence of partisan politics was conspicuous enough to make us wonder if the arts might be at a turning point. Has the principle at the heart of FAIR’s mission finally begun to catch on?

Art Was in The Spotlight !

Before the ceremony began, host Mariska Hargitay talked about television in a speech that could have been lifted from the website for FAIR in the Arts. Hargitay emphasized community, not ideology or activism. She talked about the remarkable ability of stories to bring people together, explaining that actors, directors, costumers, sound designers, and others participate in creating television that “unites us.”

The idea that art is where people with profoundly different lives and beliefs can join with one another through laughter, tears, a shared investment in a story, and ultimately our common humanity, is part of what makes the arts essential to a flourishing society. It seemed that on Monday night, Hollywood agreed. There was humor, gratitude, and nostalgia. Veteran artists were celebrated alongside newer talent. Writers, directors, and craftspeople behind the screen received recognition. In essence, what was finally being said is ‘it’s the work that matters.’

Politics stayed in the wings.

Stephen Colbert’s win for The Late Show was especially revealing. Few television personalities have been more closely associated with political commentary over the past decade. The cancellation of The Late Show became entangled in political controversy, and President Trump publicly celebrated its demise while repeatedly criticizing Colbert.

Clearly, the opportunity for a political broadside from the Emmy stage was great. But it didn’t happen. Instead, Colbert made a different choice: He thanked his staff, his family, the people who had appeared on the program, and the creative community that made the show possible.

Has Hollywood Changed the Script?

On Monday night Colbert showed that the Emmy Awards was not the place to share his political views with people who just want to know who won best actor in a comedy. This is not to say that artists don’t have the freedom to create political art and speak politically. They certainly do. But freedom of expression also means an artist should not have to adopt a political identity in order to belong to an artistic community, a point made by Pluribus creator, Vince Gilligan when he said “We will never agree on everything, but we can treat each other with respect.”

For much of the past decade, artists across disciplines have found that political assumptions were intertwined with artistic participation. Questions of representation and identity increasingly influenced not merely what artists discussed, but how institutions commissioned work, distributed opportunities, and even evaluated artistic achievement. Those sentiments weren’t evident during the ceremony.

While this year’s nominees reflected considerable racial and ethnic diversity, the winners in the major acting categories were predominantly white. In recent years, that outcome might itself have become a central storyline, measured against expectations for representation. This year, however, the emphasis seemed to remain largely on the individual performances and achievements being honored. Diversity in the pool of nominees suggests that artists from a wide range of backgrounds are being recognized for exceptional work. But genuine equality also leaves room for the results to be unpredictable. If identity should neither qualify nor disqualify an artist, excellence cannot be expected to produce a predetermined demographic outcome.

FAIR in the Arts exists to support a genuinely pluralistic artistic culture in which people who disagree, sometimes profoundly, can still make extraordinary things together. The Emmys presented something close to that ideal: an awards ceremony devoted to craft, writing, performance, and the creative magic that occurs when talented people create something exceptional.

Should we take this year’s Emmys as evidence of a larger cultural shift? Did producers recognize that audiences have grown weary of political speeches? Artists celebrating artists doesn’t seem like a remarkable thing, but right now it is. And if Monday night represented even the beginning of a renewed understanding that art can bring us together without first requiring us to agree, that truly is something worth celebrating.

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