Fair For All: Newsletter

FAIR in Charleston: Bringing Many Stories, One Nation to School Board Leaders

Fair For All — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 11:31:01 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

We’re thrilled to announce that FAIR will be attending the School Boards for Academic Excellence (SBAE) Summer Conference in Charleston, South Carolina. The event brings together school board members and education leaders from across the country who are navigating complex curriculum decisions for K-12 students. This will be an important opportunity for FAIR to introduce Many Stories, One Nation to those who often hold the greatest power in adoption conversations — and to show them a path to Ethnic Studies instruction without the polarization that has derailed adoption efforts in many communities.

Charleston itself holds particular significance this year. The historic city’s role in both America’s founding and the transatlantic slave trade illustrates the competing narratives that have often defined our national story. As our nation marks the 250th anniversary of its independence, Charleston reminds us that understanding America’s heritage requires grappling with competing narratives: the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence alongside the lived realities of enslaved people, settlers, and immigrants whose stories are often omitted or minimized in textbooks. That complexity is not something we should dismiss or ignore; it’s the foundation of responsible and educated citizenship.

The question for education leaders is: how do we teach these stories in a way that brings communities together rather than dividing them? That question is what inspired FAIR to assemble our team of educators to create Many Stories, One Nation.

Our work in California, Oregon, and Minnesota has taught us that decisions about Ethnic Studies adoption are rarely made by educators alone. Administrators and school board members, too, have legitimate stakes in what students are taught, yet these stakeholders often operate in a vacuum. They face pressure to choose curricula, but lack the information they need to evaluate these options critically.

School boards want a curriculum that won’t create controversy — and won’t sanitize history. Does it reflect their community’s values? Will it prepare students for college and careers? Will parents be skeptical, and how will board members address their concerns? They want assurance that their adoption efforts won’t invite backlash in their communities.

In Charleston, we’ll have direct conversations with education leaders about how Many Stories, One Nation addresses the real pressures they face. We’ll walk them through lesson materials and explore what adoption will look like in their districts.

Board members gain confidence when they understand FAIR’s unique approach: students learn not just that groups experienced history differently, but why. Through primary sources and civil discourse methodology, Many Stories, One Nation teaches students to engage deeply with difficult history without the ideological freight that often triggers parent complaints. FAIR’s curriculum gives school boards what they need to lead: Ethnic Studies material that’s academically rigorous and defensible in their communities.

Board members are navigating pressures most people don’t see: the need for rigorous instruction, community trust, and curricula that won’t undermine their credibility. FAIR is bringing a solution specifically designed to address those pressures. This is partnership-building at the level where it matters most. Stay tuned — we’ll share what we learn from these conversations in Charleston in our next update!

With gratitude,

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

The War on Words: A Conversation with Nadine Strossen

From college campuses to corporate boardrooms to the chambers of Congress, the pressure to restrict speech is intensifying, and it’s coming from every direction. Nadine Strossen and Greg Lukianoff have heard every argument for censorship, and they take each one apart in their new book, The War On Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech―And Why They Fail.

Join Fair For All’s Executive Director Monica Harris on Thursday June 11th, 4pm PT / 7pm ET, for a conversation with Strossen, a member of FAIR’s Board of Advisors and former ACLU president, as they dissect the case for censorship and what it will take to defend free expression in an era that is increasingly hostile to it.

This webinar will be livestreamed on FAIR’s X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Zoom.

The Canadian Free Speech Crisis with Lisa Bildy

Canada shares our values, our language, and our legal traditions — yet free speech there is under pressure in ways that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. FAIR Advisor Lisa Bildy of the Free Speech Union of Canada will walk us through the landscape: who’s being silenced, who’s pushing back, and the cultural pressures that are reshaping expression north of the border. Join us for a candid look at what’s happening in Canada and why it matters for all of us.

FAIR in Conversation is Back!

FAIR in Conversation has relaunched with a new monthly format built for this moment. We’re leaning away from books and into the issues themselves: the debates, decisions, and developments that are defining what fairness, free speech, and equal dignity mean in America, and beyond, right now.

Sessions will be virtual, open to all FAIR members, and designed to be as accessible as they are substantive. You don’t need to have read anything in advance. Just bring your curiosity, your willingness to listen, and your commitment to engage in good faith.

These are exactly the conversations America needs now, and we are committed to modeling them. Sessions will run monthly through September 23rd. We hope you’ll join us!

FAIR Educators Alliance 2025-2026

Join the FAIR Educators Alliance for the 2025–2026 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.

Following the 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.

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

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

When Conscience Meets Compelled Speech

Fair For All — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 11:30:31 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

This week, we shared the story of Laureen Boll, a substitute fitness instructor at South Suburban Parks and Recreation District (SSPRD) in the south Denver metro area. By her own description, she is not an activist; she is a mom, a fitness professional, and a person who simply wants to do her job.

Now her job is at risk — not because of anything she did, but because of something she refuses to say.

SSPRD recently updated its harassment policy to include the “deliberate use of the wrong name or gender pronouns.” For Laureen, complying would mean affirming beliefs she does not hold about gender identity. She treats every patron and coworker with courtesy and professionalism, and she uses neutral language wherever possible. But she will not be compelled to speak words she believes to be false. So she formally notified her employer of her refusal — and FAIR stood with her.

In March, FAIR sent a formal letter to SSPRD leadership putting the district on notice: compelling employees to use language that violates their sincerely held beliefs implicates the First Amendment, and FAIR is prepared to pursue legal remedies if Laureen faces discipline or termination as a result. We have not yet received a response from the district.

Laureen’s situation isn’t happening in a vacuum, and SSPRD is not the villain here; it is merely following Colorado state law. But that law, HB 25-1312 (the Kelly Loving Act), has pushed the state into genuinely difficult constitutional territory. The Act expands the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act to treat chosen names and preferred pronouns as protected aspects of “gender expression.” Refuse to use them in employment or public accommodations, and you risk a discrimination claim.

The result is that well-meaning public employers like SSPRD are caught in an untenable position: comply with the statute and risk infringing on the First Amendment rights of employees, or protect those constitutional rights and risk a confrontation with the state Civil Rights Commission. That isn’t a choice any employer should be forced to make, and it’s not a position any employee should be forced into simply for declining to affirm a contested ideological claim.

Like Laureen, FAIR believes that two things can be true at once: every person deserves to be treated with fairness and dignity — and no one should be required by the government, or a taxpayer-funded employer, to affirm beliefs they do not hold. These principles are not in conflict. They are both essential to a free society.

Laureen is standing her ground. FAIR is standing with her. We will keep you informed as this situation develops.

With gratitude,

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

The War on Words: A Conversation with Nadine Strossen

This webinar will be livestreamed on FAIR’s X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Zoom.

The Canadian Free Speech Crisis with Lisa Bildy

FAIR in Conversation is Back!

These are exactly the conversations America needs now, and we are committed to modeling them. Sessions will run monthly through September 23rd. We hope you’ll join us!

FAIR Educators Alliance 2025-2026

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

Join the FAIR Community

Pride Month and Parental Rights: Helping Families Navigate School Activities

Fair For All — Fri, 29 May 2026 13:30:59 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

June is Pride Month, and across the country, schools are planning assemblies, classroom activities, and student events tied to LGBTQ+ advocacy and identity politics. For many families, this raises a question that schools rarely address or answer clearly: Does my child have to participate?

The answer is no — and we want to make sure parents know this.

FAIR supports genuine inclusion for every student, including LGBTQ+ students. Every child deserves to be treated with dignity and to feel safe at school. At the same time, we believe that families hold the right to make decisions about values, identity, and belief systems for their own children. Students should never be pressured, penalized, or socially shamed for declining to participate in ideologically driven school activities.

These are principles we hold consistently, whether the activism comes from the left or the right.

This month, many schools will go beyond inclusion and cross into advocacy by asking students to affirm particular beliefs about gender, sexuality, and identity as part of classroom instruction or school-sponsored events. Some of these activities may implicate parental rights, free exercise protections, and students’ First Amendment right not to speak. When schools make participation mandatory or create social pressure that amounts to compelled affirmation, they risk violating the very civil rights principles they claim to uphold.

FAIR’s Pride Month Letter Template gives parents a practical, ready-to-use tool to protect their children’s rights, respectfully and effectively.

The letter helps parents:

Request that their child be excused from mandatory participation in Pride-related school activities
Invoke parental rights, student free speech protections, and the First Amendment principle that students cannot be compelled to affirm beliefs they don’t hold
Open a respectful, documented dialogue with school administrators

The letter is free to download, editable, and grounded in constitutional principles that apply regardless of where your family stands on these issues.

We want to be clear about what we are not doing.

We are not asking schools to ignore or demean LGBTQ+ students. We are not asking anyone to be unkind or disrespectful to their classmates or teachers.

We are asking schools to respect the full range of students and families they serve, including those whose religious beliefs, cultural backgrounds, or family values lead them to approach these issues and questions differently.

Schools should be places where every child can learn and grow, without being required to adopt any particular political or ideological identity. Every family deserves the tools to hold schools to that standard.

True inclusion means protecting every student’s right to be treated with dignity. It also means protecting every family’s right to guide their own children.

Producing and expanding these resources takes real support. Your donation helps us develop toolkits for parents navigating ideologically charged school environments and provide legal support to families whose children face retaliation for opting out of activities and events.

Download the template letter and donate today to help us keep these resources free and accessible.

With gratitude,

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

The War on Words: A Conversation with Nadine Strossen

This webinar will be livestreamed on FAIR’s X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Zoom.

FAIR in Conversation is Back!

These are exactly the conversations America needs now, and we are committed to modeling them. Sessions will run monthly through September 23rd. We hope you’ll join us!

FAIR Educators Alliance 2025-2026

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

Join the FAIR Community

FAIR's Washington Lawsuit Triggers a Federal Investigation

Fair For All — Fri, 22 May 2026 13:31:30 GMT

When FAIR filed its lawsuit last month on behalf of Faith Booher-Smith, an incarcerated woman at the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Gig Harbor, we knew her story deserved to be heard. This week, it was.

On May 19, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) formally notified Washington Governor Bob Ferguson that the federal government is opening an investigation into whether Washington’s practice of housing male inmates in its women’s prison violates the constitutional rights of female prisoners. The DOJ will examine whether Washington engages in a pattern or practice of Eighth Amendment violations, including its response to allegations of sexual assault, rape, voyeurism, and sexual intimidation at the facility.

Faith’s story is also reaching a national audience. Fox News reported on her lawsuit earlier this month, and the Washington State Standard covered the DOJ investigation this week. When major outlets cover a case like Faith’s, it becomes harder to look away.

This is a significant development, and it begins with one woman's courage.

Faith is a woman serving at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (“WCCW”). She is not a symbol or a political argument. She is a person who, in August 2025, was violently attacked in a common area of the facility where she lives. According to her federal lawsuit, the man who attacked her approached from behind, struck her in the face, grabbed her hair, threw her to the ground, and kicked her repeatedly. She suffered facial bruising, swelling, and a laceration inside her mouth. A corrections officer was present and did not intervene.

The man who attacked her is a convicted sex offender with a documented history of violence. He had been transferred into the women’s facility under Washington’s gender-identity housing policy, which allows inmates to request placement based on self-identified gender. A corrections official at his prior facility had specifically warned against the transfer. That warning was not heeded.

In the weeks before the attack, Faith had noticed the inmate watching her and had tried to avoid him. She had nowhere to go. She could not leave. The state had placed her there, and the state had placed him there, too.

Faith came forward despite the vulnerabilities that come with being incarcerated and despite the difficulty of bringing a federal lawsuit from behind prison walls. Her courage in doing so has now contributed to a federal investigation that may protect women across Washington’s corrections system.

Faith’s lawsuit, which FAIR brought in partnership with the America First Policy Institute, argues that her attack was not an isolated incident. It alleges that other women at WCCW have been physically assaulted, threatened, intimidated, and sexually harassed by male inmates housed alongside them, and that state officials were on notice about these risks long before Faith was hurt.

FAIR has members currently incarcerated at the Washington Corrections Center for Women. They have come to us directly, describing harm and fear resulting from this policy. Their identities cannot be disclosed for their own protection, but their voices inform everything we do in this case. This is not an abstract legal argument for us. It’s personal.

FAIR is committed to defending equal protection for all under the law, without exception and without regard to which group is affected. That commitment is grounded in a recognition shared by our members across the political spectrum: that biological sex is a meaningful and legally significant category, particularly in settings like incarceration where physical safety depends on it. When women in state custody are exposed to foreseeable harm because of a policy that places ideology above that reality, that is an equal protection issue. It’s also a civil rights issue. The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Housing women with male inmates who have histories of violence and sexual offenses, and then failing to protect those women when harm occurs, is not a gray area.

FAIR has been consistent in its respect for the dignity of all people: equal protection means equal protection for everyone. The women inside Washington’s corrections system have the same constitutional rights as everyone else, and a government that cannot guarantee their physical safety has failed its most basic obligation. This case is not about hostility toward any group; it’s about a specific policy that has produced documented harm to incarcerated women, and about the legal and constitutional obligations of the state to prevent that harm.

We do not take cases because they are politically convenient. A prison cell does not diminish anyone's constitutional rights, and when those rights are violated, FAIR pays attention — regardless of who the victim is or where she lives.

The DOJ’s investigation does not guarantee a favorable outcome for Faith, but it’s a meaningful signal that the concerns raised in her lawsuit, and by women at WCCW more broadly, have triggered federal scrutiny. When the DOJ writes a formal letter to a sitting governor saying we are watching what is happening in your women’s prison, that matters.

We will continue to stand with Faith. We will keep you informed as this case develops, and we are grateful to everyone in this community who supports the principle that civil rights are not conditional.

Cases like Faith's are possible because of supporters like you.

Federal civil rights litigation is complex and costly, and FAIR is committed to seeing this through. If you would like to support our litigation, please consider making a donation today. Every contribution helps us stand with people like Faith who have no one else in their corner.

With gratitude,

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

Donate

The War on Words: A Conversation with Nadine Strossen

This webinar will be livestreamed on FAIR’s X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Zoom.

FAIR in Conversation is Back!

This month’s topic: What happens when certain questions become too dangerous to ask? Join FAIR In Conversation on Wednesday, May 27th, 8pm ET, for a discussion on taboo topics, alleged hoaxes, and the role of open inquiry in the search for truth.

Each session will center on a pressing topic of the day, drawing on a curated mix of articles, book summaries, short essays, podcasts, films, and other multimedia resources to ground the conversation before opening the floor for discussion. Sessions will be virtual, open to all FAIR members, and designed to be as accessible as they are substantive. You don’t need to have read anything in advance. Just bring your curiosity, your willingness to listen, and your commitment to engage in good faith.

These are exactly the conversations America needs now, and we are committed to modeling them. Sessions will run monthly from April 29th to September 23rd. We hope you’ll join us!

FAIR Educators Alliance 2025-2026

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

Join the FAIR Community

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FAIR’s Curriculum Takes the Stage in Philadelphia — and Competes for a $10,000 Prize

Fair For All — Fri, 15 May 2026 12:01:33 GMT

We have exciting news to share: FAIR is a finalist in the Jack Miller Center’s Civics Innovator Competition, and our own Dr. Adam Seagrave will be presenting on the national stage at the 2026 National Summit on Civic Education in Philadelphia next week.

This is a major achievement for FAIR, and we want you to celebrate it with us.

Each year, the Jack Miller Center — one of the nation’s most respected organizations dedicated to civic education and the principles of America’s founding — brings together educators, scholars, policymakers, and philanthropists from across the country to advance the cause of civic renewal in American schools. This year’s summit, themed around the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary and the enduring relevance of the American founding, promises to be one of the most significant gatherings in civic education in recent memory.

And FAIR is proud to be part of it.

Dr. Seagrave, one of FAIR’s lead curriculum developers, is an Associate Professor in the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University and co-founder and co-director of the Race and the American Story Project. His academic work sits at the intersection of civic thought and the American political foundations that FAIR’s Many Stories, One Nation curriculum was designed to explore.

At the summit, Dr. Seagrave will present highlights from our curriculum and bring FAIR’s educational vision to a national audience of donors, thought leaders, and civics professionals. His presence reflects the caliber of expertise driving our curriculum: rigorous, principled, and deeply committed to helping students understand who we are as Americans and what our founding ideals demand of us as citizens.

FAIR has been selected as a finalist in the Jack Miller Center’s Civics Innovator Competition, a “Shark Tank”-style pitch competition in which selected organizations present their projects before a live audience for a chance to win $10,000. This unique competition identifies bold, catalytic projects with the potential to shape civic education for generations, and we believe Many Stories, One Nation does this, and much more.

Three winners will be selected by breakout session attendees on Tuesday, May 19, and will then be promoted to a national audience of donors and education leaders. The $10,000 prize would directly support FAIR’s continued work to bring this curriculum into schools across the country, funding teacher training, outreach, and the materials that make lasting adoption possible.

Many Stories, One Nation does something rare in today’s educational landscape: it teaches the full, complex story of America without resorting to division. At a time when polarization is rising, public school enrollment is declining, and civic knowledge is at historic lows, our curriculum offers students something they desperately need: meaningful, honest, and unifying civic education. FAIR’s curriculum encourages students to see themselves not as adversaries, but as participants in a shared national — engaging with our history and principles as allies in building the foundation for a better future.

This summit is an opportunity to expand FAIR’s educational network and introduce our curriculum to the educators who need it most. Stay tuned — we’ll report back after the event with updates on Dr. Seagrave’s presentation, the competition results, and the new connections made on behalf of the students and communities we serve.

Moments like this don’t happen without the support of people who believe, as you do, that American students deserve better. If this recognition inspires you, please consider making a gift to FAIR. Every dollar goes directly toward bringing our curriculum into more classrooms, training more teachers, and reaching more students. The Jack Miller Center has given us a national stage. Help us make the most of it.

Donate now and help us win and grow from our work in Philadelphia.

We are incredibly grateful for this recognition and energized by the opportunity ahead. FAIR was built on the conviction that American civic education can, and must, do better. Philadelphia is our next step toward making that vision real.

Onward,

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

Donate

The War on Words: A Conversation with Nadine Strossen

This webinar will be livestreamed on FAIR’s X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Zoom.

FAIR in Conversation is Back!

These are exactly the conversations America needs now, and we are committed to modeling them. Sessions will run monthly from April 29th to September 23rd. We hope you’ll join us!

FAIR Educators Alliance 2025-2026

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

Join the FAIR Community

Defending Library Neutrality: FAIR Stands With the Association of Library Professionals

Fair For All — Wed, 06 May 2026 11:25:49 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

This week, we are spotlighting an organization asking one of the most consequential questions of our moment: How can libraries remain trusted civic institutions in a polarized world? That organization is the Association of Library Professionals (ALP).

For generations, libraries have functioned as a bedrock of civic life: spaces where anyone, regardless of their background or belief, could access information freely, without being steered toward a particular conclusion or political or social agenda. Yet this principled commitment to open inquiry is increasingly under pressure. ALP was founded to guide librarianship back to its founding principle, centering the needs of individual patrons and communities through institutional neutrality, open inquiry, and respect for intellectual autonomy. At a time when “intellectual freedom” often means different things to different people, ALP offers a clear and consistent vision: libraries exist to serve the reader, not to shape what the reader thinks or believes.

FAIR is inspired by ALP’s focus on viewpoint diversity, the belief that a healthy civic culture depends on exposure to a genuine diversity of viewpoints. ALP’s commitment to excellence and professional integrity, equipping librarians with the tools and community support to uphold freedom of expression in their institutions, reflects the principled, nonpartisan advocacy FAIR admires.

If you share our admiration for ALP’s work, we invite you to join FAIR in Libraries, our professional network for library staff, trustees, and engaged citizens who believe that libraries should be places of discovery, not indoctrination. Members gain access to a supportive network of peers, shared resources for navigating workplace challenges, and a collective voice advocating for neutrality and excellence in our public and academic institutions.

As it works to inspire a new generation of librarians and to return to these timeless values, ALP is proving that neutrality is not a lack of conviction, but a profound commitment to the freedom of the individual. By focusing on how we think rather than what we think, ALP is helping to preserve libraries as sanctuaries for free thought.

Whether you are a seasoned library director or a dedicated patron, your voice matters in preserving these vital spaces. The library has always been one of democracy's best ideas. Help keep it that way. Join FAIR in Libraries & Join the Association of Library Professionals

With Gratitude,
The Fair For All Team

Donate

* Join Our Webinar Tonight * The Body-Mind Connection: Rethinking How Medicine Approaches Adolescent Development

Join FAIR and Dr. Kendra Kautz, DC *TONIGHT* Wednesday, May 6th, 4pm PT / 7pm ET, for a candid conversation about what parents are often not told before a prescription is written and what questions they have every right to ask.

Drawing on real cases and peer-reviewed research, this webinar will explore the physiological context behind adolescent symptoms and ask what informed consent should really mean before a family agrees to a prescription that could change a developing brain.

This webinar will be livestreamed on FAIR’s X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Zoom.

Need a primer? Here’s the latest article by Dr. Kendra Kautz:

FAIR in Conversation is Back!

These are exactly the conversations America needs now, and we are committed to modeling them. Sessions will run monthly from April 29th to September 23rd. We hope you’ll join us!

FAIR Educators Alliance 2025-2026

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

Join the FAIR Community

FAIR Takes Legal Action to Protect Incarcerated Women in Washington State

Fair For All — Sat, 02 May 2026 11:01:25 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

FAIR was founded on the principle that equal protection isn’t a principle that applies only to some people in some settings. It applies to everyone, including women who are incarcerated and wholly dependent on the state for their safety. That is the conviction behind FAIR’s decision to file suit this week against the Washington State Department of Corrections (WSDC).

This is a significant moment for our organization and for the women at the center of this fight. The lawsuit, filed in partnership with the America First Policy Institute, alleges that the WSDC’s policy of housing male inmates who identify as women in the state’s women’s facility has subjected female inmates to violence, sexual abuse, intimidation, and ongoing fear. Fair For All filed alongside co-plaintiff Faith Booher-Smith, a female inmate at the facility who alleges she was violently attacked by a male inmate transferred there under this policy.

Our complaint alleges that Washington officials continued enforcing this policy despite prior incidents, prior litigation, and direct complaints from women in their custody. Female inmates have been forced to share cells, showers, bathrooms, and other intimate living spaces with male inmates — stripped of the sex-based protections a women’s facility is supposed to provide. The lawsuit asserts that WSDC’s policy violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

Women in custody have no choice about where they live or who they live with. They depend entirely on the state for their safety. When the state knowingly places women at risk and ignores repeated warnings, the Constitution requires accountability. These women have no voice in the ordinary sense. They can’t organize, they can’t speak to the press, they can’t walk away. What they can do is have an organization stand with them in court, and that’s what FAIR is doing.

This isn’t a debate about policy preferences. A woman was attacked, officials had been warned, but they continued the policy anyway. The only question here is whether the state intends to honor its constitutional obligations. Equal protection under the law is the foundation of FAIR’s work. We believe constitutional rights are not selective. The same Fourteenth Amendment that protects people from race-based discrimination, viewpoint discrimination, and unequal treatment in education protects incarcerated women from being knowingly exposed to foreseeable harm by the state.

Since filing our complaint, we have had direct conversations with attorneys in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) about this case, and those conversations have produced a significant development: the DOJ has invited FAIR to formally request a Statement of Interest in our Washington litigation.

This matters enormously. A Statement of Interest is a formal filing in which the federal government provides a court with its recommended framework for evaluating the constitutional claims at stake. It signals that the federal government has a direct interest in how the law is interpreted, and that signal carries substantial weight with judges.

The DOJ has announced investigations into similar policies at women’s correctional facilities in California and Maine, and FAIR’s Washington case presents the same constitutional questions. A Statement of Interest by the DOJ would extend the government’s constitutional framework to our litigation and strengthen the legal foundation for the women we represent. We are preparing that request now and will keep you informed as this process moves forward.

This case reflects the essence of who we are and what FAIR stands for. Equal protection isn’t a partisan value; it’s an American one, and this litigation is proof of that conviction in action.

Litigation like this is only possible because of the support of people who believe, as we do, that civil rights belong to everyone. If you are able to contribute to FAIR’s advocacy efforts, please consider making a donation today. Every contribution directly supports our ability to defend and protect Americans whose rights are most at risk.

With gratitude,

Monica Harris

Executive Director, FAIR

The Body-Mind Connection: Rethinking How Medicine Approaches Adolescent Development

Mood swings, difficulty focusing, disrupted sleep, irregular periods are all hallmarks of adolescence and not necessarily signs of disorder. Yet antidepressant prescriptions for teens have risen 66% in six years, ADHD diagnoses now affect more than 6 million children, and hormonal contraception is routinely prescribed to teenage girls for symptoms that may reflect normal development. Join FAIR and on Wednesday, May 6th, 4pm PT / 7pm ET, for a candid conversation about what parents are often not told before a prescription is written and what questions they have every right to ask. Drawing on real cases and peer-reviewed research, this webinar will explore the physiological context behind adolescent symptoms and ask what informed consent should really mean before a family agrees to a prescription that could change a developing brain.

FAIR in Conversation is Back!

These are exactly the conversations America needs now, and we are committed to modeling them. Sessions will run monthly from April 29th to September 23rd. We hope you’ll join us!

FAIR Educators Alliance 2025-2026

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

Join the FAIR Community

FAIR at Harvard: Bringing Intellectual Vitality to K-12 Education

Fair For All — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:31:25 GMT

Photo by Xiangkun ZHU on Unsplash

Dear Friends of FAIR,

Last month, FAIR Executive Director Monica Harris joined a distinguished group of scholars, legal experts, and education leaders for “Building a Culture of Dialogue: A Conversation with Harvard’s Intellectual Vitality Initiative,” hosted by Harvard Alumni for Free Speech. Co-sponsored by FAIR and the Council on Academic Freedom, the conversation explored what it actually takes to cultivate intellectual diversity and open inquiry — on Harvard’s campus and beyond.

In addition to Monica, the panel featured Harvard faculty and institutional leaders Professor Danielle Allen, Edward J. Hall, Ari Kohn, and John Evangelakos. Together, they examined the state of free inquiry at universities, the institutional conditions that make genuine dialogue possible, and the challenge of building cultures where disagreement is not just tolerated but genuinely valued.

Watch the full conversation here:

Monica’s contribution to the conversation brought a dimension often missing from discussions about free expression in higher education: what students are bringing with them when they arrive. If universities are serious about intellectual vitality, the work has to start earlier.

FAIR’s Many Stories, One Nation curriculum is designed to give high school students the tools for exactly this kind of intellectual engagement. During the panel, Monica highlighted two key frameworks at the heart of the curriculum.

The first is logical fallacy identification. Students learn to recognize common errors in reasoning such as straw man arguments, false dichotomies, ad hominem attacks, and more. What makes this instruction distinctive is its direction: students are taught to identify these fallacies in their own thinking, not just in the arguments of others. This self-scrutiny is harder, and more important. It asks students to develop a habit of intellectual honesty that most adults have never been formally taught.

The second framework Monica discussed is one she describes as among the most powerful in the curriculum: the Competing Goods framework.

The premise is straightforward, but its implications are profound. Most genuine controversies, the curriculum teaches, don’t pit a good argument against a bad one. Instead, they pit two legitimate values against each other. Safety versus freedom. Individual rights versus community welfare. Tradition versus progress. Equality versus excellence. In each case, both sides are protecting something real, but the disagreement arises because people prioritize those goods differently, and that prioritization reflects deeply held values, not ignorance or malice.

FAIR’s curriculum encourages students to ask: What is the “other side” actually trying to protect or defend? What legitimate concern is driving their position? Can I understand why a reasonable person with different priorities might reach a different conclusion?

This reframing doesn’t require abandoning convictions or pretending that all positions are equally valid; students can still take sides. But the framework changes the nature of the disagreement. Instead of “my side is right and your side is wrong,” the question becomes: “How do we navigate a genuine tension between things we both care about?” This shift from winning to understanding is what makes productive dialogue possible.

As Monica noted during the panel, this disconnect is at the root of much of the divisive public discourse we see today. When people can’t recognize that the “other side” is protecting something legitimate, they default to assuming bad faith. The conversation degrades into combat. The Competing Goods framework gives students a way out of that trap. Instead of avoiding hard questions, they’re taught to approach them with greater intellectual sophistication.

Open inquiry doesn’t begin or end on a college campus. It’s a cultural challenge, and culture is built over time, through practice, and by equipping young people with the skills and dispositions that genuine dialogue requires.

For educators and administrators interested in bringing FAIR’s Many Stories, One Nation curriculum to their students, or for anyone who wants to learn more about our work to strengthen civil discourse in K-12 education, you can explore it here or contact monica@fairforall.org.

The conversation at Harvard was a reminder of what’s possible when we take seriously the work of building a better public square. We’re proud to be part of it.

With gratitude,
The FAIR Team

The Lost Art of Listening: Building Empathy Across Differences

Join FAIR Advisors and for this upcoming webinar, moderated by FAIR Executive Director Monica Harris. We will discuss the need to develop emotional intelligence and perspective-enhancing skills and how deep listening strengthens democratic participation and community bonds. This theme also supports FAIR's commitment to respectful civil discourse, which is a foundational element of our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.

Read on the topic of empathy for our Substack this week:

The Body-Mind Connection: Rethinking How Medicine Approaches Adolescent Development

Mood swings, difficulty focusing, disrupted sleep, irregular periods are all hallmarks of adolescence and not necessarily signs of disorder. Yet antidepressant prescriptions for teens have risen 66% in six years, ADHD diagnoses now affect more than 6 million children, and hormonal contraception is routinely prescribed to teenage girls for symptoms that may reflect normal development. Join FAIR and for a candid conversation about what parents are often not told before a prescription is written and what questions they have every right to ask. Drawing on real cases and peer-reviewed research, this webinar will explore the physiological context behind adolescent symptoms and ask what informed consent should really mean before a family agrees to a prescription that could change a developing brain.

FAIR Educators Alliance 2025-2026

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

Join the FAIR Community

FAIR Celebrates Volunteer Month Where It Matters: In Your Community

Fair For All — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 11:31:33 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

Since FAIR’s founding, we’ve advocated for pro-human values, civil liberties, and viewpoint diversity in courtrooms, in classrooms, and in workplaces. But these values don’t take root through advocacy alone. They take root when people gather in town halls, school board meetings, and local libraries to have honest conversations about the kind of institutions they want.

April is National Volunteer Month, a reminder that the values we advocate live in the communities you’re building every day. FAIR has a strong and growing Chapter network, and Volunteer Month inspires us to invest in making it even more robust by supporting the leaders who carry our mission into their communities. Every dollar donated to FAIR Chapters this month goes directly toward equipping them to do the work that can only be done at the local level:

Bring expert voices to communities. Fund travel and honorariums to bring speakers and thought leaders directly to local audiences.

Organize civil discourse events. Host town halls, coffee chats and other gatherings where community members can learn to respectfully disagree and find common ground.

Print and distribute curriculum materials. Give parents, educators, and school administrators a firsthand look at what a balanced, rigorous alternative to Liberated Ethnic Studies can look like.

None of this happens without your support. A direct gift this month can transform your local Chapter’s vision into reality.

If you want to see an example of FAIR Chapters in action, look no further than the Twin Cities. This month, supporters in Minnesota are hosting a series of community preview events for FAIR’s curriculum, Many Stories, One Nation, in partnership with the Minnesota Partnership for Achievement:

White Bear Lake — Monday, April 21, 6:30–8:00 PM
Anoka Hennepin — Monday, April 28, 7:00–8:30 PM
Elk River — Wednesday, April 30, 5:30–7:30 PM

If you live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and are interested in attending any of these sessions, you can register here.

What’s happening in Minnesota is a model, and it’s one we can replicate nationwide. When chapters are resourced and energized, they become the infrastructure that keeps schools and other institutions balanced and creates communities where honest disagreement and shared humanity can coexist.

That’s what we’re building toward in 2026, and your support is what makes it possible.

If you’re ready to give, donate here. If you’re ready to organize, reach out to your local chapter leader or contact us directly. Whatever your capacity, there’s a place for you in this work.

This April, we hope you’ll move beyond conversation and into your community. The future we’re working toward isn’t built in a single courtroom or a single classroom. It’s built by people like you, showing up where it matters most.

With gratitude,
The FAIR Team

Donate Here

Join Us

The Lost Art of Listening: Building Empathy Across Differences

The Body-Mind Connection: Rethinking How Medicine Approaches Adolescent Development

Mood swings, difficulty focusing, disrupted sleep, irregular periods are all hallmarks of adolescence and not necessarily signs of disorder. Yet antidepressant prescriptions for teens have risen 66% in six years, ADHD diagnoses now affect more than 6 million children, and hormonal contraception is routinely prescribed to teenage girls for symptoms that may reflect normal development. Join FAIR and for a candid conversation about what parents are often not told before a prescription is written and what questions they have every right to ask. Drawing on real cases and peer-reviewed research, this webinar will explore the physiological context behind adolescent symptoms and ask what informed consent should really mean before a family agrees to a prescription that could change a developing brain.

Read Dr. Kendra Kautz on our Substack this week:

FAIR Educators Alliance 2025-2026

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

Join the FAIR Community

FAIR in Conversation is Back and We Have Plenty to Talk About

Fair For All — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 11:03:00 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

Books are powerful. They invite us to slow down and sit with difficult ideas. They provide a common language for important discussions. Last year FAIR in Conversation gave our community a dedicated forum to explore sensitive issues, engage across differences, and practice respectful civil discourse. And we’re proud of the community we built.

Today, the need for engaged conversation is greater than ever.

From our courts and classrooms to our cultural institutions, the rate of that change has outrun the publication schedule. Legislative battles, viral controversies, and landmark research are reshaping the landscape of civil rights, free expression, and fairness, and our members are hungry to discuss these developments in real time.

That’s why, on April 29th, FAIR in Conversation is relaunching with a new monthly format built for this moment.

We’re leaning away from books and into the issues themselves: the debates, decisions, and developments that are defining what fairness, free speech, and equal dignity mean in America, and beyond, right now. Each session will center on a pressing topic of the day, drawing on a curated mix of articles, book summaries, short essays, podcasts, films, and other multimedia resources to ground the conversation before opening the floor for discussion.

The goal isn’t to reach consensus. The goal is to model the kind of open, honest, good-faith dialogue that is increasingly rare, and to do so across the full range of perspectives that make FAIR’s community so valuable.

What might we discuss? The Supreme Court’s recent wave of First Amendment decisions and their impact on everyday Americans – teachers, students, and doctors. Ethnic studies mandates and the debate over how race and ethnicity are taught in schools. The constitutional rights of parents to direct the upbringing, care, and control of their children. The science of gender medicine and the institutions caught in the middle. Artificial intelligence and what it means for equality, creativity, and human dignity.

There is no shortage of topics that affect all of us, no shortage of FAIR members who want to engage them seriously.

These are exactly the conversations America needs now, and we are committed to modeling them. Sessions will run monthly from April 29th to September 23rd. We hope you’ll join us! Sign up here to join FAIR in Conversation this season.

With gratitude,
The FAIR Team

FAIR in Conversation (FiC) meets virtually from April to September. Registration is free for all FAIR members. Not a member yet? Sign up for FiC and become one here:

Culture in Psychotherapy — Without the Corrosion of Identity Politics

Join FAIR in partnership with Dr. Douglas Novotny for this Continuing Education course. Amid today’s culture wars, Identity Politics has corroded the teaching and practice of psychotherapy. Many people on both sides feel distrustful, alienated, and/or demoralized. This course gives a structural model for clinical work that re-enlivens moral depth — without moralism. The goal of this course is to clarify concepts and conflicts that impact both daily life and clinical settings.

Research indicates that ideological diversity — seeing topics from different points of view — improves psychology. This course builds on FAIR Advisor ‘s Moral Foundations Theory, a cultural lens to grasp differences across cultures, within cultures, and the experiences of clients and students encountered by therapists. Specific clinical applications will be explored, and critiques and competing moral models will be considered. This structural model helps to explain interpersonal divisions (and intra-psychic ones) and offers ways to bridge them through deep cultural understanding and relational attunement.

This course is available now: March 18th - April 18th (self-paced Home Study) and TODAY (Wednesday, April 8th). Course fee: $69 (+ $20 if requesting Continuing Ed. Certificate)

Heterodox Libraries Spring 2026 Symposium: HUMAN AUTHORSHIP

Join FAIR Board Member Heather Blakeslee in conversation with Bret Weinstein at the Heterodox Libraries (HxLibraries) Spring Symposium: HUMAN AUTHORSHIP. This Friday, April 10th, 2026 from 11am - 3pm U.S. CT (convert time zone) via Zoom. Join us for this FREE virtual event to celebrate creativity and the human experience.

Read the full event description and register here.

HxLibraries Spring Symposium

The Lost Art of Listening: Building Empathy Across Differences

FAIR Educator Alliance 2025-2026

FAIR has launched the Educators Alliance for the 2025–2026 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.

Each monthly gathering will open with updates and presentations from FAIR staff, fellows, Chapter Leaders, and occasional guest speakers. Together, we’ll explore strategies to support educators, communities, and local chapters—and to advance positive change at the local, regional, and national levels. Following the 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.

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom
Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

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

What We Learned in California: Even Ethnic Studies Teachers Want Something Different

Fair For All — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 11:02:23 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

Last month, FAIR attended the California Council for the Social Studies (CCSS) conference in Garden Grove, and what we encountered there reinforced our belief that we have created a solution educators genuinely need.

Dr. Adam Seagrave’s presentation, How to Teach the Declaration of Independence and Ethnic Studies Together, drew a standing-room-only crowd. Educators were invited to explore the Declaration’s meaning across diverse American historical experiences and its global resonances, while engaging directly with primary sources, lesson plans, and other materials from Many Stories, One Nation. The interest was visible in real time. While Dr. Seagrave was still speaking, I watched several attendees visit FAIR’s website to examine the curriculum for themselves.

The energy carried over to our exhibitor booth the next day. Teachers stopped by specifically to say they had attended the session, found it compelling and thought-provoking, and wanted to learn more. Many signed up to receive information about bringing Many Stories, One Nation to their schools.

But what struck us more than the number of teachers who stopped by was what they told us. Teachers expressed the kind of urgency that comes when people feel a need acutely and are relieved to discover that a solution exists.

Again and again, educators told us they were drawn to Many Stories, One Nation for reasons that go to the heart of how FAIR’s curriculum was designed. Rather than treating the experiences of ethnic groups in isolation, our approach is chronological and integrated. Students encounter different communities in historical context as participants in a shared American experience, grappling together with the forces that have shaped the nation across time. Teachers told us this felt both more honest and more teachable than curricula that silo groups into separate, disconnected units. One educator described it as the difference between a mosaic and a collage: the pieces in Many Stories, One Nation actually connect.

The civil discourse component generated its own wave of enthusiasm. Teachers described classrooms that have become genuinely difficult to navigate, where students arrive with strong, often opposing convictions about history, identity, and belonging, and where a single discussion can fracture rather than build community. Several told us they had been looking for structured tools to help students engage across those differences with both rigor and respect. The civil discourse exercises woven throughout Many Stories, One Nation gave them exactly what they had been searching for: a pedagogically grounded way to model disagreement without division.

Perhaps the most surprising conversations were with teachers whose schools have already adopted Ethnic Studies curricula. Several educators approached us specifically because they were looking for a balanced alternative that met California’s Ethnic Studies standards while offering a more unifying frame. They were frank about the limitations they have encountered with existing materials and genuinely curious about whether Many Stories, One Nation could serve as a complement or a replacement. That these conversations happened at all is a measure of how much space exists in the market for what Fair For All has built.

The FAIR team left CCSS with something we did not entirely expect: momentum in a state that has led the national push for Ethnic Studies mandates. We are actively following up with the educators we met and are more confident than ever that we will reach our goal of introducing Many Stories, One Nation in five schools this fall. Our conversations in Garden Grove, and the enthusiasm we encountered at the Minnesota Council for the Social Studies conference in February, tell the same story: educators are ready, and the demand is real. To meet it, we need your help.

If you are a California or Minnesota educator interested in learning more, we would love to hear from you: info@manystoriesonenation.com. If you are a supporter who wants to put this curriculum in front of more teachers, here is what we are working to fund right now:

On-the-ground professional development. A curriculum is only as strong as the teachers who deliver it. We are committed to providing in-person training and ongoing support to every school that adopts our curriculum, and we need resources to make that possible.

Expanding the curriculum from one semester to a full year. A full-year course would deepen student engagement and broaden adoption possibilities in schools planning their fall schedules.

Aligning the curriculum with Minnesota’s Ethnic Studies standards. The enthusiasm we encountered in Minnesota was real, and we intend to honor it. Alignment will require an additional review by the Johns Hopkins School of Education, and we are ready to move forward the moment funding is in place.

Fall is closer than it seems. Schools are making curriculum decisions now, and every week matters. If you believe, as we do, that American students deserve an ethnic studies education that unifies rather than divides, please consider making a gift today.

Every gift helps us grow this curriculum, reach new states, and train more educators to teach an American story that includes all of us.

With gratitude,

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

Make a Gift to FAIR

Culture in Psychotherapy — Without the Corrosion of Identity Politics

Join FAIR in partnership with Dr. Douglas Novotny for this upcoming course: Amid today’s culture wars, Identity Politics has corroded the teaching and practice of psychotherapy. Many people on both sides feel distrustful, alienated, and/or demoralized. This course gives a structural model for clinical work that re-enlivens moral depth — without moralism. The goal of this course is to clarify concepts and conflicts that impact both daily life and clinical settings.

Research indicates that ideological diversity — seeing topics from different points of view — improves psychology. This course builds on FAIR Advisor ‘s Moral Foundations Theory, a cultural lens to grasp differences across cultures, within cultures, and the experiences of clients and students encountered by therapists. Specific clinical applications will be explored, and critiques and competing moral models will be considered. This structural model helps to explain interpersonal divisions (and intra-psychic ones) and offers ways to bridge them through deep cultural understanding and relational attunement.

This course is available now March 18th - April 18th (self-paced Home Study) and April 8th. Course fee: $69 (+ $20 if requesting Continuing Ed. Certificate)

P.S. Read Dr. this week on our Substack:

The Lost Art of Listening: Building Empathy Across Differences

The Open Therapy Institute (OTI) is at the forefront of a burgeoning area of mental health care, developing innovative, evidence-based tools to help people, support professionals, and address social issues. Whether you’re a mental health professional, a patient, the leader of an organization, or just a citizen looking for openness and dialogue, OTI is developing solutions to help make things better.

Membership is for professionals in mental health fields including psychologists, counselors, social workers, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, pastoral counselors, and researchers. Membership is open to applicants internationally.

Apply

FAIR Educator Alliance 2025-2026

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom
Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

Join the FAIR Community

Speak Up or Stay Silent: Every Student's Right to Protest

Fair For All — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 11:31:28 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

The act of peaceful student protest is one of the most deeply embedded traditions in American culture. From the Civil Rights movement with its sit-ins, walkouts, and freedom rides to the Vietnam War protests that reshaped the national conversation on free speech and academic expression, student activism has consistently served to highlight the most important issues of each generation. This year, student walkouts protesting ICE enforcement actions made national headlines and with them came an important reminder about the legal boundaries that govern student protest.

The First Amendment protects public school students’ right to engage in peaceful protest so long as it does not materially and substantially interfere with the operation of the school. In many of the ICE-related walkouts, that line was crossed. Students left campuses without permission, parents were not notified, and in some cases adults organized minors into political action without parental knowledge or consent. Students faced suspension, and in some jurisdictions, adult organizers and participants faced legal liability. The right to protest is real and constitutionally protected. So are the limits.

Friday, April 10, marks the 30th annual Day of Silence, as promoted by Glisten, an organization whose focus is to “advise on, advocate for, and research comprehensive policies designed to protect LGBTQ students as well as students of marginalized identities.” Students who choose to participate remain silent during portions of the school day to show their support of and solidarity with members of the LGBTQ community. Some students may also choose to dress in all-black clothing or wear pins explaining their protest.

The same constitutional principle applies here. The First Amendment protects public school students’ right to participate in the Day of Silence so long as it does not materially and substantially interfere with the operation of the school. And when students choose not to participate, the First Amendment protects them as well.

We at FAIR seek to deliver on our mission by supporting diversity without division. The Day of Silence can be an occasion for students to honor their many differences. On the other hand, we have also seen instances where the Day of Silence leads to unfortunate and unnecessary division among students. In these cases, students feel so ostracized that they withdraw from class participation or avoid attending school altogether.

Whether the issue is immigration enforcement, LGBTQ solidarity, or any other cause students feel moved to speak out about, the constitutional framework is the same, and every parent, student, and school administrator deserves to understand it clearly. That is why we have drafted a template available for all to use. This template discusses the important constitutional protections and limitations at play in student protests of all kinds, including the Day of Silence. If you feel that a thoughtful dialogue with your child’s school on this topic would be valuable, this letter is for you.

You can download the letter here in Word format and amend the highlighted portions to fit your needs. We encourage you to share this helpful resource with your friends and family as well. As always, if your child experiences a violation of their civil or constitutional rights at school, please submit an incident report on FAIR Transparency.

Every day, FAIR works to ensure that our schools and communities remain places where open dialogue, mutual respect, and true equality under the law can thrive. But we can’t do this alone. Your donation today helps us continue to create resources like the student rights letter, respond to incidents of discrimination, and provide guidance to families and educators navigating these complex issues.

Donate here and stand with us in protecting the rights of every student and family.

Together, we can keep fairness at the heart of America’s classrooms and communities.

Warmly,
The FAIR Team

Donate to Support FAIR

Culture in Psychotherapy — Without the Corrosion of Identity Politics

Join FAIR with Dr. Douglas Novotny for this upcoming course: Amid today’s culture wars, Identity Politics has corroded the teaching and practice of psychotherapy. Many people on both sides feel distrustful, alienated, and/or demoralized. This course gives a structural model for clinical work that re-enlivens moral depth — without moralism. The goal of this course is to clarify concepts and conflicts that impact both daily life and clinical settings.

Research indicates that ideological diversity — seeing topics from different points of view — improves psychology. This course builds on FAIR Advisor ‘s Moral Foundations Theory, a cultural lens to grasp differences across cultures, within cultures, and the experiences of clients and students encountered by therapists. Specific clinical applications will be explored, and critiques and competing moral models will be considered. This structural model helps to explain interpersonal divisions (and intra-psychic ones) and offers ways to bridge them through deep cultural understanding and relational attunement.

This course is available now March 18th - April 18th (Home Study) and April 8th. Course fee: $69 (+ $20 if requesting Continuing Ed. Certificate)

Apply

FAIR Educator Alliance 2025-2026

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom
Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

Join the FAIR Community

Announcing FAIR's 2026 Artist Grant Winners

Fair For All — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 11:15:54 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

We are thrilled to announce the winners of our 2026 Artist Grant!

The FAIR Artist Grant was established as a fund for independent artists seeking support for professional activities that align with FAIR’s mission of advancing fairness, understanding, and humanity in the arts. Our purpose is to further a culture where all artists – regardless of their perceived identity group or belief system – can be judged on the quality of their work and practice their craft freely without fear. With an arts funding ecosystem that is still overwhelmingly driven by divisive DEI policies and groupthink, the FAIR Artist Grant is our effort to shift the tide back and reclaim core values of excellence, integrity, and free thought.

The winners of our 2026 Artist Grant span a wide range of artistic practices, professional backgrounds, and life experiences. They are filmmakers, theater artists, visual artists, writers, and educators. They are ambassadors, thought leaders, and innovators who represent our mission to change culture by creating new, better culture. We are honored to support their work.

Grand Prize Winners –

Alison Fairweather Murray: Filmmaker, Director.
Project funded: Pitch deck for dramatic television series

Celeste Teal Larkin: Executive Director at St. George Opera
Project funded: Hansel and Gretel at St. George Opera

Mary Poindexter McLaughlin: Playwright, Poet, Essayist
Project funded: Dear US: One Acts to Bridge the Divide

Timothy Naylor: Filmmaker, Professor of Film at LIU
Project funded: Anonymous Film Festival in NYC

Nevline Nnaji: Filmmaker, Dancer
Project funded: She Holds The Line: Black Women Speak on Gender Ideology

Johari Mayfield: Teaching Artist, Choreographer
Project funded: Wildcard: A Satirical Séance

Kimberley Tait: Author, Founder at Dogstar Press
Project funded: Dogstar Press LLC

Runners Up –

Steve Salerno: Journalist, Essayist, Professor
Project funded: Article exposing journalism school biases

Mary McDonald-Lewis: Voice Actor, Director, Writer
Project funded: The Macbeths

Kevin Ray: Theater Artist, Producer, Artistic Director
Project funded: Theatrical adaptation of Hope Mirrlees’ fantasy novel Lud-in-the-Mist

Bob Rahmanian: Visual Artist, Musician
Project funded: Unacceptable, a group exhibition

Learn more about our Artist Grant winners, and read their full bios here.

We are grateful to our donors and supporters who made the FAIR Artist Grant possible, especially the Snider Family Foundation. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support FAIR in the Arts. With your help, we look forward to continuing to build a new arts & culture infrastructure.

Warmly,
Brent Morden
FAIR in the Arts

Donate to Support FAIR in the Arts

In different, though related news… This week, FAIR in the Arts member Kevin Lynch scored a major legal victory against Playwrights Horizons, a New York theatre company.

A prominent nonprofit theater in New York has settled a lawsuit claiming that a discount offered to people of color was racially discriminatory. Playwrights Horizons, an Off Broadway company…offered an apology to Kevin Lynch, a white musician from New Jersey who sued over last fall’s “BIPOC night”…[Playwrights Horizons wrote that it] “regrets that Mr. Lynch felt excluded because of his race,” …[and we] have agreed to resolve the matter out of court.” …Lynch, in a statement…said he was pleased with the outcome. "Race-based ticket pricing violates all our civil rights, regardless of which race is on the receiving end of the discrimination…I consider it a victory for civil and human rights.”

With FAIR’s support, Kevin Lynch has been on the front lines challenging discrimination in the arts. We’re thrilled to see the fruits of his success — and equally excited to see this development covered in the New York Times.

Read the Full Article

Beyond Binary Thinking: Developing Nuanced Perspectives in Young Minds

Join FAIR Advisors Wilfred Reilly and Erec Smith for a conversation moderated by FAIR Executive Director Monica Harris. We will discuss the need to move beyond oversimplified oppressor/oppressed narratives to help develop critical thinking skills that honor complexity while maintaining moral clarity. This theme also supports FAIR's commitment to civil discourse, which is a foundational element of our Many Stories, One Nation curriculum.

Culture in Psychotherapy — Without the Corrosion of Identity Politics

Join FAIR with Dr. Douglas Novotny for this upcoming course: Amid today’s culture wars, Identity Politics has corroded the teaching and practice of psychotherapy. Many people on both sides feel distrustful, alienated, and/or demoralized. This course gives a structural model for clinical work that re-enlivens moral depth — without moralism. The goal of this course is to clarify concepts and conflicts that impact both daily life and clinical settings.

Research indicates that ideological diversity — seeing topics from different points of view — improves psychology. This course builds on ‘s Moral Foundations Theory, a cultural lens to grasp differences across cultures, within cultures, and the experiences of clients and students encountered by therapists. Specific clinical applications will be explored, and critiques and competing moral models will be considered. This structural model helps to explain interpersonal divisions (and intra-psychic ones) and offers ways to bridge them through deep cultural understanding and relational attunement.

This course is available now March 18th - April 18th (Home Study), March 28th, and April 8th. Course fee: $69 (+ $20 if requesting Continuing Ed. Certificate)

Apply

FAIR Educator Alliance 2025-2026

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom
Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

Join the FAIR Community

FAIR Announces Partnership with 'Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies' to Promote Curriculum Adoption

Fair For All — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 11:31:11 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

We’re thrilled to share exciting news: FAIR is partnering with the Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies (ACES) to accelerate adoption of FAIR’s groundbreaking new curriculum.

ACES has been at the forefront of advocating for thoughtful, balanced ethnic studies curricula that build mutual respect, fight racism, and celebrate ethnic groups’ accomplishments without imposing narrow ideological agendas. Their mission aligns perfectly with FAIR’s approach: we believe students deserve to engage with America’s complex history through primary sources, competing perspectives, and civil discourse instead of predetermined conclusions.

ACES’s diverse, nonpartisan coalition model also complements FAIR’s commitment to serving educators and families across the political spectrum. Together, we’re demonstrating that it’s possible to teach ethnic studies that inspires mutual respect, celebrates achievement, and equips students with the analytical tools they need without the divisiveness that has made this field so contentious.

This partnership marks a pivotal moment in FAIR’s evolution from problem identification to solution delivery. ACES brings deep expertise in California’s Ethnic Studies landscape and shares our commitment to teaching America’s story with intellectual honesty, multiple perspectives, and rigorous academic standards.

This partnership enables two grassroots organizations, with different histories and constituencies, to unite around shared principles. We will work together to provide programs which inspire students not only to better understand our nation’s complex history and ongoing struggles, but also to take an active and informed role in shaping our aspirational future.

We’re grateful to ACES for their partnership and to all of you who continue supporting our mission. Together, we’re positioned to reach new school districts that have been searching for exactly what FAIR offers: a path that honors diversity and confronts difficult truths while building bridges rather than deepening divisions. We’ve also given our curriculum a name that better reflects its spirit: Many Stories, One Nation (formerly The American Experience). We believe this partnership and our new name will help us reach the thousands of educators and students across the country who are looking for an ethnic studies curriculum that is honest, academically rigorous, and unifying.

This week, our team will attend the California Council for the Social Studies conference in Garden Grove, California, where we will showcase Many Stories, One Nation to educators from across the state. Stay tuned for updates from the conference and beyond. FAIR’s work of creating thoughtful, rigorous, bridge-building alternatives continues with powerful new partners!

With gratitude,

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

P.S. As we celebrate five years of success this March, we’re asking supporters to consider special anniversary gifts that will help us capitalize on the momentum we’ve built. Stay tuned for more opportunities to invest in FAIR’s next chapter!

Make an Anniversary Donation

Beyond Binary Thinking: Developing Nuanced Perspectives in Young Minds

Culture in Psychotherapy — Without the Corrosion of Identity Politics

Join FAIR with Dr. Douglas Novotny for this upcoming course: Amid today’s culture wars, Identity Politics corrodes the teaching and practice of psychotherapy, especially in the widely-misunderstood realm of “culture” and “diversity.” Many people on both sides feel distrustful, alienated, and/or demoralized. This course gives a structural model for clinical work that re-enlivens moral depth — without moralism. The goal is to clarify concepts and conflicts that impact daily life and clinical settings. It aims to facilitate engagement with patients and colleagues, and within ourselves, even as we grapple with vital and controversial issues.

Research indicates that ideological diversity — seeing topics from different points of view — improves psychology. This course builds on that with ‘s Moral Foundations Theory, a cultural lens to grasp differences across cultures, within cultures, and the daily experiences of clients and students encountered by therapists. Specific clinical applications will be explored, and critiques and competing moral models will be considered. This structural model helps explain interpersonal divisions (and intra-psychic ones) and offers ways to bridge them through deep cultural understanding and relational attunement.

This course is available March 18th - April 18th (Home Study), March 28th, and April 8th. Course fee: $69 (+ $20 if requesting Continuing Education Certificate)

Apply

FAIR Educator Alliance 2025-2026

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom
Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

Join the FAIR Community

Celebrating Five Years of FAIR

Fair For All — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 12:03:28 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

Five years ago, FAIR began with a simple but urgent belief: that a free society depends on open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and equal dignity for all people. This March, we’re celebrating how far we’ve come and inviting you to help us build what comes next.

In just five years, your support has created extraordinary impact in communities around the country:

FAIR has developed an academically rigorous and non-politicized alternative to liberated Ethnic Studies. Our curriculum, which has been assessed by the Johns Hopkins School of Education, is ready for adoption in California and Oregon – and Minnesota is next! Across the country, educators are reaching out to us to find out how they can bring this groundbreaking course into their classrooms.

We’re championing artists who are building the authentic culture we want to see:

Our 2025 Artist Grants supported 14 creators across theatre, film, visual arts, and comedy. We’ve created Playwrights Think Tanks, Artist Meetups, and Writers Groups, cultivating a community where excellence matters more than ideology.

Our legal advocacy is winning major victories:

In 2022, FAIR sent the California Department of Education detailed legal guidance explaining why their policy of concealing students’ gender transitions from parents violated constitutional law. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 vindicating our arguments, protecting parental rights in California.

In August 2025, a federal court rejected West Virginia State Bar’s attempt to dismiss FAIR’s challenge to their racially discriminatory election practices, which means our case will proceed to trial on the merits.

We’ve renewed our legal challenge to Washington’s discriminatory housing policy with Pacific Legal Foundation, demanding equal access to housing assistance regardless of race.

We’ve filed OCR complaints that opened federal investigations within days. And we’re preparing litigation on behalf of female inmates at Washington Corrections Center for Women who are forced to share cells with men.

We’re equipping parents and communities with practical tools:

Our 2026 Black Lives Matter Toolkit empowers parents to navigate activist messaging in schools, while our FAIR in Libraries Neutrality & Viewpoint Diversity Toolkit helps communities counter ideological gatekeeping and restore intellectual freedom in libraries.

We’re advancing better, patient-informed healthcare:

Through our partnership with the Open Therapy Institute, FAIR in Medicine is promoting evidence-based mental health care and medical treatment that’s free from ideological capture, ensuring patients receive care grounded in science, not politics.

The challenges and opportunities aren’t shrinking; they’re growing.

Educators need our curriculum. Artists need platforms and protection. Students need defenders. Parents need advocates. Libraries need champions of neutrality. Patients need evidence-based care.

Throughout March, we’ll be sharing stories of FAIR’s impact across all our programs and asking for your partnership in building the next five years.

Watch your inbox for more detailed updates on:

How our curriculum is reaching classrooms nationwide
The artists we’re supporting and community we’re building
Legal victories protecting constitutional principles
How you can maximize your impact through strategic giving

Five years ago, FAIR was just an idea. Today, it’s a movement spanning classrooms, libraries, arts communities, and the Supreme Court. Our most important work is still ahead. With your support, we’re positioned to make the next five years even more impactful than the first.

Thank you for believing in what we’re building together.

With gratitude and determination,

Monica Harris
Executive Director, FAIR

P.S. As we celebrate five years of success, we’re asking supporters to consider special anniversary gifts that will help us capitalize on the momentum we’ve built. Stay tuned for opportunities to invest in FAIR’s next chapter!

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Beyond Binary Thinking: Developing Nuanced Perspectives in Young Minds

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FAIR Educator Alliance 2025-2026

FAIR is launching the Educators Alliance for the 2025–2026 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.

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom
Duration: 1 hour

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FAIR News Podcast

For audio versions of our FAIR News and FAIR Weekly Roundup newsletters, subscribe and listen to FAIR News Weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or via RSS feed.

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FAIR Goes to Minnesota—and Comes Back Inspired

Fair For All — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 16:11:07 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

Last week, FAIR’s team attended the Minnesota Council for the Social Studies (MCSS) conference at Macalester College in St. Paul, and I am truly excited by what we experienced.

I’ll admit that I had real concerns heading into this trip. With immigration enforcement dominating the headlines, I was uncertain how a curriculum rooted in shared American values and constitutional principles would land with educators navigating a turbulent moment. What I found instead was something I didn’t expect: hope.

Prior to the conference, I had the honor of presenting an overview of FAIR’s curriculum at an event hosted by the Minnesota Partnership for Achievement. The attendees were educators, administrators, parents, and community supporters from across the state.

We moved through the course framework together, and I invited participants to try a sample exercise from a lesson on Identity and Belonging, a small-group discussion exploring whether their own American experience is best represented by the Melting Pot, the Mosaic, or the Salad Bowl metaphor. And that’s when the room came alive. People leaned in. The conversations were personal, candid, and remarkably thoughtful. When I called time, participants were reluctant to stop, and that reluctance is exactly the point. Because FAIR’s curriculum doesn’t tell students what to think, it creates conditions that make them want to think.

That evening also highlighted one of my biggest takeaways from the trip: Minnesota is so much more than Minneapolis and St. Paul. Whether they’re from suburbs, small towns, or rural communities, Minnesotans are grappling with the issues FAIR’s curriculum was designed to address: classrooms fractured by polarization, students who lack the tools for civil discourse, and a growing sense that American civic identity is fraying at the seams.

But the real surprise came on Saturday.

At our exhibitor table at the MCSS conference, we were approached by far more educators than we anticipated. They didn’t just pause to glance at our materials; they asked substantive questions, expressed genuine interest in exploring adoption at their schools, and, most importantly, left their contact information. I also attended a session I didn’t expect to find at this conference: a workshop devoted to teaching students about the importance of the Constitution in American society. It was a powerful reminder that there are still educators, even in the most politically charged landscapes, who still believe in the founding promise of democratic self-governance and are actively working to pass it on.

I want to be clear: the Twin Cities remain a challenging landscape for FAIR’s curriculum. But I’m optimistic because we found promising pockets and real opportunities last week.

The interest we discovered in Minnesota deserves a response that matches the moment, and that’s why we need your help. In order to bring FAIR’s curriculum to Minnesota classrooms, we will need to align it with the state’s Ethnic Studies standards, the same rigorous process that we engaged Johns Hopkins School for Education Policy to complete for California and Oregon. This isn’t a heavy lift, but it will require resources.

We’re asking for your support to help us raise $60,000 by June 1 to commission that review and engage our curriculum team to implement the necessary revisions.

This is targeted work with a clear deadline and a direct payoff: a curriculum that Minnesota educators can adopt with confidence, knowing it meets their state’s standards and serves all students.

If you believe that every young American deserves a rigorous, balanced civic education that strengthens democratic participation without demanding ideological conformity, please consider making a gift today.

Minnesotans are ready for change. Donate now to help them make it happen!

With gratitude,

Monica Harris
Executive Director
FAIR

Donate

Beyond Binary Thinking: Developing Nuanced Perspectives in Young Minds

We will discuss the need to move beyond oversimplified oppressor/oppressed narratives to help develop critical thinking skills that honor complexity while maintaining moral clarity. This theme also supports FAIR's commitment to civil discourse, which is a foundational element of our American Experience curriculum.

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FAIR Educator Alliance 2025-2026

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.

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom
Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

FAIR News Podcast

For audio versions of our FAIR News and FAIR Weekly Roundup newsletters, subscribe and listen to FAIR News Weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or via RSS feed.

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 FAIRstory Learning Standards.

Defending Library Neutrality and Viewpoint Diversity

Fair For All — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:19:25 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

On the anniversary of a troubling moment for library freedom, we are reminded of Cathy Simpson, CEO and chief librarian of the Niagara‑on‑the‑Lake Public Library in Ontario. In February 2024, Cathy wrote an opinion piece for Freedom to Read Week, advocating for broader viewpoint diversity and intellectual freedom. Instead of sparking dialogue, her column sparked controversy. She was suspended on March 8, 2024, and then fired by the library board on March 19, 2024.

FAIR highlighted Cathy’s story immediately. Her experience exposed a stark reality that libraries, once trusted civic spaces for learning and debate, are increasingly under pressure to favor ideology over balance. Cathy’s dismissal served as a warning. Sadly, many libraries still fail to uphold neutrality, limiting their communities' access to diverse ideas.

Libraries are the heart of our communities. When they fail to remain neutral, they fail everyone. Promoting neutrality and viewpoint diversity ensures that:

Libraries provide multiple perspectives, even controversial or unpopular ones
Intellectual freedom is protected, not constrained by ideology
Citizens of all ages can explore, debate, and form their own informed opinions

We are excited to announce that our dedicated group of principled librarians have created the FAIR in Libraries Neutrality & Viewpoint Diversity Toolkit. This resource equips parents, educators, librarians, and concerned citizens with practical tools to defend intellectual freedom, viewpoint diversity, and civil discourse in libraries. We hope it will help you support a balanced collection in your library.

Cathy’s story reminds us that neutrality is not automatic; it must be actively defended. The FAIR toolkit provides clear guidance on evaluating library policies, requesting books or speakers, and engaging with boards or local officials. In the weeks and months ahead, two timely opportunities invite you to put these tools to work:

Canadian Freedom to Read Week: Feb 22–28, 2026. This week, we encourage you to reflect on and defend intellectual freedom.
National Library Week: Apr 19–25, 2026. While you celebrate libraries, we invite you to advocate for neutrality and viewpoint diversity as well.

In response to Cathy’s dismissal, FAIR launched the Library Neutrality Fund, which supports advocacy, educational resources, and tools like the FAIR in Libraries Toolkit. Every donation helps ensure librarians can promote neutrality without fear of retaliation and that libraries remain spaces for all voices.

Please give today to FAIR’s Library Neutrality Fund.

Your support defends intellectual freedom and keeps libraries open to every perspective.

FAIR in Libraries is growing, and we need dedicated and committed librarians. By joining, you can:

Connect with peers committed to neutrality and viewpoint diversity
Access toolkits, resources, and advocacy guides
Amplify your voice in defending intellectual freedom

Donate now to stand with those who fight for free inquiry. Together, we can turn Cathy’s courage into a movement that ensures libraries remain safe havens for learning, dialogue, and truth.

With Gratitude,

The FAIR Team

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Apply

FAIR Educator Alliance 2025-2026

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.

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom
Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

FAIR News Podcast

For audio versions of our FAIR News and FAIR Weekly Roundup newsletters, subscribe and listen to FAIR News Weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or via RSS feed.

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 FAIRstory Learning Standards.

Better Questions, Better Care: Advancing Integrity in Mental Healthcare

Fair For All — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 14:57:16 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

FAIR challenges ideological mandates and discriminatory practices that undermine civil rights, free inquiry, and evidence-based practice across our institutions. Increasingly, those same pressures of conformity, self-censorship, and reduced viewpoint diversity are also affecting mental healthcare.

Therapists are granted extraordinary access to people’s private thoughts, moral conflicts, family relationships, religious commitments, political beliefs, and fears about belonging. When ideological assumptions quietly become part of clinical “best practices,” patients can be steered, silenced, misdirected, or misunderstood, often without realizing it. The real consequences of ideologically driven therapy are evident and lasting in people’s lives.

Last week, we announced FAIR’s first long-form continuing education course, offering a way forward: Culture in Psychotherapy Without the Corrosion of Identity Politics - A Bipartisan, Pro-Human Model.

This week, we highlight the work of the Open Therapy Institute (OTI), an important complement to FAIR. OTI addresses concerns frequently raised by clinicians, educators, and patients: how politicized ideas and institutional blind spots can influence mental health care, affecting trust, clinical judgment, and outcomes.

Open Therapy Institute is asking questions that are surprisingly difficult to ask in mental health training programs:

What happens when ideological consensus replaces clinical curiosity?
How does political or moral certainty affect therapeutic neutrality and trust?
Who is left underserved or harmed when clinicians are trained to see some identities, beliefs, or professions primarily through a political lens?

By documenting blind spots, whether in men’s mental health, religious patients, law enforcement, or the effects of self-censorship, the Open Therapy Institute advances the same goals FAIR champions: open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and institutional integrity. Like FAIR, OTI does not argue for a political outcome; they seek better questions, better evidence, and better care.

We encourage our readers, especially clinicians, educators, and those who work in mental health or adjacent fields, to explore OTI’s resources.

In addition, for a limited time, OTI is offering exclusive discounts to FAIR members.

FAIR Member Discount

Through March 31, 2026, FAIR members receive:

$20 off your first year of OTI membership
$15 off OTI on-demand workshops

👉 Use code FAIR-OTI at checkout

If you’re a mental health professional or work closely with one, you will find OTI’s resources and FAIR’s new training invaluable.

Support Our Mission and Our Collaborators Through Donations
Your generous support enables us to continue developing resources and advocating for unbiased practices in therapy and beyond.

Please consider supporting FAIR today: Donate to Fair For All.

Likewise, to help OTI advance evidence-based therapy donate here.

With Gratitude,

The Fair for All Team

Donate

Amid today’s culture wars, Identity Politics corrodes the teaching and practice of psychotherapy, especially in the widely-misunderstood realm of “culture” and “diversity.” Many people on both sides feel distrustful, alienated, and/or demoralized. This course gives a structural model for clinical work that re-enlivens moral depth — without moralism. The goal is to clarify concepts and conflicts that impact daily life and clinical settings. It aims to facilitate engagement with patients and colleagues — and within ourselves — even as we grapple with vital and controversial issues.

FAIR Educator Alliance 2025-2026

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.

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom
Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

FAIR News Podcast

For audio versions of our FAIR News and FAIR Weekly Roundup newsletters, subscribe and listen to FAIR News Weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or via RSS feed.

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 FAIRstory Learning Standards.

Beyond Identity Politics: Culture in Psychotherapy

Fair For All — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 15:26:30 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

The culture wars have infiltrated every corner of American life, including the clinical practice of mental health professionals. Increasingly, clinicians find themselves navigating treacherous terrain where concepts like “culture” and “diversity” have become ideologically charged, leaving many clinicians feeling distrustful, alienated, or demoralized regardless of their political perspective.

On February 15th, FAIR is proud to present a three-hour continuing education webinar that offers a way forward: Culture in Psychotherapy Without the Corrosion of Identity Politics – A Bipartisan, Pro-Human Model.

Identity politics has fundamentally altered how culture and diversity are understood in clinical settings. Rather than deepening therapeutic relationships and cultural competence, current approaches often create division, restrict open dialogue, and undermine the moral depth that effective therapy requires. Mental health professionals across the political spectrum report feeling constrained, unsure how to honor genuine cultural differences without stepping on ideological landmines, or how to engage authentically with patients whose backgrounds and values differ from their own.

This isn’t an abstract professional concern. When therapists are compelled to navigate identity politics rather than focus on their patients’ well-being, the therapeutic alliance suffers. When training programs prioritize ideological conformity over intellectual diversity, the field loses crucial perspectives. When moral complexity gets reduced to simplistic frameworks, clinicians fail the people they’re meant to serve.

Dr. Douglas Novotny, Ph.D., brings a structural model for clinical work that re-enlivens moral depth without moralism. Drawing on research showing that ideological diversity — the ability to see topics from different points of view — actually improves psychological practice, this course offers practical frameworks for understanding cultural differences that transcend political polarization.

Central to Dr. Novotny’s approach is Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory, which provides a cultural lens for grasping differences across cultures, within cultures, and in the daily experiences of the clients and students therapists encounter. Rather than reducing cultural competence to demographic categories or political orthodoxies, this model helps clinicians understand the deep moral structures that shape how different people experience and navigate the world.

The course explores specific clinical applications, including the often-overlooked clinical utility of understanding moral foundations like disgust, loyalty, and sanctity. Participants will examine how this structural model explains both interpersonal divisions (between people) and intrapsychic divisions (within individuals), and explore practical ways to bridge those divisions through genuine cultural understanding and relational attunement.

The course also critically examines competing moral models and welcomes thoughtful critique, modeling the intellectual humility and openness it advocates. This is education that respects practitioners’ intelligence and moral seriousness rather than prescribing ideological positions.

At FAIR, we believe that moving beyond polarization requires more than good intentions; it requires better frameworks for understanding human difference and commonality. This webinar exemplifies our commitment to practical solutions that honor both individual dignity and shared humanity, that take culture seriously without reducing people to demographic categories, and that create space for genuine engagement across differences.

Mental health professionals occupy a unique position in our culture. The frameworks they use, the questions they ask, and the assumptions they bring to their work ripple outward, shaping not just individual clients but families, communities, and the broader culture. Supporting therapists in developing more nuanced, genuinely therapeutic approaches to culture and diversity serves our broader mission of building a society where all people are treated as individuals.

Whether you’re a practicing clinician struggling with how to navigate cultural issues authentically, a trainer concerned about ideological constraints in professional education, or someone committed to a more humane and effective approach to psychological practice, this webinar offers both intellectual resources and practical guidance.

With gratitude,
Monica Harris
Executive Director

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FAIR Educator Alliance 2025-2026

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.

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom
Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

FAIR News Podcast

For audio versions of our FAIR News and FAIR Weekly Roundup newsletters, subscribe and listen to FAIR News Weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or via RSS feed.

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 FAIRstory Learning Standards.

2026 BLM Toolkit: Empowering Parents to Stop Discriminatory Curriculum

Fair For All — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 16:21:10 GMT

Dear Friends of FAIR,

As political activism increasingly infiltrates K-12 classrooms across the country, FAIR has developed comprehensive legal tools to help parents promote fairness, mutual respect, and constitutional equality in their children’s schools.

This week, high schoolers in Minneapolis joined anti-ICE protests during school hours. Training documents suggest these student walkouts are being coordinated by activist organizations that sponsor K-12 school clubs and partner with major teachers’ unions. Students are being offered “walkout guides,” “day of action” strategies, and training materials — all during a time when fewer than half of Minnesota students are proficient at their grade levels.

Schools are meant to be safe places for learning, not recruiting grounds for political activism. And Minneapolis is just one example of a troubling national trend.

From February 2-6, thousands of school districts nationwide will observe Black Lives Matter at School’s “Week of Action,” implementing lesson plans that may violate federal civil rights law by creating racially hostile learning environments.

The BLM at School curriculum teaches pre-kindergarten children that “our country has a racist history grounded in white privilege” and instructs fifth graders that Black people receive “overt and subliminal messages about being bad, ugly, and inferior to White people.” Other materials claim the nuclear family is an example of “whiteness/white supremacy.”

These lessons don’t just divide students; they may be illegal. They assign characteristics and blame to children based on skin color, creating the “racially hostile environments” that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act was designed to prevent. Recent Executive Orders and Department of Education guidance make clear: schools using such materials risk losing federal funding.

FAIR’s approach combines legal accountability with our signature civil discourse principles. We acknowledge what BLM at School organizers are trying to accomplish: addressing legitimate racial disparities, teaching Black history honestly and comprehensively, and creating authentically inclusive schools. These are goals we all share.

But we’re also concerned that BLM’s methods undermine these very objectives while violating constitutional principles of equal protection.

FAIR is responding with solutions, not just criticism. That’s why we’ve created this comprehensive toolkit to give parents the resources they need to respond effectively.

FAIR’s BLM at School Week Toolkit includes:

Legal primer explaining how discriminatory curriculum violates Title VI
Sample OCR complaint ready to file if students experience hostile environments
Template letter for parents to send to school administrators
“Steel-manning” section that teaches the competing perspectives before explaining our constitutional approach
Family talking points grounded in Martin Luther King Jr.’s principles, contact theory research, and civil rights history

Parents often tell us they feel powerless when their children encounter divisive activism masquerading as education. This toolkit provides the tangible resources parents need to advocate against discriminatory curriculum.

The BLM at School Week Toolkit is available now for free download. But producing these essential materials to support parents and address the broader trend of classroom activism requires resources — and your partnership.

Your investment directly funds the tools parents need to reclaim their schools from organizations using children as political pawns. Specifically, your support will:

Expand our toolkit library to address other discriminatory curricula beyond BLM at School Week
Provide legal support to parents who file OCR complaints
Develop additional resources like our American Experience Curriculum, a constitutional alternative that teaches racial history and contemporary issues while building civil discourse skills
Train Chapter Leaders and parent advocates to effectively engage with school boards
Monitor school compliance with new federal civil rights guidance

Schools should be focused on academic excellence, not political indoctrination. At a time when student achievement continues to decline, our children deserve classrooms that unite rather than divide, that teach critical thinking rather than activist ideology, and that treat every student with equal dignity under the law.

Donate today to help FAIR provide resources that stop discrimination in schools. Every dollar makes a difference!

Together, we can ensure schools remain places of learning and genuine inclusion, not training grounds for divisive movements that put ideology above education.

With gratitude,
Monica Harris
Executive Director

Donate

Emerging research suggests profound connections between diet, mood, and mental wellness. Yet medical orthodoxy has largely sidelined these conversations, even as rates of anxiety and depression, especially among young people, reach unprecedented levels. Why aren’t we having more robust discussions about whether nutrition might be part of the picture? What happens when legitimate scientific inquiry gets dismissed because it challenges established protocols? This first webinar will focus on adults, with a second conversation for adolescents coming soon. These aren’t anti-medicine questions; they’re pro-inquiry questions.

FAIR Educator Alliance 2025-2026

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.

Meetings: First Thursday of each month at 7 PM ET via Zoom
Duration: 1 hour

Join Us!

FAIR News Podcast

For audio versions of our FAIR News and FAIR Weekly Roundup newsletters, subscribe and listen to FAIR News Weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or via RSS feed.

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 FAIRstory Learning Standards.