FAIR Announces New Board of Directors

The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) is pleased to announce a new board of directors that will help guide the organization in its next phase of dynamic progress and development—and continue the important work that was initiated two years ago since its founding in March 2021. 

“We're honored to join FAIR's Board of Directors, which includes a diverse array of individuals with experience across a range of professional endeavors. FAIR's nonpartisan advocacy of civil rights and liberties through colorblind equality is a balm for what has become an inflamed public discourse,” said Ilya Shapiro, the newest member to join the board.  

“From the beginning, I wanted FAIR to be different from other organizations,” wrote FAIR’s founding CEO Bion Bartning in a letter announcing his transition to the Board of Advisors. “We have done so much good work over the past two years and helped so many good people. From Kevin Ray, Dr. Tara Gustillo, and Dr. Tabia Lee, to Sahar Tartak, Meg Smaker and Daniel Marquez…and so many others. Over the coming months and years, I hope that FAIR continues to serve as a beacon of hope for those who need our help.” 

FAIR is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to advancing civil rights and liberties for all Americans, and promoting a common culture based on fairness, understanding, and humanity. 

Maud Maron, the new Program Manager said, “I am excited to take on a new role at FAIR and look forward to working with our growing number of supporters  to advance our important mission. FAIR is an amazing community of people who have come together with the inclusive goal of advocating for our common humanity.”

FAIR’s new Board of Directors includes: Faisal Saeed Al Mutar (president), Heather Blakeslee, Angel Eduardo, Lincoln Jones, Brian Kors, Maud Maron, and Ilya Shapiro. Learn more about each member of the Board of Directors below:

Faisal Saeed Al Mutar

President of the Board of Directors

Born in Babylon, Raised in Baghdad, Faisal Saeed Al Mutar experienced the villainy of extremism and authoritarian regimes firsthand. He survived the Iraq Civil War, the murder of his brother, and several kidnapping attempts before becoming a refugee in the United States in 2013. A practitioner of countering extremism and misinformation on an international scale, he’s traveled to conferences and spoken on campuses across the globe on his experiences working to create an alternative positive change in the region. He founded the organization Ideas Beyond Borders, a non-profit dedicated to empowering people across the globe with access to new ideas and fresh perspectives. Faisal received the “President’s Volunteer Service Award” from President Barack Obama and is a Fellow at the Elevate Prize Foundation.

Heather Blakeslee

Treasurer of the Board of Directors

Heather Shayne Blakeslee is a Philadelphia-based non-profit and small business executive with a 25-year career working in social justice, arts, media, and environmental spheres. In response to a climate of self-censorship and degraded discourse in our broader culture, she founded the print journal Root Quarterly, and believes in the idea that art and ideas can bring us together to celebrate our common humanity. It was named a Best New Magazine by Library Journal when it launched in 2019, and is a grantee of the Mercatus Center’s Pluralism and Civil Exchange Program. Blakeslee is also an award-winning singer songwriter who leads the folk-noir band Sweetbriar Rose. She has served as a volunteer Arts Fellow with FAIR since 2022, and is also a volunteer Pennsylvania state co-coordinator with the political depolarization organization Braver Angels. She is proud to serve on the board of directors for FAIR.

Angel Eduardo

Member of the Board of Directors

Angel Eduardo is a FAIR in the Arts fellow, and a member of FAIR’s Board of Advisors. He also writes a column for the Center for Inquiry called Searching for Better Angels, where he focuses on topics such as communication, reason, science, and morality.

Angel is best known for his work creating and promoting the concept of “star-manning,” which he describes as engaging not only with the most charitable version of your opponent’s argument, but also with the most charitable version of your opponent, by acknowledging their good intentions and your shared desires despite your disagreements.

In the social realm, Angel advocates for a compassionate, honest, and civil approach to discourse, even when we’re incentivized to bare our teeth and dig in our heels. Through his work he hopes to foster more productive conversations on the topics of the day, all bolstered by his own six words of advice: Be kind; we’re all first drafts.

Lincoln Jones

Member of the Board of Directors

Lincoln Jones is the founder and director of American Contemporary Ballet, which has been recognized by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and other major media for the innovation and significance of its programming and Jones' choreographic work.

Mr. Jones has also choreographed commercials for Apple, Facebook, Virgin Mobile and other international brands, has lectured on ballet and music for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, has served on the jury of the LA Film Festival, and is a FAIR in the Arts Fellow. 

Brian Kors

Member of the Board of Directors

Brian Kors is FAIR’s former Managing Director of Strategic Partnerships. Before starting with FAIR in April of 2021, he was an educator, teaching courses in Civics, Constitutional Law and Music History and running a Civil Discourse club that focused on bringing together people who disagreed about complex and debated topics. Prior to that, he worked in development roles for nonprofit organizations in Washington, D.C. and Boston. Brian lives in southeast Pennsylvania with his wife and three children and is active in the local arts and music scenes.

Maud Maron

Secretary of the Board of Directors and Program Manager

Maud Maron is an attorney with over two decades of experience as a public defender in Manhattan and the Bronx. She served as the Director of Training at the Legal Aid Society and taught Criminal Defense at the Cardozo School of Law. Maud is a co-founder and current co-president of PLACE NYC, a pro-merit education advocacy organization dedicated to improving NYC’s public schools. She is a frequent contributor to the NYPost on education and politics. She lives with her husband and four children in Manhattan.

Ilya Shapiro

Member of the Board of Directors

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute, director of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, and publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review.

Shapiro is the author of Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? Hobby Lobby, the Affordable Care Act, and the Constitution (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets and once appeared on the Colbert Report.

Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.