FAIR News: Standing Up for Non-discrimination in Grant Funding
FAIR News: Standing Up for Non-discrimination in Grant Funding
Newsletter
FAIR Sends Letter to University of Minnesota Over Discriminatory Grant Criteria
On August 2nd, 2022 FAIR's legal team sent a letter to the University of Minnesota in response to a FAIR Transparency report regarding the Pre-K Discovery Scholars Program through the University's Clinical and Translational Science Institute. The Program, which provides a $50,000 grant to junior faculty members to support their research, is open only to faculty who are “underrepresented in health-related sciences” or who are from a “disadvantaged background as defined by NIH.” Individuals are automatically eligible if they are “Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander.”
FAIR reminded the university that establishing funding opportunities based on skin color or ancestry violates the Equal Protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and urged the University to revise the application criteria for the program so that any individual can apply in future cycles, regardless of skin color or ancestry.
FAIR Sends Letter to Connecticut Innovations Over Unconstitutional Funding Policy
On August 2nd, 2022 FAIR's legal team sent a letter to Connecticut Innovations (CI), a venture capital firm. The company recently received $120 million of federal funding through the American Rescue Plan Act. Through a FAIR Transparency report, FAIR learned that CI plans to use part of those funds to establish the Connecticut Future Fund (CTFF), which will be used to “support entrepreneurs from underserved and diverse backgrounds.”
As an organization committed to pro-human anti-racism, FAIR supports efforts to achieve greater fairness and provide opportunities for entrepreneurs to start businesses. However, such efforts must be consistent with the Constitution and other civil rights protections.
FAIR's letter preemptively encouraged CI to consider entrepreneurs’ financial need when investing the CTFF funds, rather than the skin color, ancestry, or other protected characteristics of the business owner.
FAIR in Medicine Fellowship for Graduate Students in Healthcare
FAIR in Medicine, the official network of healthcare professionals advancing FAIR’s mission in medicine and science, is hosting a Fellowship for Graduate Students in Healthcare. This is an opportunity for medical students and graduate students in healthcare-related fields to learn about FAIR’s tools, strategies, and principles of peaceful change, and to spread FAIR’s message on campus or in healthcare settings.
Fellows will help promote FAIR’s message by participating in a FAIR project, which they will share through their networks at their school or workplace. Projects may include working on webinars, podcasts, writing, research, and planning virtual or in-person events.
Applications are open July 1st – August 31st.
FAIR Book Club: Mark Mathabane’s Kafir Boy
Calling all FAIR book lovers! The FAIR Fellows in Education invite you to our new FAIR Book Club, where all FAIR-minded readers can explore books that challenge and deepen our understanding of what it means to be pro-human.
We kicked off the club with our first book—Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane—with a Zoom session on July 27th, and will host a second conversation on August 17th at 7 p.m. ET.
We hope you’ll join us as we dive into this powerful memoir about the author’s coming of age under apartheid in South Africa.
Do You Have a Pro-Human Perspective to Share? Write for our Substack!
We want the FAIR Substack to be the go-to publication for diverse perspectives on culture and civil rights. Whether you’re a seasoned author or an amateur writer with a story that can contribute to our mission of promoting a common culture based on fairness, understanding, and humanity, we would love to receive your stories, opinions, investigations, reviews, interviews, and more!
Please send your piece to submissions@fairforall.org along with a short personal introduction and a brief, one-paragraph summary of your piece.
Submission guidelines:
Complete articles only (i.e., no “works in progress”).
No previously published submissions—this includes personal blogs as well as online or print publications.
We have no hard word count limits, but prefer submissions between 1,000 and 2,500 words.
We hope to hear from you!
FAIR in the Arts Virtual Meetups
Join our FAIR in the Arts team and FAIR in the Arts Fellows to meet other artists and creatives who share pro-human values and want to make a difference in their own communities.
Arts practitioners, advocates, and media professionals—anyone who wants to create a culture where artists and others are free to express themselves, and where we model pro-human values in arts and media institutions—are welcome.
Meetings will include updates on ongoing FAIR in the Arts initiatives, as well as facilitated discussion group sessions. Join us on the following dates:
August 17th:
7:00 - 9:00 p.m. ET
September 20th:
7:00 - 9:00 p.m. ET
Free Grassroots Training Opportunity: How to Be FAIR Without Starting a Fight
Do you want to share the message of FAIR with others but are worried that it may start a fight?
There is a better way: Empower yourself with the knowledge and skills to have better conversations, share FAIR’s pro-human message, and engage without risking your relationships.
Register today for this highly interactive live virtual training, happening on August 16th at 6:00 p.m. ET!
Save the Date! FAIR Pro-Human School Board Leadership Webinar
Please join us on August 25th, at 8 p.m. ET, for a free webinar on key issues related to school board governance. Learn how to communicate to a broad audience on current educational issues, and to help promote a common culture based on fairness, understanding, and humanity in K-12.
The Webinar will be led by FAIR Action Fellow, FAIR in Education Fellow, and member of the FAIR Twin Cities leadership team, Tanya Simons.
Open to current school board members, candidates, or individuals involved in school board governance.
Stay tuned for registration details and updates, coming soon!
FAIR Wellness Webinar Series
Join FAIR Advisor and licensed clinical social worker Zander Keig in an eight-week series of free Wellness Webinars covering the following topics:
Week 1/Week 5: Cultivating Mental Fitness
Week 2/Week 6: Styles of Conflict Management
Week 3/Week 7: Strengthening Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
Week 4/Week 7: How To Form New Habits
Session are on Tuesdays from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET beginning August 23rd.
Resolving the Race(ism) Dilemma Conference
On September 24th in Lexington, Massachusetts, join FAIR Advisors Dr. Sheena Mason and Greg Thomas, along with Dr. Carlos Hoyt, for a day-long conference designed for everyone interested in overcoming racism—teachers, parents, scientists, scholars, social justice leaders, mental health professionals, journalists, and political leaders.
Learn how racialization produces the illusion of “race” and racism, how to deracialize your worldview, practice antiracialization, and recognize the racelessness of the human species. Explore methods of translating the misleading language of “race” into the actual issues that drive discrimination and oppression. Build connections with others who are eager to not only understand how to move beyond racism but take meaningful action, and consider joining an effort to improve our government's approach to addressing race-based discrimination—one that does not require perpetuating self-racialization.
FAIR Perspectives Episode 25: Why America is Uniquely Stupid, with Jonathan Haidt
This week on FAIR Perspectives, we speak with Jonathan Haidt. Jonathan is a social psychologist, professor, and author whose research examines the intuitive foundations of morality, and how morality varies across cultures—including the cultures of progressive, conservatives, and libertarians. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis, and of The New York Times bestsellers The Righteous Mind, and The Coddling of the American Mind, which he co-authored with Greg Lukianoff.
We chat with Jonathan about his recent Atlantic article “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid,” social media and its effects on our discourse and culture, the need for a shared story, the importance of dissent, the distinctions between liberalism and conservatism, the global impact of America’s descent into what he calls “structural stupidity,” and what measures we can take to improve it.
Tune in on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!
Submit Questions for an Upcoming FAIR Perspectives Q&A Episode!
Do you have a burning question you’d like to ask FAIR Perspectives hosts Melissa Chen and Angel Eduardo? Submit it for an upcoming Q&A episode of FAIR Perspectives!
We want to give you the opportunity to ask questions about FAIR, the pro-human movement, the podcast, and more.
Send us a question via comment on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, FAIR Community, or in a reply to this email!
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.
Moshe Levy Braved The Consequences For Opposing Race Essentialism At His Kid's School
For FAIR’s YouTube channel, Moshe Levy shares his experience questioning and opposing the implementation of “some pretty serious curricular and pedagogical changes” to his children’s school curriculum—including the enlisting of consultants with a history of divisive approaches to anti-racism.
”One of them that was teaching microaggressions to fifth graders was in three or four major national newspapers and international newspapers for organizing an online mobbing session of her Jewish students while she was a professor. Another one had a social media feed that was chock full of ideas like, ‘love of literature and objectivity and individualism are akin to white supremacy.’ Now, my red flags were going off. These values are completely antithetical to the liberal values that we hold dear, that are supposedly part of a progressive education.”
After weeks of exchanges with a largely unresponsive administration, Moshe’s children were promptly expelled from the school in mid-October.
FAIR Chapter Events
Chapter Events
August 4th:
Tampa Bay Chapter Quarterly Meeting
7:00 p.m. ET
Meeting ID: 926 0241 5145 Passcode: 611435
Join the FAIR Community
Become a FAIR volunteer or join a FAIR chapter:
Join a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission, or watch a previously recorded session in the Members section of www.fairforall.org.
Sign the FAIR Pledge for a common culture of fairness, understanding and humanity.
Join the FAIR community to connect and share information with other members.
Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.