FAIR Sues NYC over Race-Based Medical Policy
On January 20, 2022, FAIR filed a federal lawsuit to stop New York City from enforcing its unconstitutional order prioritizing COVID-19 treatments based on racial categorization and ethnicity. New York justifies this racial hierarchy not because of any genetic or biological predisposition to severe COVID-19, but because of “longstanding systemic health and social inequities.”
By treating individuals differently based on their ancestry, the City has violated fundamental constitutional and civil rights protections. While nominally aimed at addressing inequities, racializing healthcare harms people from all racial and ethnic groups.
View FAIR’s official statement and full legal complaint here.
A Divisive Approach to Anti-Racism at Oak Park Elementary
At the start of the 2019-2020 school year, Oak Park Elementary School District 97, in Chicago, instituted a new equity policy. The goal was to eliminate disparities arising from “institutional racism and white supremacy in our schools.” Since then, the district has made a number of major changes in pursuit of this ambitious goal.
Oak Park revised its entire elementary curriculum around “social justice” initiatives, and required teachers to take “anti-bias” training modules. To give parents a better idea of the district’s equity-related initiatives, school officials offered them courses on the importance of “whiteness as a social construct,” and apprised them of their need to “neutralize whiteness.”
District officials in Chicago told parents that racism is “in the air we breathe, it's in the water we drink, it's truly all around us,” and that “all schools are rooted in white supremacy.”
A Pro-Human Approach to Colorado’s Social Studies Standards
During the 2019 legislative session, Colorado lawmakers passed House Bill 1192, which created the so-called “1192 Commission.” The 1192 Commission is charged with recommending revisions to Colorado’s public school curriculum in order to ensure an accurate reflection of diverse perspectives and experience that have been historically marginalized and ignored.
FAIR supports these efforts to the extent that they provide students with robust, well-rounded, and accurate historical perspectives. However, FAIR has concerns about the Recommendations’ overarching focus on immutable characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and ability, and other uncontrollable traits and circumstances. By centering immutable characteristics and placing such a high importance on them, the Recommendations not only instill a sense of helplessness in children, but also limits them by teaching that those are the traits that define them.
The recommendations further emphasize groups instead of the individuals within them, which inaccurately suggests to children that their feelings, thoughts, experiences, and responsibilities are tied to (or originate from) their membership in any perceived group, rather than from their own individual being and actions.
In response, FAIR has submitted a letter to the Review and Revision Committee with the Colorado State Board of Education outlining these (and other) concerns, and the FAIR Colorado chapter is encouraging all Colorado residents to review the state’s proposed changes to Colorado’s K-12 social studies standards and sign their petition before the February 1st deadline.
Call for Submissions
If you would like to submit an article, op-ed essay, or investigative journalism piece to our Substack, please check out our submission guidelines.
We hope to hear from you!
FAIR Careers
Regional and Events Manager
FAIR is looking to hire a Regional and Events Manager to support the development and stewardship of FAIR’s vital chapter network, which brings together volunteers from across the country who are committed to promoting a common culture based on fairness, understanding and humanity.
The person in this role plans, manages, and executes FAIR’s live and virtual events and coordinates FAIR’s Speakers’ Bureau.
For more information visit the job listing here.
Marketing Coordinator
FAIR is seeking a Marketing Coordinator who aligns with our mission and can work remotely in a fast-paced, collaborative startup environment with people of many different backgrounds and viewpoints.
The Marketing Coordinator will play a crucial role in our movement by proactively engaging prospective educational and corporate clients, promoting FAIR products and services, and building and maintaining client relationships.
For more information visit the job listing here.
To view all current job listing, visit our Careers page.
FAIR at School with Daniel Idfresne
This week, FAIR presents our new video with 17-year old Daniel Idfresne, a first-generation American and high school senior from Brooklyn. Daniel discusses how identity politics and activism commonly seen on social media entered his school and created a divisive environment of intolerance and self-censorship.
This issue is not limited to Instagram. Identity politics has begun to enter the school building itself. Classroom debates are often dominated by one point of view. Students shy away from intellectual curiosity to spare themselves from the mob. Their answers are riddled with disclaimers to appease the intolerant students. My classmates self-censor in fear of being noticed opposing this intolerant culture.
Daniel’s parents, both immigrants from Haiti, taught him the values of charity, civility, responsibility, and tenacity—values he found to be at odds with the divisive rhetoric and “self-aggrandizing virtue signaling” common among his peers. That’s when he learned about FAIR, and started a school club to provide students with “a genuine safe space where we could feel free to debate ideas that didn’t fit neatly into social media posts.”
If you are interested in creating a similar space for free thought at your school, then visit our FAIR High School Clubs website to get started!
FAIR Perspectives
Our guest this week on the FAIR Perspectives podcast is Wilfred Reilly, associate professor of political science at Kentucky State University, and author of the books Taboo: 10 Things You Can't Talk about and Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War.
In this episode, we discuss the disparities between perception and reality, why these narrative gaps persist, the crisis of expertise, censorship, the true costs of ignoring reality, denying biological sex, and the Stop Asian Hate movement and why it does nothing to address the very real tensions between the black and Asian communities.
FAIR News Weekly
For audio versions of our FAIR News and FAIR Weekly Roundup newsletters, subscribe and listen to our FAIR News Weekly podcast.
TODAY: FAIR in Medicine Webinar
TODAY, January 27th at 6:00PM PST, join FAIR Advisor Wilfred Reilly plus FAIR in Medicine fellows Dr. Sally Satel, Dr. Marilyn Singleton, Dr. Aida Cerundolo, Dr. Diana Blum, and FAIR attorney Leigh Ann O’Neill for this informative and timely Webinar titled “Pro-human Perspectives on Race-based Medical Care.’”
Medicine is about caring for individual human beings, not advancing political agendas. This timely webinar will explore these issues and help us arrive at pro-human solutions to preserve our autonomous patient-physician relationship.
FAIR Diversity Training
Chapter Leader: Series 2
Builds on Series 1 Cognitive Bias training. Choose from one of the following:
Monday, January 31st at 7:00PM – 9:00PM EST
Monday, February 7th at 10:00AM – 12:00PM EST
Wednesday, February 9th at 12:00PM – 2:00PM EST
Stay tuned for registration and RSVP details.
Meet FAIR Diversity: What It Means to Be Pro-Human
For all FAIR Members and volunteers. These events are typically on the last Monday of the month.
Monday February 28th, 7:00PM – 8:00PM EST
Monday, March 28th, 7:00PM – 8:00PM EST
Conversations with FAIR Diversity (public event)
In this webinar series, FAIR Diversity panelists discuss how to apply the fundamental principles of inclusive and civil dialogue to everyday social interactions. We use the pro-human approach to navigate challenging conversations in healthcare, education, corporate, non-profit sectors, and more.
Our first webinar:
FAIR Diversity Conversations: The Pro-Human Approach to Navigating the Healthcare System As a Patient or Caregiver
Monday, February 7th, 7:00PM – 8:00PM EST
Stay tuned for registration and RSVP details.
To learn more about FAIR Diversity, please visit our FAIR Diversity website.
FAIR Chapter Events
Open House Events
TODAY (January 27th):
Bay Area, CA
5:30PM PST, ZOOM LINK
January 31st:
Metro West, MA
7:00PM EST, REGISTER
February 1st:
Washington
7:00PM PST, ZOOM LINK
February 8th:
San Diego, CA
7:00PM PST, ZOOM LINK
Other FAIR Chapter Events
TODAY (January 27th):
FAIR Toronto Meeting
7:30PM EST, RSVP to Ontario@fairforall.org
TODAY (January 27th):
Rochester Chapter Informal Get-Together (in-person)
7:00PM EST, at The Pittsford Pub: 60 N Main St, Pittsford, NY 14534
February 3rd:
Tucson Chapter Meet & Greet (DETAILS HERE)
6:30PM MST, GOOGLE MEET LINK
Or join by phone: (US) +1 443-499-6135 PIN: 947 828 278#
February 5th:
Dane County Winter Conference
1:00PM CST, at Madison Marriott West, Middleton, WI
FAIR Educator Alliance
Teachers often feel isolated and alone in their schools, but FAIR is here for you! We will be holding weekly informal “happy hours” to share experiences and concerns and work on developing resources just for teachers. We’ll also be holding more formal monthly meetings to address issues based on your needs and interests.
For more information, please email educators@fairforall.org
The Zoom link to our weekly happy hour can be found here.
Grassroots Training Workshops
Are you ready to be an effective advocate for pro-human values in your community? You know in your heart of hearts our common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity requires you to be civically engaged and actively organizing and advocating in your community.
But how do you get started?
We’ve got you covered with the FAIR Grassroots Leader Training series.
Register to learn practical tools for organizing your community, how to be a more effective advocate, and ways to create positive, bottom-up change in our culture and country. The sessions include:
Grassroots Leader Session 1 | Bottom-Up Organizing
Grassroots Leader Session 2 | Finding Your Place At FAIR
Grassroots Leader Session 3 | Organizing Your Organizing
Public Speaking Training | Keeping Your Audience Captivated
Register now for the next Grassroots Leader Training series.
Join the FAIR Community
Become a FAIR volunteer or to 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.
I read and wept over the Oak Park Elementary story focusing on their social justice equity policy. The idea that elementary students must learn to recognize injustice, and to believe and declare that systemic racism and white supremacy is baked in the American cake affecting their lives at every turn was simply mind blowing and sad. Oddly, as a testimony that their teacher-training was working, they cited one K class that was able to identify their stuff animals by using "they" and "them" pronouns. What?
There was no mention of how to use research based best practices and strategies to teach and improve content area skills especially for those lagging behind. There is absolutely no data I am aware of that the use of a social justice curriculum closes achievement gaps.
Needless to say, this is an exercise in futility, and an unfortunate display of collective low self-esteem and infantilization being passed down from black elites and their white counterparts to our innocent and starry-eyed children. I hope that the Chicago, Oak Park parents raise hell.
I'm so happy to get these updates. The only thing I feel is lacking is some representation of any positive changes that are occurring. I know it's FAIR's main objective to identify injustices and help drive solutions, but there have to be "good news" items out there too. Being from Colorado, I started to get that feeling reading the piece about Colorado's social studies standards, but that turned out to be a negative too. Anyway, just a thought. Thanks.