FAIR News: Protecting Viewpoint Diversity
Newsletter
Cherry Creek School District’s “Activism, Organizing, and Resistance” Plan
Last week, on January 27th, an anonymous user submitted an incident report to our FAIR Transparency website regarding resources and lessons for teachers to use during Cherry Creek School District’s “Black Lives Matter at Schools Action Week,” which is being held this week.
The framework states that “Activism, Organizing, and Resistance” will be taught to students in all grades. The lessons include material such as a “Wheel of Power/Privilege,” in which pre-selected categories of human traits are labeled, boxed off, and ranked according to their degree of marginalization, and unspecified “POWER” is depicted as the central organizing principle of all social relations.
Lessons also include a “Social Identity Wheel” instructing students to dissect their social selves and map the pieces onto a ring of largely immutable traits, such as ethnicity, race, sex, sexual orientation, age, and socio-economic status. The accompanying instructions twice warn educators about possible student “resistance” to this exercise, casting it as a “challenge” to be overcome.
In response, the FAIR Legal Team sent a letter to the Cherry Creek School District’s Superintendent Christopher Smith, urging him to clarify the District’s position on the CCEA materials and to ensure that classroom lessons foster open inquiry and viewpoint diversity.
Read the FAIR Transparency Incident Report here.
Utah Department of Health Race-Based COVID-19 Policy
Utah's Department of Health implemented an unconstitutional and unethical policy to use “race” as a factor in determining who is eligible to receive potentially life-saving COVID-19 medical treatment.
On January 21st, Utah announced they had overturned that policy. However, despite that announcement, Utah's online “risk score calculator” still required patients to identify their “race” and disqualified patients from receiving COVID-19 treatments based solely on skin color until January 28th—a week after they claimed to have overturned their policy. Additionally, if a patient was disqualified because of their skin color, Utah would falsely claim they were rejected because of “underlying medical factors” or a delay in seeking treatment, rather than because of their ancestry.
FAIR wrote to the Utah Department of Health on February 2nd, advising them of this unlawful and immoral practice and urging them to immediately notify the public to re-submit their requests for COVID-19 treatment.
View and/or download FAIR’s letter on the FAIR Community Forum.
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!
Dr. Sheena Mason
Dr. Sheena Mason is an experienced leader, educator, and author. She received her PhD in English literature from Howard University in 2021, and is currently an Assistant Professor of English at SUNY Oneonta, in New York.
Mason is the co-founder of the Theory of Racelessness, a consulting business that specializes in educating organizations on how racism masquerades as “race” in society by offering educational services, life coaching, workshops, trainings, radio shows, podcasts, and more.
Michael Shellenberger
Michael Shellenberger is a journalist and author of five critically acclaimed books, including Break Through, Apocalypse Never, and San Fransicko. He was declared a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine. He is also a Green Book Award winner, and the founder and president of Environmental Progress, a research and policy organization fighting for nature and prosperity for all.
Shellenberger's writing focuses on the intersection of climate change, nuclear energy, and politics. He largely argues for an embrace of modernization and technological development through a combination of nuclear power and urbanization.
FAIR Perspectives
Our guest this week on the FAIR Perspectives podcast is Michael Shermer.
Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, the host of The Michael Shermer Show, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, where he teaches the class Skepticism 101. For 18 years he was a monthly columnist at Scientific American. He is the author of several New York Times bestsellers, including Why People Believe Weird Things, The Believing Brain, Why Darwin Matters, The Moral Arc, and others.
In this episode we discuss conspiracy theories, group identities and differences, tribalism, systematic racism, religion, and more.
FAIR News Podcast
For audio versions of our FAIR News and FAIR Weekly Roundup newsletters, subscribe and listen to our FAIR News Podcast.
FAIR Wellness Webinars
Every Tuesday (except the 5th of the month) from 7:00 to 8:00PM ET, beginning March 1st, FAIR Advisor Zander Keig will be hosting a series of FREE Wellness Webinars for FAIR members. The webinars include:
Stress Management
Navigating Uncertainty
Getting a Good Night’s Sleep
Effective Communication
Mark your calendars and stay tuned for registration information in an upcoming newsletter.
FAIR Diversity Training
Chapter Leader: Series 2
Builds on Series 1 Cognitive Bias training. Choose from one of the following:
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 held 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.
February’s Conversation:
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
Please feel free to bring any relevant thoughts, ideas, questions, and insights to the conversation.
To learn more about FAIR Diversity, please visit our FAIR Diversity website.
FAIR Chapter Events
Open House Events
February 8th:
San Diego, CA
7:00PM PST, ZOOM LINK
Other FAIR Chapter Events
ANNOUNCEMENT
FAIR Virginia College/University Chapter
Are you a professor in Virginia? Do you want to learn more about the pro-human movement in Virginia’s colleges and universities? If so, email mark.greer@fairforall.org for more information.
TODAY (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#
TODAY (February 3rd):
Fairfield County (CT) Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Information Session (specific to CT residents)
6:00PM EST, ZOOM LINK
February 5th:
Dane County Winter Conference
1:00PM CST, at Madison Marriott West, Middleton, WI
February 8th:
What's Happening with Ethnic Studies in Washington DC? (specific to DC residents)
7:00PM EST, ZOOM LINK
February 10th:
Eastern Ontario FAIR Get Together
7:30PM ET, ZOOM LINK
Meeting ID: 854 6081 4189
Passcode: 444495
March 2nd:
Bergen County (NJ) Spring Reboot
7:00PM EST, ZOOM LINK
March 3rd:
Long Island Kick-Off Meeting
7:30PM EST, ZOOM LINK
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.
Michael Shellenberger? Say it ain't so! I've been on board with your advisor panel thus far, but why are you branching out into anti-environment grifting? You claim to be centrists fighting race-and gender-based excesses (which I agree with), but hiring Shellenberger is a clear giveaway that you are following the same pro-corporate, anti-human tropes as the American Right. Please carefully read this 3-part series on Shellenberger's background of fake "environmentalism" and warmed-over Bjorn Lomborg schtick: https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/the-new-denial-is-delay-at-the-breakthrough