FAIR News: Bringing Pro-Human Values to the Arts
Newsletter
Introducing FAIR in the Arts
We are excited to announce the launch of FAIR in the Arts, a nonpartisan professional network dedicated to advancing a common culture in arts, entertainment, and media that champions freedom of expression, open-mindedness, and the ability to strive for excellence in all creative endeavors. We affirm the power of art to unite by bridging perceived divisions and highlighting our common humanity.
In line with FAIR’s core principles of fairness, understanding, and humanity, FAIR in the Arts affirms that:
Artists of many different cultures, ethnicities, and ideologies should be free to express themselves without fear; our diversity is our strength.
Artists should be able to create art for art’s sake, and not be confined to making art that serves an ideological agenda.
Artists should be judged on the quality of their work and their contribution to our common humanity.
Art is an opportunity to foster compassion, conversation, and community.
Are you interested in joining a community of artists dedicated to fostering compassion and conversation? Do you believe that artists should be judged based on the quality of their work, and feel free to express themselves without fear?
FAIR Supports Lawsuit Over Free Speech
This week, a FAIR-supported lawsuit was filed against Jefferson City Public Schools in Missouri, alleging First Amendment free speech violations. The plaintiff, Curtis Thompson, is a grandfather of two children in the Jefferson City Public Schools District. Over the past two years, Mr. Thompson has become an active educational advocate, regularly attending and speaking at school board meetings to oppose race-essentialist teachings.
Mr. Thompson’s free speech rights were violated in August of 2021 when the superintendent and board president worked together to limit his ability to speak during the public Board meeting. Within seconds of beginning his remarks, a security officer removed Mr. Thompson from the building. Mr. Thompson has now filed a First Amendment lawsuit, which FAIR supports.
The state may not silence an individual because it does not like the content of his speech.
Read the full report and watch the video.
FAIR Responds to School Lesson Segregating Children By Hair Color
FAIR recently received an incident report through FAIR Transparency about Northside Independent School District in Texas. The report indicated that teachers in that district divided students into groups based on whether their hair was “darker” or “lighter.” Students in the “lighter” hair group were told they were not as intelligent as those in the “darker” hair group, were purposely given a game with missing pieces so they could not play, and were made to clean up after the children in the “darker” hair group.
FAIR’s Legal Team responded to this report with a letter to the Northside Independent School District superintendent and Board of Education members.
Join the Movement—Intern at FAIR!
Do you value the civil rights and liberties of all individuals regardless of their skin color, ancestry, or other group identity? Are you interested in supporting and learning more about FAIR’s nonpartisan and pro-human mission, and how FAIR promotes fairness, understanding, and our common humanity? Then join us this summer as a FAIR Intern!
We are seeking highly motivated and open-minded undergraduate students and recent graduates for full-time summer internships ($2,000 stipend provided). Ideal candidates will value curiosity, compassion, and courage—coupled with communication and leadership skills and a passion for FAIR’s pro-human values and vision. This internship will provide you with real-world experience in a nonpartisan, dynamic, and mission-driven organization, while also empowering you to develop resources and become ambassadors for FAIR’s mission in your own communities.
Applications are due on April 8, 2022.
Visit our summer internship page for more information.
Have Something to Say? Write for Us
We want our FAIR Substack to be the go-to publication for people interested in sharing and reading 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 fairness, understanding, and humanity, we would love to receive your stories, opinions, investigations, reviews, interviews, and more!
Please submit your piece to submissions@fairforall.org
Submission guidelines:
Complete articles only (i.e., no “works in progress”).
No previously published submissions.
We have no hard word count limits, but prefer submissions between 1,000 and 2,500 words.
In the email, please include a short personal introduction and brief (one paragraph) summary of the article.
We hope to hear from you!
FAIR Perspectives
Our guest this week is Mónica Guzmán.
Mónica is the Director of Digital and Storytelling at Braver Angels, a nonprofit working to depolarize America. She's also co-founder of the award winning Seattle newsletter The Evergrey, host of the Crosscut Interview series Northwest Newsmakers, and author of the recent best-selling book, I Never Thought of it That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.
We discuss what makes Mónica so good at being curious, how being an immigrant helped open her eyes to the benefits of curiosity, and how her concept of SOS—Sorting, Othering, and Siloing—affects our discourse. We also discuss whether we've always been this divided or if we're uniquely divided now, the ways technology and social media affect communication, the tension and interplay between fear, ignorance, and uncertainty—and how these emotions affect our ability to be curious, how to foster curiosity in others, and much more.
Tune in on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts!
FAIR News Podcast
For audio versions of our FAIR News and FAIR Weekly Roundup newsletters, subscribe and listen to our FAIR News Podcast.
Defending Non-Discrimination in the Arts
For our launch of FAIR in the Arts this week, we have released a new video featuring Lincoln Jones, the founder and Artistic Director of American Contemporary Ballet, and his story about being asked to “hire and advance staff and dancers” based on their skin color as part of a new grant requirement.
A few years ago, a grant my company had previously been awarded came with a new requirement—a commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. I assumed that this means non-discrimination based on things like race or religion, which we don’t do, and never have. But as I read more closely, I learned the opposite was true. We were being asked to discriminate—to hire and advance staff and dancers exclusively because of their skin color, at the expense of others because of theirs.
Health Professionals in the Nazi Era
On March 3rd, FAIR in Medicine hosted a webinar titled “Health Professionals in the Nazi Era: Learn from the Past, Understand the Present, Protect the Future,” presented by Matthew Wynia, MD, MPH.
The terrible history of health professional involvement in the Holocaust has had a profound influence on modern healthcare ethics—from the ways we think about race in medicine, genetics, caring for people in detention, abortion, end of life issues, medical research, and more. Virtually every issue in bioethics today is deeply influenced, implicitly or explicitly, by the medical crimes of the Nazi era.
In this webinar, Dr. Wynia explores the legacy of health professional involvement in the Holocaust and how it continues to resonate in health care and society today.
CONTENT WARNING: This lecture is intended for adult audiences and contains images and descriptions of genocidal violence and human rights violations.
FAIR Wellness Webinars
Every Tuesday (the first four Tuesdays of the month) from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. EST, FAIR Advisor Zander Keig will be hosting a series of FREE Wellness Webinars for FAIR members.
FAIR Diversity Training
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 each month.
Monday, March 28th, 7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. EST
FAIR Chapter Events
Chapter Events
TODAY (March 24th):
Toronto Chapter Meeting
7:30 p.m. EST
Email: ontario@fairforall.org for details
March 26th:
Ontario New Member Meeting
10:00 a.m. EST
Email: ontario@fairforall.org for details
March 29th:
Hamilton-Halton-Niagra Chapter Meeting
7:30 p.m. EST
Email: ontario@fairforall.org for details
March 31st:
FAIR Atlanta - "How do I talk about Pro-human values?" with FAIR Advisor Zander Keig
6:00 p.m. EST, REGISTER
One of the questions we heard in last week's open house event was "how do I talk about FAIR to my family and friends?" This is a GREAT question and one that we are happy to help with! Please join us on March 31st at 6:00 p.m. for a presentation on how to talk about pro-human values. Our guest will be our beloved Advisory Board member, Zander Keig.
Chapter Leader Training
April 6th:
Chapter Leader Series 3: Now What? (follow-up debrief (pilot))
MUST have attended both a Series 1 AND a Series 2 training
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. EST
Meeting ID: 851 0018 9385
FAIR Educator Alliance ‘Happy Hour’
Teachers often feel isolated and alone in their schools, but FAIR is here for you! The FAIR Educators Alliance brings together educators from all levels to share experiences and concerns and work on developing resources that can support teachers, community members, and FAIR chapters.
We have an informal “happy hour” every Thursday evening at 8:00 p.m. EST, and hold more formal monthly meetings that will address issues based on your interests and needs.
We welcome all teachers and hope you will get connected.
For more information, contact educators@fairforall.org or, for Canadian educators, contact educators-canada@fairforall.org.
The Zoom link to our weekly happy hour can be found here.
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.
It appears that you may have forgotten your history in writing your letter to Northside Independent School District in Texas. To me, it appears that they were trying to replicate the 1960's experiential lesson by Jane Elliot which taught children how absurd racism and other unfounded segregating criteria can be.
Well-stated and courageous testament from Lincoln Jones. I look to the arts to lift me out of the increasingly dreary discourse, only to find that it is increasingly infected with politics and ideology. Woke art is dead art.