Weekly Roundup
Reading, watching, & listening list
Trump Should Avoid a Second Red Scare
For FAIR’s Substack, Julian Adorney writes about the dangers of using illiberal methods to combat ideologies with which we disagree.
By adopting sweeping and illiberal policies designed to excise SJF root and branch, the Trump administration might accidentally be empowering the ideology. By trampling free speech rights and threatening news organizations he thinks oppose him, Trump may be driving moderates right into the arms of his fiercest ideological opponents. The second danger is even larger. When we adopt illiberal methods to combat ideologies with which we disagree, we risk abandoning the very core of what it means to be American.
From DEI Chief to DEI Critic | THE INVISIBLE MEN
Erec Smith, a research fellow at the Cato Institute and FAIR Advisor, joins Ian and Nique to discuss his life journey, “wokeism,” and the effects and future of DEI initiatives. Erec shares his experiences as a chief diversity officer and critiques the current state of DEI, arguing that it has strayed from its original purpose. The conversation delves into the challenges and opportunities facing DEI in the future, as well as the complex relationship between freedom and racism in the black community.
Explaining Canada’s Cult of ‘Decolonial Futurity’ to Americans
For Quillette, FAIR Advisor Jonathan Kay explains a course called Indigenous Health in Canada and how it falls short in addressing the important history of Indigenous people.
Students are instructed, for instance, to “commit to concrete actions that disrupt the perpetuation of settler colonialism and articulate pathways that embrace decolonial futures,” and are asked to probe their consciences for actions that “perpetuate settler colonial futurity.” In the land-acknowledgement exercise, students pledge to engage in the act of “reclaiming history” through “nurturing…relationships within the living realities of Indigenous sovereignties.”
My source had no idea what any of this nonsense meant. It seems unlikely the professor knew either. And University of Alberta is not an outlier: For years now, whole legions of Canadian university students across the country have been required to robotically mumble similarly fatuous platitudes as a condition of graduation. It’s effectively become Canada’s national liturgy.
Why I still criticize Democrats more than Trump
For The Washington Post, FAIR Advisor Shadi Hamid explains why he still criticizes Democrats more than President Trump.
The Democratic Party has long preached tolerance and inclusion while marginalizing pro-life Democrats, talking down to Black and brown voters, ignoring religious conservatives and dismissing the growing ranks of Americans who felt the party had become too radical on issues such as gender identity. On policy, what was once the working-class party chose to prioritize things such as college debt relief, which disproportionately benefits the wealthy.
The Omni-American Dream Interview with: John Wood, Jr.
The School of Public Policy hosted its 2025 Black History Month webinar featuring FAIR Advisor John Wood, Jr., leading figure in the American depolarization movement and author of The Omni-American Dream. At a time in our country where many both self-identify and categorize others with simple labels, why would it be important to think of another as more complex beings? In his forthcoming book, author John Wood, Jr. argues that one way of healing our political divides is to engage more deeply with one another, consider our multifaceted lives and roles, and build relationships.
The Nazis Did Not ‘Weaponize’ Free Speech. They Crushed It.
For The Free Press, Andrew Roberts writes about historical ignorance and what many get wrong about ‘free speech’ in Nazi Germany.
All opposing views were ruthlessly expunged from German society. Meanwhile, Goebbels ensured that radios became cheap enough to enter almost every home, so that the regime could target the population with propaganda to a previously unparalleled degree.
If there had been true freedom of expression in Germany and German-occupied Europe during the Third Reich, the Holocaust would have immediately been exposed and would have been that much more difficult to carry out. Articles in the newspapers and questions on the radio would have addressed what was happening in the “zones of interest” of Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. People would have wanted to know where millions of European Jews had been sent, and why they were not responding to efforts to track them down.
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