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How I Found FAIR
For FAIR’s Substack, Hana Halff writes about her experience on college campus in the wake of the October 7th attack.
This period of mourning and fear also became a time of ideological transition. I started questioning ideas I had once considered unquestionable. A lifelong leftist, I had placed my trust in the progressive community, believing they had my best interests at heart. In high school, I was a cancel culture enthusiast, quick to point out how my classmates’ behavior or words were problematic. Now, I found myself isolated from that same community, semi-canceled by my friends. I began to notice hypocrisies all around my politically homogeneous, leftist college. At my school, language had the power to be “violent,” yet when it came to language about Jews, anything went. Unlike other forms of hatred, antisemitism was easily disregarded, invalidated, gaslit, or ignored. It seemed to be the one prejudice that, when claimed by those affected, became even more disputable.
Curating Courage
For FAIR’s Substack, Julia Wald writes about the fight for Jewish creative freedom in an increasingly antisemitic art world.
Freedom is a verb. Courage is a muscle. To become a brave person is to exercise your courage and curate your own freedom. Making art in the face of animosity and hate is just one of many acts of spiritual humanistic dissent. So make great art that outlives you—and while cancellation may be imminent, if your creative voice is stronger than baseless hatred, eventually human ingenuity and beauty will find a way to eclipse the temporary and transient ugliness of human nature. This is why superhero comics will outlast us all. Jews value life. This is why the rallying cry of the Jewish people is “Am Yisrael Chai” or “The Jewish People Live.”
Medical Groups Are Censoring the Cass Review
For her Substack BROADVIEW, FAIR Advisor Lisa Selin Davis writes about American institutions censoring the Cass Review.
Privileging politics over science makes it harder for those who need treatment to be served in an evidence-based way. Gorin says therapists are the front line, the ones approving young people for interventions. They need to be properly informed. And the surgeons? They’re the ones manifesting irreversible interventions—how can they do that ethically when prevented from hearing evidence?
Joe Rogan Experience #2211 - Michael Shellenberger
FAIR Advisor Michael Shellenberger joins Joe Rogan for a wide ranging discussion.
Report: DEI Is Transforming the National Science Foundation
For The Free Press, Rupa Subramanya reports on government-funded grants favor research exploring ‘white supremacy’ and ‘non-normative forms of gender and sexuality'.
The GOP members’ report said it searched for grant applications that used a variety of terms associated with social justice, gender, race, environmental justice, and individuals belonging to underrepresented groups. Some of the grant applications that received funding showed up in more than one category.
The overall 10 percent figure identified by the GOP report masks how quickly the number of such grants have increased. In 2021, before the Biden task force report came out, they were less than 1 percent of the total number of grants. By 2022, that number had risen to more than 16 percent, and was at 27 percent between January and April 2024.
Despite positive signs for Team Freedom, the game is far from over
For The Washington Post, Mitch Daniels writes about how colleges are finally showing signs of sanity about protests and speech, but there’s no reason to get complacent.
For now, a freedom fan can at most celebrate a few gains after years of defeat and retreat, and honor those who have braved the cancelers to create those gains. Later this year, the Russell Kirk Center in Michigan will bestow its first McLellan Prize for courage and impact in defending free expression. (I served as a juror.) The recipient, Greg Lukianoff, in addition to his books and other advocacy, has for years led the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the nation’s leading watchdog group in this subject area.
Every team should recognize its MVP. But great individual play is no guarantee of victory. Paul Hornung won a Heisman Trophy on a 2-8 team. I can’t see a scoreboard from where I’m sitting, but I strongly suspect that it says Team Freedom is still in catch-up mode.
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