 Last year, the California Assembly introduced AB 101, which would require every California public high school student to take an ethnic studies course in order to graduate. AB 101 has already passed the Assembly and is now in the Senate. Additionally, the California Department of Education has published a model ethnic studies curriculum for teachers to use if and when AB 101 becomes law. This curriculum incorporates many controversial and divisive elements, including an overarching emphasis on grievance and resentment and the proposition that an individual's skin color must be central to their identity. FAIR does not support the banning of content and speech. However, FAIR believes that transparency is essential to our democracy. AB 101 contains no transparency provisions that would require schools to disclose to parents/guardians the curricular materials that will be used in ethnic studies, nor any procedure by which parents can access those materials. FAIR is seeking to introduce an amendment to AB 101 providing for such disclosure. More broadly, FAIR will be proposing model legislation that would require schools in all states to disclose curricular materials to parents and guardians.  Katie Herzog wrote a guest essay for FAIR Advisor Bari Weiss' Substack, Common Sense With Bari Weiss. Herzog details how censorship and anti-intellectualism are now spreading through the field of medicine at an alarming rate. “Some of these doctors say that there is a ‘purge’ underway in the world of American medicine: question the current orthodoxy and you will be pushed out. They are so worried about the dangers of speaking out about their concerns that they will not let me identify them except by the region of the country where they work.” Read the full article here.  The New York Times' Michael Powell wrote an illuminating piece on the A.C.L.U.'s storied history of advocating for the free speech rights of all Americans regardless of political persuasion. In it, Powell details the troubling and partisan direction the organization has taken in recent years. “The A.C.L.U., America’s high temple of free speech and civil liberties, has emerged as a muscular and richly funded progressive powerhouse in recent years, taking on the Trump administration in more than 400 lawsuits. But the organization finds itself riven with internal tensions over whether it has stepped away from a founding principle — unwavering devotion to the First Amendment.” Read the full article here.  Andrew Doyle joined Nick Gilepsie on the Reason podcast to discuss his new book Free Speech and Why it Matters while detailing the ongoing censorship crisis pervading much of the West. “We are left facing that confusing and rare phenomenon: The well-intentioned authoritarian." Listen to the podcast here. |
