Past Events
June 29 2023: SCOTUS Affirmative Action Decision Events
Thursday 6/29/23 6p ET FAIR Roundtable with Ilya Shapiro, Wilfred Reilly, and Wai Wah Chin, moderated by FAIR’s Executive Director Maud Maron
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Thursday 6/29/23,12p ET Manhattan Institute event featuring: Ed Blum, founder of SFFA and architect behind the litigation; Gail Heriot, MI book fellow, member of U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, University Professor at the San Diego School of Law; Wah Chin, MI adjunct fellow, founding president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York; Moderated by Ilya Shapiro, MI senior fellow and director of constitutional studies (also a FAIR Board of Directors member)
FAIR HA+ Member Salon: April 25, 2023
Please join us on Tuesday, April 25th from 6-7pm ET (new time).
Please join us for a casual online gathering. The FAIR HA+ Salon is an opportunity for us to gather, meet fellow members, and discuss topics of interest related to Harvard, higher ed, and anything FAIR-related of interest to you. We have found that our members prefer casual meetups with no “homework,” so please grab a drink or coffee, log in, and let’s talk!
Our HA+ Salons are for HA+ members only, so if you’re not yet a member, please join us! For questions, please email us.
April 4, 2023
Pre-Interview 11am ET +
Debate 7:30pm ET
Should Academic DEI Programs Be Abolished?
NEW: We invite you to join us on Tuesday, April 4th from 11am-12:30pm for a livestream pre-interview with Heather MacDonald.
Then, please join us (online or in person) 7:30-9pm ET for an Oxford-style debate moderated by Harvard Alum Nadine Strossen (AB 72, JD 75).
Hosted by the MIT Chapter of the Adam Smith Society, Co-Hosted by the MIT Free Speech Alliance, and Co-Sponsored by a number of organizations, including FAIR HA+, the debate will address the following proposition: “Resolved, that academic DEI programs should be abolished.”
In-line with the hosts, FAIR HA+ “does not take an official position on the debate proposition. Rather, our goal is to provide a model of vigorous yet civil discussion for both the MIT community and the wider public.”
Pre-Interview: Heather MacDonald is doing a live, pre-debate interview from 11a-12:30p ET on April 4th, the morning of the debate. Register for the pre-event livestream here. After that, the recording will be here.
Debate: The debate will be held in MIT’s Wong Auditorium (Tang Center, Building E51) and livestreamed for those who cannot attend in person. Arrive at 6:30pm to visit the sponsor tables, including FAIR Harvard Alumni+.
Debate Details
Moderator: Nadine Strossen (Harvard AB 72, JD 75)
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and former ACLU President, is a Senior Fellow with FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression).
Affirmative Debate Team: Heather Mac Donald and Pat Kambhampati
Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of When Race Trumps Merit.
Patanjali (Pat) Kambhampati is currently a Full Professor in the Department of Chemistry at McGill University where he does research on ultrafast laser science and materials science.
Negative Debate Team: Pamela Denise Long and Karith Foster
Pamela Denise Long is a Newsweek contributor, adjunct faculty, CEO of Youthcentrix® and doctoral-prepared implementation consultant for diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism.
Karith Foster is the founder of, INVERSITYT Solutions and a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) Specialist.
Host: MIT chapter of the Adam Smith Society
Co-Host: MIT Free Speech Alliance
Co-Sponsors:
Date: April 4, 2023
Time: 7:30-9pm ET
Location:
In-Person: MIT’s Wong Auditorium (Tang Center, Building E51), 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA
Livestream (Watch livestream HERE)
Cost: FREE
Registration (REQUIRED): Register here for the in-person event. Your will receive a confirmation email with a QR code. You must present the QR Code to gain admission to the debate.
January 9, 2023: A Conversation with Harvey Silverglate HLS ‘67
FAIR Harvard Alumni+ and Harvard Alumni for Free Speech are thrilled to invite our members/subscribers to join us online on Monday, January 9th from 6-7pm ET for a private, online discussion with Harvey Silverglate.
Harvey Silverglate is a fierce advocate for and defender of free speech, academic freedom and civil liberties. He has spent a lifetime fighting for liberty as an attorney, co-founder of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), author (see Shadow University) and public intellectual.
Harvey is seeking to gain a spot on the ballot for the Harvard Board of Overseers via petition—you can learn more, including how to add your name to the petition, at harvey4harvard.com.
We look forward to talking with Harvey about the state of Harvard and higher education, why he’s seeking to run for Overseer, his ideas on what alumni, students, faculty and others can do to support Harvard’s motto, Veritas, and more.
The event will include a moderated portion followed by a Q&A with attendees. This free, private online event is open to FAIR Harvard Alumni+ and Harvard Alumni for Free Speech members/subscribers.
Date: January 9, 2023
Time: 6-7pm ET
Location: Online (Zoom link will be provided to registrants)
Cost: Free
Registration: Registration is open to FAIR HA+ and HAFFS members/subscribers. Only registered individuals will be permitted to attend. Register here, or via the Register button below.
If you are not yet a member/subscriber to one of our organizations, please joinFAIR HA+ and/or subscribe to HAFFS before registering. Please consider being a part of both organizations—we are stronger together!
November 30, 2022: Harvard Alum Ian Rowe to Discuss his book AGENCY
FAIR national has a book club. For their current book, they're reading FAIR Advisor Ian Rowe’s (MBA ‘91) new book Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for All Children to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power.
The book club met in late October to discuss the book, and are delighted that the author will join for the following meeting on November 30th at 7:30 p.m. ET for a discussion and Q&A. You can register for the latter session here:
FAIR HA+ Member Salon: June 22, 2022
Please join us on Wednesday, June 22nd from 8-9pm ET for our June FAIR HA+ Salon— a new, regular discussion series for our members to meet, provide updates, and discuss topics of interest.
For our launch FAIR HA+ Salon, we’ll be discussing the ideological conformity on campuses today through two recent pieces: A Commencement Message to Very Excellent Sheep and High School Students Value Free Speech but Feel Uncomfortable Speaking Up.
The Excellent Sheep piece by former Yale professor William Deresiewicz argues that today’s “wokeness” is “anything but countercultural” and is, instead, part of a deeper continuity of conformity. In the high school-focused piece, Harvard alum (AM '07, PHD '10) and Sarah Lawrence Professor Samuel Abrams shows that as students prepare for collegiate settings, they are being “conditioned to keep silent rather than dissent or question others, putting the vibrancy of our democracy at risk.”
The FAIR HA+ Salon is an opportunity for HA+ members to gather, meet fellow members and discuss topics of interest related to Harvard, higher ed, and/or FAIR’s mission. Our HA+ Salons are for HA+ members only, so if you’re not yet a member, please join us!
For questions or issues accessing the articles, please email us.
FAIR FILM FEST 2022
FAIR is hosting its annual Film Festival from June 12th-16th.
The festival kicks off with an in-person event in NYC on 6/12 followed by online Q&A events with the film directors, FAIR advisors and special guests each day thereafter.
Note the 6/14 event hosted by FAIR advisor Wilfred Reilly with director Rob Montz on the film, Harvard Canceled its Best Black Professor, Why?
Each film will be made available on FAIR’s website for registered guests of the festival for a period of one week before each Q&A event.
Sunday, June 12 – Doors open 1PM, Film Starts at 1:30PM, Q&A at 3:15PM ET
Join us for a NYC in-person screening and Q&A for I Am A Victor and assorted short films directed by Kendall Johnson with director Kendall Johnson, host Angel Eduardo, and special guests Sahar Tartak, Moshe Levy, Kevin Ray, Johnny Davis, and Suziann Davis. Q&A portion in-person or online!
Monday, June 13 – 8:00PM ET
Join us for an onine Q&A for What Killed Michael Brown? With director Eli Steele and star of the film Shelby Steele.
Tuesday, June 14 – 8:00PM ET
Join us for an online Q&A for Harvard Cancelled Its Best Black Professor, Why? and Anti-Racist Ibram X. Kendi Wants To Destroy The NBA with director Rob Montz and panelist Stuart Taylon, Jr., hosted by Wilfred Reilly.
Wednesday, June 15 – 8:00PM ET
Join us online for a Q&A for Mighty Ira with director Nico Perrino and Executive Producer Greg Lukianoff, hosted by Alan Charles Kors.
Thursday, June 16 – 8:00PM ET
Join us online for a Q&A for All Of Us with director Pierre Pirard and special guests Vicky Eastland and Rorri Geller-Mohammed, hosted by Daryl Davis.
THE FILMS
I Am A Victor
The documentary starts at the end of the civil rights era with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and tracks the 50-year journey taken by black Americans on the two different roads they have traveled since that iconic time. Depending on the road they selected (or unconsciously followed), that decision would impact the lives of their children’s children. A large percentage of the population took the path that led to an Afro-centric, secular and political activist journey and the smaller and often unheard population took the path that was taught by their parents and grandparents rooted in the Christian faith (faith, family and education). FAIR will also be screening assorted short films directed by Kendall Johnson.
What Killed Michael Brown?
Acclaimed writer, Shelby Steele, has long argued that systemic racism is more a strategy than a truth, and that the universal oppression of black Americans is largely over with. But the 2014 shooting of a black teen, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri by a white policeman shook the nation to its core. During Steele’s investigation of Ferguson, America was once again rocked by the brutal killing of George Floyd. Didn’t these killings, and the long list of others like them, put the lie to Steele’s argument?
Harvard Canceled Its Best Black Professor. Why?
Roland Fryer was an unlikely Harvard superstar. Abandoned by his mom at birth and raised by an alcoholic dad, Fryer became the youngest black professor to ever secure tenure at Harvard and won the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal, the prize for the best economist under 40 in the world. Fryer’s research routinely upended the woke orthodoxies dominating academia. But not on purpose; Fryer isn’t partisan. He’s only interested in digging up truth, no matter what it is. Truth, he says, is the key tool for improving the lives of black boys and girls. Then, in 2018, Fryer’s career was suddenly cut short. Harvard had an official line on why: he’d sexually harassed his staff. Fryer was banned from campus and his multi-million dollar lab was shut down. The few legacy media outlets that did cover the case, such as the New York Times, dutifully repeated the university’s narrative: this punishment was overdue MeToo justice. No, it wasn’t. Drawing on previously unreported documents and interviews with dozens of Fryer’s friends and colleagues, we reveal the true story behind his cancellation.
How To Make An Anti-Racist NBA
What would it look like to apply the “anti-racist” principles of Ibram X Kendi to the NBA? Kendi, the most famous “anti-racist” in America, has received $10 million from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, rakes in $20,000 a hour for his consulting services, has won a MacArthur Genius prize, and has been hailed by Oprah and Malcolm Gladwell as a moral prophet. But what does he really believe? The NBA wanted to find out: it hired him for a much-hyped anti-racism summit at the height of the George Floyd Protests. They do not understand what they’re asking for. Implementing Kendi’s anti-racism would result in the ruin of the league.
Mighty Ira
Ira Glasser is one of America’s unsung champions of civil rights and liberties. As the leader of the American Civil Liberties Union for 23 years, he transformed the organization from a small, “mom-and-pop” operation on the verge of bankruptcy into a civil liberties juggernaut with offices in every state and a $30 million endowment. As his generation retires from the barricades, Ira reminisces on his life at the forefront of defending the rights of all Americans, from civil rights leaders to neo-Nazis. His story takes us to his hometown of Brooklyn, New York, where in 1947 Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers broke the color barrier in baseball and inspired a generation of civil rights activists; to the offices of Robert Kennedy, where the U.S. Senator spoke with a young Ira and convinced him to take his first job with the ACLU; and to California, where a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor explains to Ira why he thinks the ACLU was wrong to defend the right of neo-Nazis to demonstrate near his home in Skokie, Illinois, over 40 years ago — and how recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia, evoke painful memories. Amid high-profile controversies surrounding free speech, racial equality, and antisemitism — and on the occasion of the ACLU’s centennial — Ira Glasser’s story is as timely and provocative as ever.
All Of Us
What if, away from tensions around questions of identity and the fear of others, we had found other realities? What if we had stories to tell of audacious citizens who, with a strong desire for people of different beliefs to live together in harmony, have found ways of reinventing family, education, social relations, culture, and work…and have done so despite existing difficulties and frictions? What if, thanks to these stories, gathered from around the world, we can begin to see the emergence of what could be the multi-identity and yet harmonious world of tomorrow? And what if we all took part in it?
NEW ALLIANCES RETREAT
Harvard’s Roland Fryer, FAIR Advisor John Wood, Jr., Heterodox Academy’s Jonathan Haidt and more.
June 7th & 8th
Free livestreams featuring Black, Asian and Jewish leaders dedicated to protecting liberal values and opposing the imposition of ideology on our institutions.