The American Dream is for everyone, no matter where you were born or the color of your skin. This year at the Goldwater Institute’s Freedom Gala, joined by our friends and supporters, we’re honored to celebrate our successful work defending the American Dream and chart a course for safeguarding our freedoms in the years to come.
Here are a few of the Americans we’ve helped.
Steven Bedrick:
Arkansas business owner Steven Hedrick poured his heart and soul into his small business, and every week Steven, who rents out roll-off dumpsters for large projects, gets calls from customers needing help. But he can’t: the government is running him out of business by forcing residents to use a government-owned competitor. “The city has prohibited me from doing business,” Steven says. “You shouldn’t have to ask permission to put food on your table.”
Goldwater is suing the city of Holiday Island for trampling on Steven’s constitutional right to earn a living. “It almost feels like they came in to rescue me,” Steven says of the Goldwater Institute’s help. “I can’t thank them enough for this.”
Rob Wilson:
When U.S. Navy veteran Rob Wilson found his constitutional rights violated after the Flagstaff, Ariz., government banned him from advertising for his shooting range at the local municipal airport, he turned to the Goldwater Institute. It’s a “direct infringement on my First Amendment rights and my ability to conduct my business successfully,” Rob says.
Goldwater got right to work demanding that the city stop its illegal censorship–and in a matter of weeks, the Institute vindicated Rob’s free speech rights. City officials had no choice but to back down—and that’s exactly what they did. Goldwater’s help was “priceless, because I could not do this on my own,” Rob says.
Kali Fontanilla:
Parents have feared the worst: that public schools across the country are secretly indoctrinating their children with racist lessons that teach them to hate America and to judge each other based on skin color—all under the guise of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Those fears aren’t fiction, and one teacher exposed the truth with Goldwater’s help.
“I’m here to tell the American people that CRT is being taught to students,” said former California teacher Kali Fontanilla. When Kali, a veteran teacher of 15 years, found out what her high school students were learning in a mandatory “ethnic studies” class, she felt she had no choice but to speak out. After all, she recognized CRT for what it really is: a toxic worldview that goes against everything our constitutional republic stands for. Now, Kali has become an outspoken advocate against racist lies that teach children to hate America. And she’s urging parents to support Goldwater’s policy solution: Academic Transparency. “Demand that your school district’s lessons and materials be made accessible online, so you can see what your child is being taught,” Kali says.
Amber Lavigne:
Amber Lavigne of Maine was alarmed to discover her 13-year-old daughter’s public school counselor had secretly taken serious actions to encourage her “gender transition,” and had been referring to her daughter with a different name and different pronouns. She was furious when officials refused to engage in open dialogue—except to defend the counselor’s actions.
Then Goldwater stepped in to defend Amber’s rights, suing school officials in federal court for violating the U.S. Constitution by keeping her in the dark. “This is unacceptable: a school employee secretly encouraged my daughter to change her gender and hide it from me,” Amber said. “The school never stopped trying to keep me in the dark at every turn, repeatedly stonewalling me when I tried to find out what was going on. My parental rights aren’t up for debate: I deserve to know what’s happening to my child in school.”
Nicole Solas:
Public school officials told Rhode Island mom Nicole Solas to pay $74,000 in public records fees to find out what her daughter would learn in kindergarten. Making matters worse, the nation’s largest teachers union sued Nicole to block her attempts at learning the truth. Goldwater is defending Nicole in court with the help of our attorneys—and Nicole is urging other parents to ask questions and keep their schools accountable.
Riley family:
For the Riley family of Arizona, life would never be the same after March 2020, when their 1-year-old daughter Olivia was diagnosed with an extremely rare and fatal brain disease. Then, just three months later, Olivia’s younger sister Keira received the same diagnosis. While it was tragically too late to stop the disease’s progression in Olivia, a personalized gene therapy treatment was available for baby Keira—but the family had to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and move to Italy to access it and save her life.
Now the Riley family is advocating for the Goldwater Institute’s Right to Try for Individualized Treatments, a law that ensures families can access cutting-edge, potentially lifesaving treatments right here in the United States. Goldwater has already enacted this urgently needed law in several states, and we will spread this new wave of reform across the nation, making it the law of the land. “It brings tears to my eyes thinking of all the other special needs families out there who have always held onto hope for a chance like this,” said Keira’s mom, Kendra Riley.
Every American deserves the Right to Try. Goldwater will never stop until every American can exercise this fundamental right.
Malinda Harris:
Imagine a government powerful enough to seize your car in the middle of the night and keep it for six long years, even if you’ve never even been accused of doing anything wrong. That’s exactly what happened to Malinda Harris, an innocent grandma in Massachusetts. Goldwater’s litigators took action and got Malinda’s car back—but that’s not all.
Malinda’s car was taken under the state’s civil asset forfeiture law, which allows government to take, keep, and profit from someone’s property without even charging them with a crime, much less convicting them of one. Malinda is not alone. Hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and property are forfeited every year across America. That’s why the Goldwater Institute is promoting common-sense reforms around the nation, like the law we passed in Arizona that requires law enforcement to obtain a criminal conviction before forcing citizens to forfeit their property. Civil forfeiture is an unjust system. But Goldwater is helping innocent Americans beat it.
Velia Aguirre:
Her children were thriving under Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program, which allowed these homeschool moms to customize their kids’ education around their unique needs. Then, Attorney General Kris Mayes changed the rules and blocked her purchases of kids’ books and basic school supplies. “The government is changing the rules and putting impossible burdens on me,” says Velia, whose three sons have special needs.
Now, Goldwater is suing state officials on Velia’s behalf: We’re challenging this wrong-headed new requirement and seeking a court order to ensure parents don’t have to run a gauntlet of paperwork and bureaucratic hurdles every time they want to buy books or pencils for their children.
Tens of thousands of families have joined Arizona’s ESA program, which the Goldwater Institute created and later expanded to every family in the state. School choice opponents want to take that away and dismantle the ESA program, brick by brick. We won’t let them.
