Week in Review: American Dream Trounces Bureaucrat Baloney

It’s a huge win for highly qualified Tennessee lawyer Violaine Panasci’s right to earn a living. This week, Violaine obtained an order from the Tennessee Supreme Court saying the state government’s Board of Law Examiners cannot deny her admission to the Tennessee Bar simply because she went to the “wrong” law school.

The Goldwater Institute came to Violaine’s defense earlier this year, urging the state Supreme Court to protect her right to earn a living. As the Goldwater Institute’s brief made clear, government bureaucrats have no business stopping qualified professionals like Violaine—who earned a law degree in Canada, a Masters of Law degree in New York, and a 90th percentile score on the Uniform Bar Exam—from doing their jobs. “I’m pleased the Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled against the Board’s bureaucratic, arbitrary approach toward denying my right to earn a living,” Violaine said.

“The right to earn a living is protected by the Tennessee Constitution and the Tennessee Right to Earn a Living Act, and it’s great news that the Tennessee Supreme Court recognized the importance of this right in allowing Violaine the ability to practice law in Tennessee,” Goldwater Institute Staff Attorney Adam Shelton added. For years, the Goldwater Institute has successfully defended the right to earn a living in courtrooms and capitols around the country, and this week’s ruling should serve as a warning to government agencies that still insist on needless red tape: stop raising barriers that keep workers from pursuing their American Dream.

Read more at In Defense of Liberty.

Right to Try’s Lessons for the ‘Cancer Moonshot’

It’s a moonshot effort: to end cancer as we know it. This time, the greatest challenge isn’t science; it’s removing the government red tape and bureaucracy that hinder innovation. But what if there were hope for patients diagnosed with a cruel, seemingly hopeless brain disease? What if the cancer moonshot was already in reach for Americans with glioblastoma, thanks in part to the Goldwater Institute’s landmark Right to Try reform?

Right to Try, which the Goldwater Institute passed in 41 states and then at the federal level in 2018, allows Americans with life-threatening or terminal illnesses to access innovative treatments that could help save their lives without first begging the federal government for permission. And it’s working. As Goldwater Institute Vice President for Healthcare Policy Naomi Lopez writes in The Hill, the survival rate for individuals given the Right to Try treatment under the first formal Right to Try program to treat glioblastoma patients was nearly triple the figure of 6.6 months that had remained stalled for more than a decade.

Next, lawmakers around the country should follow Arizona’s lead and pass the Goldwater Institute’s Right to Try for Individualized Treatments, which extends the Right to Try to personalized treatments tailormade for individual patients. As Lopez says, “it’s literally a matter of life and death.”

Read more in The Hill.

Goldwater Wins ‘Powerful Storytelling’ Award

And the winner is…Goldwater! The Goldwater Institute’s work to fight Critical Race Theory in the classroom was recognized this past week by the State Policy Network (SPN) with a 2022 Communications Excellence Award for Powerful Storytelling.

When California teacher Kali Fontanilla, the subject of the award-winning campaign, discovered her public school was indoctrinating students with the lies of CRT, she boldly blew the whistle in an exclusive Goldwater Institute video. It took a lot of bravery for Kali to expose the teaching of CRT in her own school. “If you’re wondering whether Critical Race Theory is a good thing for our country, try speaking out against it and see how people treat you. For me, that was when the real racism started,” Kali says.

But her courage made a huge difference, drawing nationwide attention to the woke indoctrination that’s infiltrated our schools and helping establish the Goldwater Institute’s Academic Transparency Act as the national standard. The Goldwater Institute is honored to help Kali tell her story and proud to win this SPN award—and the Institute will never stop fighting CRT to safeguard America’s future.

Read more about the Goldwater Institute’s award here, and watch Kali’s video here.

Tickets Are Going Fast! Goldwater 2022 Annual Dinner, Featuring Glenn Beck

Arizona’s premier liberty event returns for an in-person celebration on Friday, October 7, and you are cordially invited!

The Goldwater Institute is successfully working daily in capitols, communities, and courtrooms to defend and strengthen Americans’ freedoms. In celebration of our accomplishments, we invite you to attend the 2022 Goldwater Institute Annual Dinner —”Winning The Fight For Freedom”—featuring radio host and best-selling author Glenn Beck.

You can find out more about our Annual Dinner and RSVP here.