Week in Review: Discriminate to Graduate?

A shocking new report shows that 67 percent of major American universities require students to take courses in DEI—an ideology that promotes race-based discrimination against those deemed “oppressors”—just to graduate. But the Goldwater Institute is fighting to stop it.

The new report, which comes weeks after the Goldwater Institute revealed that one of the nation’s top journalism schools is force-feeding DEI to future reporters, provides even more confirmation of how embedded DEI has become in university classrooms. That’s why Goldwater’s Freedom from Indoctrination Act prohibits mandatory DEI courses at public universities, instead requiring schools to provide basic instruction in important elements of the American system of self-government. It builds on Goldwater’s nation-leading work to decimate DEI bureaucracies in states like Texas, ensuring public universities actually serve the public.

“The Goldwater Institute has a solution to restore institutions of higher learning to their core educational purpose: the pursuit of truth through the creation and dissemination of knowledge,” Goldwater Senior Constitutionalism Fellow Timothy K. Minella writes. “No public university should be forcing students to sit through lectures in DEI dogma as a condition of obtaining a degree.”

Read more here.  

More Than Just a Children’s Book

Picture a future where every child knows that the American Dream is within their reach. A world where they’re not just taught about bravery, hard work, and opportunity, but one where they see it come alive in colorful illustrations and captivating stories. That world is closer than you think, thanks to the Goldwater Institute’s new children’s book, A Is for the American Dream.

We’re thrilled to announce that grassroots activists have generously donated copies of A Is for the American Dream to the Scottsdale Unified School District in Arizona, opening doors for thousands of young minds. Now more than ever, children need to learn about the true values upon which our nation was founded—and those are the lessons of A Is for the American Dream.

The Goldwater Institute will continue to ensure that every child knows the American Dream is for them—and that they have the power to achieve anything they set their minds to.

Read more here, and buy A Is for the American Dream here.

Transparency Must Be the Rule

Award-winning investigative journalist Amy Silverman has exposed numerous problems at Arizona’s Department of Economic Security. She’s done it through a series of reports documenting the delays and denials faced by citizens who seek services from the agency’s Division of Developmental Disabilities. But when Silverman sought public records to find out how the agency treats vulnerable adults under its care, the government agency refused.

Silverman is now suing under the state’s open-records law, and the Goldwater Institute has filed a brief urging the Arizona Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in the case this week, to compel the agency to hand over the documents.

“There are few things government should hide from the public,” Goldwater Institute Staff Attorney Parker Jackson writes in the Tucson-based Arizona Daily Star. “The Goldwater Institute will always step up to defend the public’s right to access information about government operations and expenditures. Transparency is the rule—and must be for our form of self-government to succeed.”

Read more at the Arizona Daily Star. 

Special Virtual Event: How to Take Back Our Cities

You’re invited! Join Goldwater Institute Vice President for Legal Affairs Timothy Sandefur and the Federalist Society on Monday, April 22, at 12 p.m. AZ Time/3 p.m. Eastern Time as he recaps Supreme Court oral arguments in an important homelessness case with national implications.

Local leaders have used a Ninth Circuit Appeals Court decision called Grants Pass. v. Johnson as an excuse to avoid addressing the nationwide homelessness epidemic spreading pollution, disease, and violent crime through some of our largest cities. The Goldwater Institute has filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn Grants Pass, and Sandefur is one of the nation’s leading experts on the case.

Register here for this virtual Federalist Society-hosted event to join Sandefur as he breaks down and analyzes oral arguments in Grants Pass.