Week in Review: When a Child’s Life Hangs in the Balance

Imagine hearing devastating news about your child’s health and knowing that a potentially lifesaving treatment exists, but that bureaucratic red tape is keeping it just beyond your reach.

This was the harsh reality for Arizona mom Kendra Riley, who had to move her family to Italy to save their baby daughter Keira’s life after Keira was diagnosed with a rare brain disease. Now, there’s a reform that can help families like the Rileys get the care they need right here at home, Kendra said in a recent national radio interview, emphasizing the urgent need for Goldwater’s Right to Try expansion.

Today, onerous government restrictions force seriously ill patients to wait months and years they don’t have to access experimental, highly personalized treatments that could help.

Right to Try for Individualized Treatments protects patients’ right to access those treatments—like the gene therapy that saved Keira—without first begging the federal government for permission. This reform—which Goldwater is taking nationwide after enacting it in Arizona and Nevada—builds on the success of our original Right to Try law, legislation that’s saving countless lives after Goldwater passed it federally in 2018.

When a child’s life—when anyone’s life—hangs in the balance, bureaucracy should never prevent lifesaving care.

Find out more here. 

New York Times Carries Water for DEI’s Failure

The New York Times’ heavy hitters are trying to piece back together the latest wreckage of racially discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming, Goldwater Director of Education Policy Matt Beienburg writes in the Washington Times.

Covering the meltdown of DEI guru Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research, which raked in $50 million in donations while accomplishing nothing, the New York Times framed the left’s entire DEI apparatus as a “passion” project whose ragtag leaders are struggling to get by. In another article, the paper declared that Kendi’s work “has ignited criticism from conservatives,” while failing to mention Kendi’s explicit promotion of racial discrimination.

This latest DEI meltdown highlights the urgent need for state lawmakers to shield their own state institutions. “They must follow in the footsteps of states such as Florida and Texas, which have adopted model policies from the Goldwater Institute and our partners to defund the bloated DEI bureaucracies, prohibit mandatory ‘diversity statements,’ and protect students and faculty from forced instruction in the tenets of DEI,” Beienburg adds.

“The Times will no doubt continue its spin, but at least state-sponsored programs in racial resentment will have gone the way of Kendi’s center — down the drain.”

Read more here. 

Episode 3: The Pursuit of Happiness

Why do we have a right to “pursue happiness”? In the third installment of the Foundations of Freedom video series, Goldwater Vice President for Legal Affairs Timothy Sandefur discusses where the concept of the “pursuit of happiness” actually came from and why it’s so important to the American way of life.

Each episode of the new Foundations of Freedom series features Sandefur discussing our individual liberties, their philosophical underpinnings, and what they mean to us today:

Watch the third video here, and stay tuned for the next one!

RSVP Today: 3 Women Who Sparked a Revolution

We’d love for you to join us for a free event on October 17, as Goldwater Institute Vice President for Legal Affairs Timothy Sandefur speaks about his new book, Freedom’s Furies, at Arizona State University (ASU).

In 1943, three remarkable women—Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand—released books that helped to preserve and advance the cause of individualism at a time when that idea was under attack as never before. These women would go on to transform American politics.

In Freedom’s Furies, Sandefur explores the three women’s friendship, the ideas they shared and disagreed about, and the influence they had on the next generation of freedom-oriented intellectuals. Join Sandefur on Tuesday, October 17, at 5:00 pm Mountain Time, as he discusses the book at ASU in Tempe.

Register for this free event here. 

Tickets Are Going Fast! Goldwater 2023 Annual Dinner & 35 Anniversary Celebration, Featuring Sen. Ted Cruz

Arizona’s premier liberty event returns for an in-person celebration featuring Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday, November 3, 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 Goldwater Institute’s 2023 Annual Dinner and 35th Anniversary Celebration! As our guest, you’ll enjoy an inspiring dinner program followed by a unique experience as an audience member during a live-recording session of Sen. Cruz’s hit podcast, Verdict, followed by an engaging audience Q&A session.

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