The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is an American organization that promotes “academic freedom,” by which they mean advocating for irresponsible academic and public conduct without accountability or consequence.
FIRE frequently supports and defends anti-transgender activists like Moms for Liberty, Alice Dreger, Ian Haworth, Greg Lukianoff, Rikki Schlott, John McWhorter, and Steven Pinker.
Background
The organization was founded as Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. It changed its name in 2022.
According to Emily Pothast, “Greg Lukianoff heads the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a think-tank funded by the Olin and Scaife families, right-wing oligarchs whose influence over politics and media has been compared to that of the Koch brothers, as documented in the book Dark Money.”
People
Staff
- Greg Lukianoff, President and CEO
- Will Creeley, Legal Director
- Alisha Glennon, Chief Operating Officer
- Nico Perrino, Executive Vice President
- Ronnie London, General Counsel
- Bridget Glackin, Senior Vice President of Development
- Nerida Brownlee, Chief of Staff
- Suleyman Gokyigit, Chief Information Officer
- Cait Scanlan, Director of People Operations
Board
- Harvey Silverglate, Co-Founder of FIRE; Member, Board of Directors
- John Ellis Chairman, Board of Directors
- Samuel J. Abrams, Member, Board of Directors
- Kmele Foster, Member, Board of Directors
- John B. Henneman III, Member, Board of Directors
- Kurt Jaggers Member, Board of Directors
- Sandy Leong Member, Board of Directors
- Virginia Postrel Member, Board of Directors
- Joseph Maline Member, Board of Directors
- Keith Whittington Member, Board of Directors
Advisory Council
- Steven Brint
- Nicholas A. Christakis
- Anthony Dick
- Karith Foster
- Ira Glasser
- Erica Goldberg
- Sallie James
- Wendy Kaminer
- Timur Kuran
- David Lat
- John McWhorter
- Peter Malkin
- Muriel Morisey
- Steven Pinker
- Steven Shapiro
- Daniel Shuchman
- Lawrence Summers
Fellows
- Ronald K. L. Collins
- James Kirchick
- Jacob Mchangama
- Nadine Strossen
Podcast
The So To Speak podcast has platformed many anti-transgender activists, including Alice Dreger, Robby Soave, Alliance Defending Freedom’s Kristen Waggoner, Kat Rosenfield, Peter Singer, Geoffrey Miller, Bret Weinstein, Nick Gillespie, Yascha Mounk, Matt Taibbi, Pano Kanelos, Andrew Sullivan, John McWhorter, Caitlin Flanagan, Noam Dworman, Jim Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, Peter Boghossian, Glenn Loury, David French, Jonathan Haidt, and Steven Pinker.
References
Potfast, Emily (November 30, 2016). Remember This Article? It Was Conservative Propaganda, and a Lot of Us Fell for It. https://emilypothast.medium.com/remember-this-article-it-was-pro-trump-propaganda-and-a-lot-of-you-fell-for-it-1f164c1a702e
Resources
FIRE (thefire.org)
Twitter (twitter.com)
Facebook (facebook.com)
YouTube (youtube.com)
Instagram (instagram.com)
TikTok (tiktok.com)