FAIR Event: "The Conscience of Democracy"

This event is FREE, but you must register at the link below, at which point you'll be given a link to the Zoom event - https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_j7KLsnS7T56x4Z5si66QiA#/registration

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
Starting in October, FAIR is launching an exciting campaign to celebrate America's 250th anniversary!

Rather than merely looking backward at what our founders accomplished, we will examine how today’s Americans – across all demographics, backgrounds, and beliefs – are applying those same foundational principles to solve contemporary problems. We’ll demonstrate that democracy isn’t a relic to be preserved, but a living experiment that demands our active participation.

This campaign will also support FAIR's American Experience curriculum, which is designed to help students understand that throughout our nation’s history Americans have always found ways to bridge differences, overcome challenges, and create a more perfect union. From October 2025 through July 2026, we'll explore themes that directly reflect our curriculum's core principles.

Our theme for October (this webinar) will be "The Conscience of Democracy." This webinar will explore how respectful disagreement and constructive criticism have strengthened American democracy throughout history, and continue to do so today.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS:
Host - Monica Harris, is the Executive Director of Fair For All. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, where she served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. She spent more than a decade as a business and legal affairs executive at Walt Disney Television, NBCUniversal Media, and Viacom Media Networks. In 2011, Harris abandoned corporate life and moved with her family to Montana where she launched her own firm and serviced entertainment clients remotely. Monica is also a TEDx speaker, author, and blogger who advocates for balanced, common sense solutions to systemic problems based on our shared values and goals. Her 2022 book, The Illusion of Division, argued that America isn’t nearly as divided as we’re led to believe, and that political opportunism and exploitative media have distorted our collective reality by amplifying our differences and polarizing us with hot-button issues.

Robert P. George - Robert P. George is McCormick Professorship of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He has chaired the U.S. Commission on the International Religious Freedom and served on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the President's Council on Bioethics. He was a Judicial Fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore, he holds JD and MTS degrees from Harvard University and the degrees of DPhil, BCL, DCL, and DLitt from Oxford University. He is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal, the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Freedom, the Irving Kristol Award of the American Enterprise Institute, and Princeton University's President's Award for Distinguished Teaching. He's the author of over a dozen books, most recently a work co-authored with Cornel West entitled Truth Matters: A Dialogue on Fruitful Disagreement in an Age of Division (2025).

Nadine Strossen - New York Law School Professor Emerita Nadine Strossen, past national President of the American Civil Liberties Union (1991-2008), is a Senior Fellow with FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) and a leading expert and frequent speaker/media commentator on constitutional law and civil liberties, who has testified before Congress on multiple occasions. She serves on the advisory boards of the ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Heterodox Academy, FAIR, and National Coalition Against Censorship. The National Law Journal has named Strossen one of America's "100 Most Influential Lawyers." She is the author of HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (2018) and Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know (2023). She is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series released on public television in October 2023. In 2023, the National Coalition Against Censorship (an alliance of more than 50 national non-profit organizations) selected Strossen for its Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech.

ABOUT THE EVENT HOST:
This is an online event hosted by FAIR, the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to advancing civil rights and liberties for all Americans, and promoting a common culture based on fairness, understanding and humanity.

FAIR was founded in 2020 and boasts an impressive board of advisors that includes psychologists Jonathan Haidt & Fred Luskin, legal scholars Nadine Strossen & Robert P. George, sociologist Ilana Redstone, political scientist Wilfred Reilly & Shadi Hamid, and journalists Angelo Eduardo, Jonathan Kay, Michael Shellenberger, John Wood Jr., and Andrew Sullivan.

For more info about FAIR, check out their website at https://www.fairforall.org/about/

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