Idaho Freedom Foundation’s extremist rhetoric needs to be exposed, not catered to
Last week, our commonly held ideals seemed to clash when the Idaho “Freedom” Foundation, a group that uses lying and intimidation tactics to accomplish their openly stated goal of destroying Idaho’s education system, announced it was having an education rally at the Basque Center in Boise.
Anyone familiar with the reputation of the IFF should have immediately recognized the red flags in this group hosting any kind of education rally. Many of us started questioning the highly esteemed Basque Center for hosting this event at their building and for good reason: IFF’s extremist rhetoric and close ties to extremist groups need to be exposed, not catered to.
The Statesman editorial board and some folks online argued that politely asking the Basque Center to cancel the event — successfully deplatforming IFF — was bullying. But to reduce this incident to an argument about free speech is to leave out a few key details.
Let’s go over the lying first.
IFF makes a lot of money by lying to Idahoans about what’s being taught in their schools. This lying is well-documented by the media. Just last week Rep. Dorothy Moon, one of IFF’s pet legislators, leveled false accusations against the schools in her own district and the superintendents had to come out with a video to explain to the public that these accusations are simply untrue.
Scott Green, the president at University of Idaho, also recently pushed back against these lies in front of the legislative budget committee, calling IFF “conflict entrepreneurs,” an apt description.
Last year, Boise State University had to temporarily shut down an entire section of classes — and lost $1.5 million in funding from the legislature — due to a false claim that a student had been bullied in class over social justice issues. An independent law firm found no evidence that the claims were true, and the rumored video was never released.
There is no room for neutrality when it comes to giving a platform to an organization so intent on destroying Idaho’s education system by spreading incessant, damaging lies and then raising money off it.
It’s not like the IFF has zero ways to get their message out. They run numerous websites, host a lot of events, send lobbyists to the Statehouse and mix charity money and political money to get their platform out with millions of dollars.
Allowing lies to spread on your platform — whether it’s Facebook, a local news outlet or a cherished local venue — is not neutrality.
Providing more information to inform the Basque Center’s decision is 100% free speech and is a wonderful example of entering the debate. Free speech is also our freedom to disagree with giving speech a platform.
IFF, in the true fashion of an abuser, then accused those exercising their free speech of threatening violence, which was another lie, and no one has been able to produce evidence of it.
No one should be afraid of a free exchange of ideas. But the IFF doesn’t encourage a free exchange of ideas when the focus of their entire organization is making money off of lying.
Freedom of speech doesn’t mean speech with no consequences. The government isn’t doing anything to impede IFF’s freedom of speech, and nor should they. But we as a community don’t owe them anything. We owe our teachers, our schools and the children of Idaho everything. Don’t give the IFF any assistance as they lie about our schools.
It’s time to push these conflict entrepreneurs and their lies back to the fringes of society and refocus the debate on the real needs of all Idahoans.