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about usalso: Statement of Purposewhy leadership training?"We'll sue you for punitive damages. We will attack your integrity. We will nail you to the wall."
A Snapshot of the Right on Campus
The Collegiate Network, a network devoted to training and funding conservative college journalists, has groomed such figures as Ann Coulter and Dinesh D'Souza. It continues to develop the skills of the next generation of conservative leaders, funding 76 right-wing campus newspapers across the country and providing training, mentorship, and resources to conservative students nationwide. The Network's ultimate goal: to place right-wing student newspapers on every campus in the country. The Leadership Institute, a conservative instructional program with its own specialized training facility, the Leadership Institute has trained thousands of campus conservatives in grassroots advocacy skills, effective use of the media, and electoral activism. The Institute also provides conservative students with job placement in journalism and within a network of right-wing organizations. Leadership Institute graduates include former Executive Director of the Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed. Young America's Foundation (YAF), with locations in Virginia and California and chapters nationwide, YAF cultivates future conservative leaders in media and public policy through training and assistance in local campaigns. According to former Republican Vice Presidential candidate Jack Kemp, "In the generational battle over ideas, Young America's Foundation has been an indefatigable warrior." Idealistic and inexperienced, most campus progressives are utterly unprepared for the strength and sophistication of the Right Wing opposition they face. Young activists expect opposition to be grassroots and local, with similarly meager resources available to them. In fact, it is often the case that this opposition is connected to a much larger movement. Years ago, conservative leaders began a concerted effort to control discourse within institutions of higher education, and to develop future leaders through training, mentorship, and networking. By some estimates, the Right Wing now contributes more than $20 million annually to programs aimed at controlling politics on campus. As a result of these efforts, progressive student activists face a well-organized, well-connected, and well-funded opposition movement that often undermines their work. Student organizers are set against savvy opponents with years of experience. Without training and mentorship of their own, young progressives learn strategy through a painful process of trial and error. Lessons are learned and forgotten as students graduate, and mistakes are repeated again and again. Under the guise of protecting "individual liberty" and fighting "political correctness", the Right has consistently targeted student campaigns against sexual assault on campus, and successfully derailed most efforts to improve campus policies. Through a coordinated campaign to discredit survivors of sexual assault, conservatives have steadily defeated student attempts to bring about change. With expertise gained through the collective real-life experience of numerous seasoned campus activists, SAFER gives students the tools they need to overcome this opposition and win concrete gains toward an end to sexual assault. By providing activists with step-by-step guidance in proven strategies for success, SAFER allows students to counter the formidable forces aligned against them, and win policies that prevent sexual assault. Building a Progressive FutureThe skills that students learn in SAFER workshops are not lost upon graduation. Studies of social movements show that college activists are likely to remain politically engaged throughout their lives. Armed with SAFER's strong leadership training and the hands-on experience they have developed as leaders within their communities, participants in SAFER-led movements leave college ready to make positive changes that will reach far beyond their campuses. also: Statement of Purpose |