Foundation for Individual Rights in Education Inc

Mission

The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America's colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience - the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE's core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them.

Programs

The Individual Rights Defense Program (IRDP) encompasses FIRE's work to defend liberty on behalf of students and faculty at colleges and universities across America. FIRE engages in defense campaigns at both public and private universities to defend freedom of speech and expression, religious liberty, freedom of association, freedom of conscience, and the right to due process. The program provides direct assistance to students and professors through advocacy and public exposure of institutional abuses. FIRE has gained such a formidable reputation in the eyes of university administrators that just a single letter from FIRE coupled with the threat of public exposure can lead a university to change policies and end unconstitutional practices. In defending the rights of students and professors from across the ideological spectrum, FIRE's IRDP uses the full range of FIRE's resources - legal and policy expertise, fearless advocacy, copious media contacts, and a vast network of willing attorneys - to resolve disputes, raise awareness, and help entrenched individuals protect their most fundamental rights on campus.

The Individual Rights Education Program (IREP) encompasses FIRE's efforts to inform the public about the abuses of liberty taking place on college campuses and what citizens can do to fight back. Through multiple mediums, FIRE is arming students, professors, and parents with the know-how to recognize unconstitutional repression and to put an end to it. FIRE's IREP contains the following projects: FIRE’s Student Network, FIRE's Guides to Student Rights on Campus, Public Awareness Project and FIRE’s Internship Program.

The Policy Reform Project encompasses FIRE’s efforts to proactively and systematically challenge policies that violate students’ and faculty members’ fundamental rights. By corresponding with administrators and collaborating with students and faculty members on campus, FIRE has challenged hundreds of policies since this project’s launch.
FIRE works to reveal and eliminate unconstitutional policies from individual campuses through the following projects: Spotlight: The Campus Freedom Resource, FIRE’s Legal Transformation Project, FIRE’s Speech Code Litigation Project, The Justice Robert H. Jackson Legal Fellowship, and FIRE’s Legislative and Policy Project.