Week in Review: Goldwater’s Key Triumphs for Liberty in 2022

The Goldwater Institute is leading the nation in defending individual liberties from coast to coast by continuing to enact more innovative, pro-freedom reforms than any organization in the country. In 2022 alone, we’ve passed reforms that defend America’s classroom from radical ideology, break down government barriers to work, save lives by putting patients first, restore free speech on college campuses, and protect constitutional rights from overzealous government bureaucrats.

In Mississippi, we passed a law prohibiting public schools from indoctrinating children with the racist lies of Critical Race Theory—lies that claim some races are inherently superior or inferior to others. Moreover, Virginia, West Virginia, and Indiana all adopted our Breaking Down Barriers to Work reform to make it easier for experienced, licensed workers moving into the state to practice their professions. We expanded Right to Try in Arizona to ensure patients can access cutting-edge, personalized treatments, and we protected college students’ ability to exercise their First Amendment rights at public universities in Georgia and Indiana.

Across these states—as well as in Florida, Ohio, Tennessee, and many other states—our reforms are changing people’s lives in meaningful ways. We aren’t just advocating for reforms; we’re enacting them in legislatures around the nation. And alongside coalition partners at the state and national level, Goldwater will continue to work in courts, capitols, and communities to empower all Americans to live freer, happier lives.

Read more about our 2022 legislative victories at In Defense of Liberty.

EXPOSED: The ‘Diversity Training’ Boondoggle

The public education establishment is willing to pony up big time to jump on board the $8-billion-a-year “diversity training” bandwagon. That much is clear in a world where How to Be an Antiracist author Ibram Kendi rakes in $20,000 speaking fees at public school districts and on college campuses, and where a Maryland school board spends almost $500,000 on an “antiracist audit.”

But there’s a glaring problem with such “diversity training,” and it’s not just that trainees are told to assume omnipresent discrimination and dismiss America’s foundational promises, Goldwater Senior Fellow Jonathan Butcher writes in his new book Splintered: Critical Race Theory and the Progressive War on Truth. “It’s that research finds again and again that there is no evidence that antibias training has made any biased people less biased,” Butcher says.

One study found diversity and antibias training to be the “most expensive, and least effective diversity program around,” and said it was even reducing white participants’ support for diversity. The takeaway: “Public officials should not use taxpayer resources to require the application of Critical Race Theory through mandatory diversity trainings,” Butcher adds.

You can buy Butcher’s new book here, and read an excerpt at In Defense of Liberty.

We Won the Flat Tax Battle. Now AZ Is Primed for Economic Growth

Arizona’s economic future is bright and Goldwater is setting an example for the nation thanks to our work to establish the nation’s lowest flat income tax rate of 2.5 percent. The American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) 2022 “Rich States, Poor States” report showed that Arizona ranks third among all 50 states in economic outlook, thanks in large part to the state’s tax relief law, according to ALEC Chief Economist Jonathan Williams—a law that Goldwater wrote and passed last year.

“It was a savings for hard-working Arizona taxpayers,” Williams told The Center Square. “Arizona’s move to reduce taxes substantially really cements its position as a competitive state not only regionally, but nationally.”

In addition to cutting taxes, Goldwater defeated the largest tax hike in Arizona history, Proposition 208, which would have killed more than 100,000 jobs. We also helped thousands of Arizonans exercise their right to earn a living by enacting a first-in-the-nation 2019 reform that tears down barriers to employment for workers moving to Arizona from out of state. Low taxes and low regulation are a recipe for economic growth, and with Goldwater’s help, Arizona is providing an excellent blueprint for how to build and maintain a strong economy.

Read ALEC’s 2022 “Rich States, Poor States” report here.