Amid constant assaults on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategies and values in American politics, FAC is deepening its commitment and investment, weaving these values into every aspect of our organization. Our first steps were to examine the composition of our Board of Directors and to design a proactive and methodical approach to building a representative governing body that reflects our industry and the communities California’s journalists serve. We then initiated board training and revised recruitment efforts, rebuilding our Board of Directors to better align with our strategic goals. In the fall of 2024, with a generous investment from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, FAC launched a three-year effort to bring quantified data analysis to inform our DEI efforts across our education, advocacy, and litigation programs. Jiquanda Nelson, CEO of People Decoders, will design and conduct anonymous and confidential surveys of FAC subscribers, members, donors, program participants, and partners. The first survey — launched in April 2025 and remaining online through June 2025 — will capture FAC clients’ needs, values, and expectations, allowing for deep demographic profiling, creating context, and ensuring alignment of values. People FAC Deepens its Commitment to DEI Decoders will manage all responses, and FAC will never directly review individual survey results. Specifically, results from our first survey will allow FAC leadership to: • Identify how FAC’s expertise can best reach and serve our constituents. • Set a baseline for the organization’s DEI efforts to date. • Update our DEI strategy, ensuring actions reflect verified constituent metrics, concerns, and feedback. People Decoders will deliver the survey results and highlight key themes related to needs and inclusion, ensuring alignment with FAC’s organizational values. These themes and program recommendations will be embedded in our next Strategic Plan, which will be revised in 2026. We will use the results to define our DEI goals. To track our progress, and hold ourselves accountable, a second follow-up survey will be launched in the Spring of 2026, and a third in the Spring of 2027. A final report based on the first survey will be shared with FAC stakeholders on our website later this year. The First Amendment guarantees the right to report on matters of public concern such as arrests. But California law exposes anyone who shares information related to a sealed arrest record to civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation, regardless of how they acquired the information or how newsworthy it is. Working with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, we sued the San Francisco City Attorney and California Attorney General to stop them from enforcing this unconstitutional law. The plaintiffs are FAC, its advocacy director Ginny LaRoe, and Eugene Volokh, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Law Emeritus at UCLA School of Law. The law chilled their speech about the arrest of a former technology executive, the records of which had been sealed. The San Francisco City Attorney’s office previously invoked the statute in a letter to a journalist who reported on the arrest. After we filed suit, the defendants agreed to a preliminary injunction preventing them from enforcing the statute against anyone who shares information about a sealed arrest that is already publicly available. Following this early victory, we continue to litigate the case in search of a final resolution that protects the First Amendment right to report on matters of public concern. victory! Court Halts state law that suppresses Journalism, Chills Speech
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