Avi Davis, executive director and senior fellow at the American Freedom Alliance, a small nonprofit founded in 2008, described his organization for the LA Times as a “think tank and activist network promoting Western values and ideals.”

AFI presents its mission in these words: “The American Freedom Aliance [sic] is a non-political, non-partisan movement which promotes, defends and upholds Western values and ideals. The AFA sponsors conferences, publishes opinions, distributes information and creates networking groups to identify threats to Western civilization and to motivate, educate and unite citizens in support of that cause.”  [A number of typos appear on the Alliance’s website, including the spelling of the organization’s name in this quotation.  I assume that as a small start-up organization, AFA has few resources to spare for website design and maintenance.] 

While the organization may well be non-partisan, the reference to “non-political” is puzzling (perhaps evincing its founders’ uncertainty about which activities might threaten its 501(c)(3) status).  The AFA, as a brief review of its website confirms, is a conservative (if not neoconservative) advocacy group immersed in highly charged political disputes; this is a feature, not a bug.  The organization is allied with other (prototypically political) conservative organizations – such as another local nonprofit, the David Horowitz Freedom Center – and with Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based nonprofit, which filed a separate suit against the California Science Center on December 1.

Avi Davis has written widely on Israel and the Middle East, including a number of op-eds in the Los Angeles Times (from 1998 to 2002).  Issues emphasized on AFA’s website include academic freedom, media bias, missile defense, and threats posed by “radical Islam, moral and cultural relativism, appeasement and excessive emphasis on multiculturalism.”

There is no reason to deny the inherently political nature of the American Freedom Alliance.  Organizations focused on discourse and advocacy are part of a rich tradition in America – celebrated by Tocqueville more than a century and half ago.  Furthermore, AFA’s mission and activities are consistent with the requirements established by the IRS for a 501(c)(3) organization.  The American Freedom Alliance joins a thriving conservative infrastructure (including, though hardly limited to, many nonprofit institutions), which has enjoyed a commanding presence in American political and cultural discourse during the past three decades.

Why would AFA be interested in “Darwin’s Dilemma”?  Does it wish to promote the theory of intelligent design or criticize the theory of evolution?  No.  Quite the contrary, as Mike Boehm notes in his LA Times article, “The AFA’s Davis said his group has no position on Darwinism and intelligent design but is concerned that debate is being stifled by the scientific establishment.”

To put this debate into context, my next post will focus on Discovery Institute, which has an avid interest in what it refers to as “neo-Darwinian theory.”

Next post – Discovery Institute, Intelligent Design, and Neo-Darwinism

Previous posts in this series:

• Second post: California Science Center: A Public-Private Partnership
• First post:  California Science Center Sued by American Freedom Alliance

The California Science Center, one of the prime attractions in Exposition Park, has a venerable history.  The State Exposition Building, which opened in 1912 on the current site, became the California Museum of Science and Industry in 1951.  The museum was transformed – and rechristened the California Science Center – following completion of a 1987 master plan.

In its current incarnation, the California Science Center seeks to educate the public about science and to make the experience fun.  A kid-friendly place with cool, hands-on activities, the Science Center features a number of interactive worlds (focusing on different areas of scientific inquiry).  A new world – Ecosystems – will debut on March 25.  I have visited the Science Center only a handful of times with my not-quite-teenage son, but we invariably have a great time and learn something while we are there.  General admission is free, though special exhibits may carry additional charges.

“The California Science Center is a public-private partnership between the State of California and the not-for-profit California Science Center Foundation.”  The Science Center is governed by a 9-person board of directors; the affiliated foundation, a 501(c)(3) founded in 1950, is governed by a huge board of trustees.  (In contrast, two other popular cultural institutions in LA take a different approach to linking the public and the private:  LACMA, although operated as a nonprofit organization, is also a department of the County of Los Angeles ; while Griffith Observatory, operated by the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, has a nonprofit support group.)

The California Science Center Foundation runs Event Services, which approved (and then canceled) the rental agreement with the American Freedom Alliance.  But it is the public side of the Science Center partnership that allowed the AFA lawsuit to go forward, since the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – guaranteeing freedom of speech – applies to the State of California.  As a public institution, the actions of the California Science Center are subject to Constitutional constraints.  Unlike a basic nonprofit (without the public dimension), the Science Center is also subject to the California Public Records Act.  (Discovery Institute, the subject of a future post, is taking full advantage of First Amendment law and California’s transparency in government requirements in its legal skirmish with the Science Center.)

The Science Center’s mission statement:  “We aspire to stimulate curiosity and inspire science learning in everyone by creating fun, memorable experiences, because we value science as an indispensable tool for understanding our world, accessibility and inclusiveness, and enriching people’s lives.”

This simple embrace of science set up a conflict with the American Freedom Alliance, which will be the subject of tomorrow’s post.

Next post: American Freedom Alliance and the Scientific Establishment

Initial post in this series: California Science Center Sued by American Freedom Aliance

Update: See Post #5 in my series, which makes reference to the court case mentioned in Mitchell’s comment.

Update – Comment moved into post – by Mitchell – January 20, 2010

In the December 29, 2009 Los Angeles Times Mike Boehm reported on a lawsuit brought against the California Science Center by the American Freedom Alliance (“California Science Center is sued for canceling a film promoting intelligent design”).  This is a tale of one local nonprofit organization suing another.  While not unprecedented, this is rare enough (and the California Science Center is prominent enough) to warrant news coverage in the Los Angeles Times.

I intend, in a brief series of posts over the next several days, to take a closer look at this dispute, which illustrates something of the breadth and diversity of the nonprofit sector.  We often see the words ‘charity’ and ‘charities’ used in reference to nonprofit, voluntary and philanthropic activities, but to refer to a nonprofit institution as a charity can be misleading.  Our traditional conception of a charity is an organization that provides help to the needy.  While neither the California Science Center (or its 501(c)(3) affiliated foundation), nor the American Freedom Alliance is a charity in this sense, both are part of the nonprofit and voluntary sector.  These organizations – while appearing to share broadly educational missions – are dedicated to disparate conceptions of the public good and dissimilar approaches to pursuing their missions; these differences have put them on a collision course.

This conflict also provides insight into the nature of our public discourse of contentious political and cultural issues, including the deliberate use of controversy to advance an organization’s goals.  If the collision of these two organizations was not inevitable, it was – from the perspective on one side of the divide – a favorable outcome.

Finally, the broader philosophical (and cultural) issues in contention – representing a clash of science and theism – may seem to take us a bit far afield from the nonprofit sector: except that nonprofit institutions are at the heart of this public discourse.  Nonprofits (and voluntary associations more generally) are essential institutions in sustaining democracy and the free exchange of ideas.  [See Peter Frumkin, On Being Nonprofit: A Conceptual and Policy Primer (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2002), Chapter 2, “Civic and Political Engagement” for discussion of nonprofits in democratic society.] Nonprofits on both sides of this debate are serving crucial roles.

I will begin (with this first post) with a description of the events that led to this legal dispute.

What happened

The American Freedom Alliance rented an auditorium at the California Science Center for an October 6, 2009 screening of a film, “Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record,” which challenges the theory of evolution and promotes intelligent design.  The Smithsonian Institution complained that a news release touting the film falsely implied that the California Science Center is “a West Coast branch of the Smithsonian, and that the film showing is a Smithsonian event.”  The Science Center also received email complaints about its perceived role as host of the presentation of “Darwin’s Dilemma,” which was characterized as “religious propaganda.”

The California Science Center canceled the screening, asserting that the news release violated terms of the rental agreement.  The American Freedom Alliance alleges in its lawsuit that the cancellation violated its First Amendment rights as well as its contract to rent the auditorium.  The Discovery Institute, which had issued the news release, followed up with a second lawsuit against the Science Center.

On the surface, we might think that the activities of the California Science Center, dedicated to educating children and adults about science, would be altogether compatible with the pursuits of the American Freedom Alliance, which promotes “Western values and ideals.”  But just beneath the surface, we discover diametrically different agendas in play (and clashing values and ideals).

(Image of U.S. Supreme Court from Wikimedia Commons.)

Next post: California Science Center: A Public-Private Partnership