Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We write to urge an immediate response to the growing pattern of governmental actions directed at independent media, educational institutions, advocacy organizations, and others engaged in protected political expression. These developments concern not only those immediately affected, but everyone committed to preserving the constitutional rights of free expression, association, inquiry, and dissent.

The reported congressional subpoenas directed to The People’s Forum and BreakThrough News and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research were issued by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means, chaired by Jason Smith, should concern everyone who values freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association, academic freedom, and the constitutional right to dissent.

Governmental investigations targeting educational institutions, independent media, and advocacy organizations because of their political advocacy strike at fundamental constitutional protections and raise profound questions about the health of democratic society, the right to dissent, and freedom of expression and association. Throughout American history, periods of political tension and international conflict have too often been accompanied by efforts to investigate, stigmatize, intimidate, or isolate those whose ideas challenge prevailing government policy.

Many observers view these subpoenas not as isolated events, but as part of a broader pattern that has included governmental investigations of labor organizations, prosecutions of international solidarity activists, legal actions affecting Palestine advocates, heightened scrutiny of student organizations and faculty, immigration proceedings involving political activists, and increasing pressure directed toward independent journalists and alternative media. While each matter presents its own distinct facts and legal issues, together they have prompted widespread concern about the health of democratic dissent in the United States.

Constitutional freedoms are most severely tested not when speech is popular, but when it is controversial.

From the Palmer Raids, to the House Un-American Activities Committee, to the McCarthy era, to COINTELPRO, successive generations have witnessed governmental efforts that, in retrospect, came to be understood as serious infringements upon political expression, freedom of association, labor organizing, civil rights advocacy, anti-war activism, and movements for racial and social justice. Each generation has also produced courageous lawyers, journalists, educators, workers, students, faith communities, and social movements that refused to surrender those freedoms without resistance.

It is within that historical tradition that we view the subpoenas directed toward The People’s Forum and BreakThrough News.

Far from recognizing or according legitimacy, legal merit, or factual credibility to the congressional investigation, this statement expressly repudiates its premises. Rather, it places these developments within their broader constitutional and historical context, expresses solidarity with institutions that have made significant contributions to political education and independent journalism, and encourages a thoughtful, collective response in defense of democratic freedoms.

Constitutional rights are rarely lost all at once.

If there is one lesson to be drawn from American history, it is this: constitutional rights are rarely lost all at once. They are more often narrowed gradually, one investigation, one subpoena, one prosecution, one campaign of intimidation, one act of self-censorship at a time.

With one voice, we affirm the integrity of those educational institutions, independent media organizations, journalists, advocates, scholars, and community organizations whose work is rooted in the pursuit of justice, human dignity, democratic participation, peace, equality, civil liberties, and the right of all people to speak, organize, educate, and dissent without fear of governmental intimidation or censorship.

When these rights are threatened for one, they are endangered for all.

We therefore stand in solidarity with BreakThrough News, The People’s Forum, and all those facing governmental efforts to chill or punish constitutionally protected expression, and we call upon the broader democratic, labor, civil rights, faith, academic, and human rights communities to respond immediately and collectively whenever such attacks occur. No organization committed to the peaceful exercise of constitutional rights should ever be left to stand alone.

The Ida B. Wells Media Defense Network was created precisely because we believe attacks on political expression are seldom confined to a single organization. They reverberate outward—affecting journalists, educators, labor unions, students, artists, community organizations, and social movements. Too often, each struggle is experienced in isolation. Too often, the larger pattern is recognized only after democratic space has already narrowed.

Inspired by Ida B. Wells’ uncompromising commitment to truth, independent journalism, and resistance to injustice, our Network seeks to serve as a national educational and communications clearinghouse dedicated to defending political expression and the right to dissent. We do not replace the indispensable work of constitutional lawyers, civil liberties organizations, labor unions, or grassroots movements. Rather, we seek to strengthen those efforts by documenting attacks on political expression, providing historical perspective, amplifying independent journalism, encouraging public education, and fostering solidarity across movements.

In solidarity,
Ida B. Wells Media Defense Network.