SFL North America:
January 2017 Update
SFL North America
JANUARY 2017 UPDATE
New Year, New Me
Those who have been a part of the Students For Liberty network for longer than, say, a month or so will already have noticed some changes around these parts. We began rolling out our new logo last month and the new website went live last week. These are big changes which, in some respects, highlight our reluctance to remain stagnant and our willingness to explore the frontier of the liberty movement.
Inaugurate Liberty
The night before President Trump’s inauguration, we hosted a reception in our Washington, DC office. Our new CEO, Wolf von Laer, addressed the crowd to speak about SFL’s future and the state of the liberty movement under President Trump. In attendance at this reception were SFLers old and new, as well as many new faces in Washington — not to mention the usual crowd of libertarian socialites.
Interviewing Ayn Rand
Earlier this month, we decided to kick off SFL Presents by streaming a conversation between Jeffrey Tucker and Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand may be long dead but that wasn’t enough to stop Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman from channeling her spirit. The conversation covered topics such as the tenets of objectivism and what Ayn Rand would think of the world today. Thousands of people watched the interview. If you missed it, you can watch it here!
Supporting Refugees
Not long into the Trump presidency, an executive order was signed which banned nationals from seven countries in the Middle East/North Africa region from entering the United States. This hit hard and close for us, not least of all because Amir Nasr, one of our scheduled speakers for the International Students For Liberty Conference, was banned due to his birthplace being Sudan. We have covered the Amir situation prominently via our social media and our blog. Sign the petition and help support Amir.
SFL helped organize a protest denouncing the travel ban in front of the White House on January 29. Our DC-based staff and many friendly faces from partner organizations showed up in solidarity. And, as you can see from the news reports that day, countless others came to protest as well. There was an SFL table set up and we successfully spread our message to a number of our fellow protesters.
Media Attention
As detailed in our monthly media report, SFL Media Relations Associate Daniel Pryor was published in Spiked Online discussing the need for right-wing individuals to consistently defend free speech. He also appeared on Al-Jazeera’s “The Stream” advocating for internet freedom and sex worker rights in the context of government attacks on Backpage.com.
Student Leaders Lead The Way
One of our student activists in Alabama, Jeremiah Baky, helped organize a fundraiser with the funds going to help cover the travel costs to Washington, DC for the tenth annual ISFLC. You can read more about Jeremiah and his fundraising success here.
Classes are once again in full swing across North America, meaning that many of our student leaders are returning to their campuses, prepared to lead the charge for the liberty movement in the Spring semester. You can hear more about one such student, Keenan Wegener, here.
Preparing for ISFLC
The SFL staff has been intently focused on working to make ISFLC a great experience for everyone. It’s a hectic time at SFL and everyone’s plates are full as we navigate through the ISFLC schedule, plan logistics, prepare presentations, tend to a new website, continue our fight for liberty, and so much more.
ISFLC isn’t even ten days out at this point. We will continue our work to ensure that the tenth ISFLC will be a perfect 10. I’ll see you there!