Report Finds Growing Pattern of Attacks on Nonprofit Speech - November 1, 2004 Vol.5, No.22

November 1, 2004 Vol.5, No.22:

Published: 11/02/2004

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See NAACP story this issue.

Report Finds Growing Pattern of Attacks on Nonprofit Speech

Government agencies and officials and conservative allies are increasingly targeting nonprofit organizations for their free speech activities, as OMB Watch documents in a report published Oct. 26, Continuing Attacks on Nonprofit Speech: Death by a Thousand Cuts II. (See press release and statements from the audio news conference.) The analysis found:

Retaliatory action against government grantees that engage in controversial policy discussions or active advocacy that includes points of view different from the administration, regardless of how well those views are supported by science
Aggressive application of the global gag rule, and signs of a back-door "domestic gag rule" that illegally imposes government rules on private funds of grantees
Selective enforcement of laws against nonprofits engaged in direct action
Overbroad implementation of homeland security policy that chills the nonprofit policy voice.

"Charities should be encouraged to speak out on policy issues even when dissenting from the President's policies," said Gary D. Bass, OMB Watch executive director. Kay Guinane, co-author of the OMB Watch report cited the latest prominent example. "Election eve political intimidation of the NAACP is wrong and a misuse of government funds," she said. (See NAACP story this issue.)

OMB Watch's report describes the experience of a dozen other nonprofit organizations with what appear to be retaliatory audits, funding cuts and similar actions, by IRS and other federal agencies.

One example is IRS's auditing of the National Education Association (NEA) for political activities it is legally allowed to engage in, as the nation's largest teachers union, when paid for from a segregated fund. IRS also audited the Land Stewardship Project in Minnesota last year after it supported a referendum on the "pork checkoff" which favors factory farms to the detriment of small, family farms.