Every university student deserves a robust American civics education—in Arizona it’s not a suggestion, it’s a requirement. But a new Goldwater Institute report is exposing how Arizona’s public universities are making a mockery of this basic duty by passing off niche classes infused with DEI as foundational civics courses.
Goldwater’s report, Civic Decline: Arizona’s Public Universities Smuggle DEI into Required American Civics Courses, exposes university leaders for not complying with the clear directive from the Arizona Board of Regents to integrate civics into their general education programs. At Arizona State, students can satisfy their civics requirement with courses like “Social Welfare, Work, and Justice in the US,” while at Northern Arizona University they can take classes like “Sociology of Chicanx and Latinx Communities.” Meanwhile, the University of Arizona hasn’t implemented the board’s civics requirements at all.
This report comes on the heels of another Goldwater report that revealed how radical faculty have hijacked Arizona’s top honors programs. It’s time for Arizona lawmakers to step in to ensure that students are getting the civics education they need and deserve.
When government fails to perform its basic duties, law-abiding citizens shouldn’t be left holding the bag. That’s the principle behind Goldwater Institute-backed legislation that will allow Georgia property owners to hold local leaders accountable when they repeatedly fail to enforce laws related to homelessness and allow public nuisances to persist.
Georgia House Bill 295 was passed by the legislature and now awaits Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature. It will allow property owners to file claims if their property values decrease or they incur mitigation expenses when local governments allow homelessness to grow unchecked. Even more importantly, it will incentivize those governments to enforce laws that are already on the books in a way that respects public safety and individual rights.
This legislation echoes the spirit of Arizona’s Proposition 312, which the Goldwater Institute championed and voters approved in 2024. Both measures ensure that governments cannot ignore illegal activity and burden their citizens with the consequences.
Patients with rare and ultra-rare diseases deserve the chance to access potentially life-saving treatments without government red tape blocking them. No one knows that better than Maia Reinhardt and Elijah Stacy, Goldwater Institute client advocates who continue to fight in the media and around the country for the Right to Try for Individualized Treatments.
Elijah, who was diagnosed with a muscle-wasting disease at 6 years old, said on national radio recently that “if you’re facing death you want to have the ability to try something.” Right to Try for Individualized Treatments, or Right to Try 2.0, creates that “legal pathway,” he said. Maya, who was born with cystic fibrosis and utilized Goldwater’s original Right to Try legislation to access a treatment that wasn’t yet approved by the FDA, similarly explained on a new health policy podcast that “FDA approval takes 10 years and billions of dollars” and “I just didn’t’ have that kind of time.”
Seventeen states have now passed Right to Try 2.0, legislation that allows patients like Elijah and Maia to access treatments designed just for them based on their own genetics—treatments that simply cannot make it through the FDA’s outdated regulatory process in a timely manner. The Goldwater Institute will continue to fight in states around the nation—and in Washington, D.C. —to make Right to Try 2.0 the law of the land.
