Open Society Institute Awards $50,000 to The Bill of Rights Defense Committee

Contact:
Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Nancy Talanian, BORDC Director, 413-582-0110
David Cole, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, 202-662-9078
John Kowal, Director of Constitutional and Legal Policy, OSI US Justice Fund, 212-548-0600

NORTHAMPTON, MA - The Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) announced today that it has received a $50,000 grant from the Open Society Institute (OSI). BORDC’s mission is to organize and support an effective, national grassroots movement to restore civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution.

BORDC formed in November 2001, two weeks after the USA PATRIOT Act became law, and began helping people in hundreds of cities and towns throughout the United States organize to affirm and protect their community residents’ constitutional rights and liberties. In the past three years, community-based organizations have used BORDC’s strategies, one-to-one organizing assistance, community networking, and web-based resources to pass 365 resolutions and ordinances in 43 states, including four statewide resolutions, upholding their residents’ Bill of Rights guarantees threatened by the USA PATRIOT Act and other anti-terrorism laws and policies. Today, 56 million people—one in five U.S. residents—live in these civil liberties safe zones.

“BORDC brings important Washington policy issues into town halls all across America so people can make their voices heard,” said John Kowal, Director of Constitutional Legal Policy for the Open Society Institute’s US Justice Fund.

“Nothing is more critical right now to the future of civil liberties than encouraging ordinary people to stand up for their rights and for the principles that this nation was founded upon. BORDC has shown itself tremendously successful at doing just that, and I hope this grant will permit them to build on the networks they have already created,” said David Cole, Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center and a BORDC Advisory Board member.

“We are very pleased to have the support of OSI in counteracting the government’s message to the American people that they must give up some of their liberties to be safe from terrorism,” said Nancy Talanian, BORDC’s director and cofounder.

BORDC will primarily use the OSI grant to reach communities in regions where there has been little debate thus far about threats to civil liberties, and to develop new strategies and resources for building community support. BORDC will also work with communities to seek out and protect local victims of the new laws and policies. Typically the victims are people of Arab and Muslim descent and those who oppose government policies.

The Open Society Institute is a private operating and grantmaking foundation that works to strengthen democracy and civil society in the United States and in more than 60 countries around the world.

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