Dear Friend,
Every part of the First Amendment is in danger right now, and American Atheists needs your help. From the separation of church and state to our right to peaceful protest, we are witnessing a disturbing escalation of attacks on Americans’ constitutional liberties. The freedom of individuals like you and organizations like ours to speak freely is being curtailed.
On the heels of widespread book bans across the states and the prohibition of scores of words at the federal level, the Trump Administration has taken punitive actions against the free press, including denying access to Associated Press journalists over the outlet’s refusal to use the administration’s prescribed language. Just yesterday, the President said, “It’s totally illegal what they do,” referring to media outlets that broadcast critical coverage.
In what’s been called “a stunning intrusion,” federal officials issued a directive this week seeking unprecedented control over a private academic institution and announced 52 universities are under investigation for alleged noncompliance with the government’s agenda. In response, the dean of one of the impacted schools, Georgetown Law, wrote: “Given the First Amendment’s protection of a university’s freedom to determine its own curriculum and how to deliver it, the constitutional violation behind this threat is clear.”
These incursions on the free press and academic freedom are deeply troubling on their own, but the overreach doesn’t stop there. The President also signed an executive order this week aimed at punishing another private entity, a law firm, for its political positions. And yet another recent order directed the Education Secretary to deny Public Service Loan Forgiveness to employees of certain nonprofits, namely “activist organizations” engaged in advocacy efforts that aren’t aligned with the administration.
Meanwhile, we’re still being vigilant for any movement on the “nonprofit killer bill,” which proposed granting the executive branch the authority to wage lawfare against nongovernmental organizations it deems to be terroristic.
Earlier in the week, the arrest and imprisonment of Mahmoud Khalil for his involvement in a campus protest caused alarm among constitutional scholars and civil rights watchdogs. Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the U.S., has not been charged with a crime. In fact, the White House said, “The allegation here is not that [he] was breaking the law.” Instead, he has been labeled a “threat” for “mobilizing support” for his political views.
These recent attacks on the free press, on academic freedom, on nonprofits and private entities, on the freedom to assemble and speak freely are a direct threat to American Atheists, to all of our First Amendment rights, and to democracy at large.
As civil rights watchdogs, we know the real aim is to curtail liberties and consolidate power by subduing dissidents and silencing dissent. As one expert explained, not-for-profit groups like ours “play a critical role in checking government abuse and standing up for our principles. [Trump] is seeking to neutralize them, as have authoritarians in almost any other country where they’ve come to power through elections, because that’s where opposition comes from.”
Various pretexts are being offered as justification for all this — from promoting national security to combating antisemitism and eradicating anti-Christian bias — but if the end result is a shredded Constitution, the means demand scrutiny.
We know national security has been used before to curb civil liberties for some, so how does this administration define “terrorism” and which groups does it consider to be anti-American? Does disparaging Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Catholics count as “anti-Christian” or only when non-loyalists do it? Antisemitism is a major and growing problem, but is the same administration that jokes about the Holocaust and promotes Neo-Nazism serious or sincere about combating it?
The characterization of Muslims as foreign, “anti-American,” or otherwise terroristic is not only undergirded by racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, but also reflective of a desire for Christian hegemony. The smearing of any religious minority group should trouble us all. We atheists should take heed, given we’re the most distrusted and negatively viewed religious demographic in the United States, second only to Muslims and by a single percentage point.
The McCarthy Era is not so bygone. We mustn’t forget “the enemy within” then was not just “communists” but “godless communists.” Anti-atheist sentiment is still prevalent today, and the conflation (if not outright equation) of so-called “Judeo-Christian values” with “American values” is everywhere. In state legislatures and school classrooms, the effort to rewrite our nation’s secular history, to distort its pluralistic promise, and to define what it means to be American endangers atheists’ freedom, equality, and safety.
Nonbelievers are already more likely to experience religious discrimination than Christians. In our Secular Survey, nonreligious Americans reported experiencing negative experiences in education, at work, and within their own communities and families. The concerted effort to other-ize and villainize minority groups — including immigrants, transgender Americans, Muslim Americans, and American atheists — threatens to unravel decades of progress toward equality and justice for all.
Our work defending the First Amendment is more critical now than ever, but it also makes us a target of efforts to suppress organized opposition and freethought. Help us keep fighting back by contributing $45 today! And please be sure to register to attend our 2025 National Convention in Minneapolis this April.
Hope to see you there,
Melina Cohen
Director of Strategic Communications & Policy Engagement
American Atheists is a 501(c)(3) non-partisan, nonprofit educational organization that relies on the support of members like you. Contributions are tax-deductible. Our Federal Tax ID Number is 74-2466507 and our Combined Federal Campaign number is 52217.
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