The recent raid and arrest of a trio of leaders from the Atlanta Solidarity Fund is about a lot more than just one individual charity and is part of a larger pattern being observed in states across the country according to a researcher from the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
Appearing on O’Neill Speaks, the official podcast of the O’Neill School, Professor Beth Gazley said the SWAT team raid on the home of three volunteer board members of the organization appears to be designed to have a chilling effect on free speech and dissent against state policies.
“The pattern is really of, first of all, prosecutorial overreach,” said Gazley, who is a world-renowned expert on nonprofit management and civil society policy. “The first thing that occurred to me when I saw this photo of a SWAT team walking into this quiet residential neighborhood and knocking on the door of a house… These are not fugitives from justice. These are not drug kingpins. These are three volunteer board members. I was thinking about all the neighbors in the neighborhood, and how chilling of an effect that would have on them to see that sort of thing happening. So, the pattern has been, I think, one of overreach, another of intimidation, and the third is retaliation.”
The Atlanta Solidarity Fund supports protesters of the city’s proposed police and fire training center. Investigators from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation say they found evidence linking the trio of leaders to financial crimes, including money laundering and charity fraud.
Gazley, however, said the financial crimes suggested might not be crimes at all but rather normal, everyday work in nonprofit organizations, such as the reimbursement of common expenses. She believes the case will resonate throughout the nonprofit community.
“There are over a million charities (in the United States), and many, many that are involved in political activity and advocacy,” Gazley said. “Whether or not I support them, I absolutely support their right to engage in that work. I think one of the things that charity observers are going to see… they’re going to be seeing a whole different discussion about what happens when charitable work comes right up against the policies of a state, [where] you happen to be in disagreement.
“Charities are an important part of civil society activity. They are considered to be a vital part of any democracy. They are written into public law as organizations that we want to see thrive. What seems to be happening here … is not just a human rights violation, not just a civil rights violation, but an eye to the future. States are willing to be anti-democratic. And what this state appears to be doing is trying to chill free speech and chill associational activity, which are rights of charities as they are rights of you and me, and to discourage people from organizing and forming coalitions to assert their rights.”
Gazley notes that there are a lot of moving parts to this story and the state of Georgia’s version of events has been politicized.
“No single news source is going to give you the whole story. The smart observer of any kind of activity in a democracy ought to be triangulating information from a lot of sources.”
O’Neill Speaks can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast service.
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