Citing online posts, Basque Center won’t host Idaho Freedom Foundation education event
BOISE – The historic Basque Center in downtown Boise has canceled a contract with the Idaho Freedom Foundation to host an event on school choice and public education next week.
The “Fund Students, Not Systems” rally in support of school choice was scheduled to take place 7 p.m. Monday. Hosted by the Freedom Foundation and its attached nonprofit Idaho Freedom Action, it is featuring speaker Corey DeAngelis, a staunch school choice advocate and critic of public education.
On Wednesday afternoon, when the group announced the Basque Center’s cancellation, it said the rally would take place at the Foothills Christian Church instead. DeAngelis, who is the national director of research at the school choice advocacy group, American Federation for Children, is still expected to be there. His group is organized and funded by the billionaire DeVos family of Amway fame, which includes Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s controversial secretary of education, and her husband Dick DeVos, former Amway CEO.
DeAngelis has also written against COVID-19 policies in school and against teacher unions.
Some groups and people were critical of the Basque Center for renting out space to the Idaho Freedom Foundation for such an event. DeAngelis and his organization want money diverted from public schools and provided to families whose children wish to enroll in a private or charter school, or take part of some other form of nonpublic education. When such a school choice bill was introduced in the Idaho Legislature in 2021, opponents pointed out that Idaho already has the worst per-pupil education funding in the country.
“He will advocate for policies that give students and their families the power to pursue the method of education that works best for them,” IFF’s website for the event says.
For two days this week, Basque Center leaders appeared to resist calls to cancel the event and said the rental agreement was not an indication of support.
“The Basque Center does rent the facility in a non-discriminatory way and that should never be inferred to be supportive of or not supportive of any activity, cause, group, individual, ideology or philosophy,” the center’s official Facebook page said in a comment.
The Idaho Freedom Foundation, which is led by its president, Wayne Hoffman, wrote on Wednesday that its contract with the center “was unexpectedly canceled due to threatening social media posts from left-wing activists and organizations. The venue had been made aware of social media posts from these radical groups that promised disruption, and the building’s managers feared that their facilities would be damaged by protesters.”
Ed Orbea, president of the Basque Center board of directors, confirmed that fears about building damage, member safety and “disruptive influences” led to the cancellation.
“We’re a 70-year-old entity, and it’s a historical building,” Orbea said. “You know, we’ve got to watch out for safety of our membership, safety of our building, public safety.”
Orbea said he became concerned after seeing “various social media posts” from those who planned to attend the rally. Orbea declined to identify specific posts.
An Idaho Statesman search did not find any social media posts about the rally suggesting physical threats to the building or any member of the center. There were posts encouraging those who support public education to attend. The political advocacy group the Idaho 97 Project appeared to make the only social media post that the Basque Center responded to publicly.
“Are you sick of the IFF and Idaho legislators who are trying to destroy our public education system?” the Idaho 97 Project wrote in one of its Facebook posts about the event. “Here is your chance to tell them that: Reserve your tickets to the IFF Education rally and tell them and any legislators that show up what you really feel about their efforts to destroy public education in Idaho.”
Orbea said he was not aware from the beginning what kind of an event the Freedom Foundation was planning.
“Without getting into all the details, at the time of the rental they identified that they would be having a reception,” Orbea said.
Some online commenters suggested the need for funds was the reason the Basque Center allowed the space to be booked, but Orbea said money was “not an issue.” He emphasized that the Basque Center does not deny rental contracts because of politics, calling it “an equal opportunity renter.”
The center has no written policies regarding rentals for political events, Orbea said, and the initial decision to rent to the Freedom Foundation was based on the way the center has operated in the past.