By Kenneth Wagner, Director of Development, Students For Liberty

On the eve of World War II, German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer left the safety of the United States to return to the chaos of his homeland. He knew he had a moral obligation to stand up to and speak out against Hitler.

At that time, there were 18,000 members of the clergy in Germany. Some 2,000 of them supported the Nazi regime, while some 2,000 of them protested that regime. The majority — the remaining 14,000 — were silent. 

Students For Liberty will not be silent. Our students recognize and prove that standing for freedom is a moral imperative. Even — especially — when it’s difficult. 

It’s always been difficult in Cambodia, where between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge murdered nearly 2 million people — 25% of the population. They targeted “intellectuals,” sometimes just for wearing glasses. It was a genocide not just of people but of ideas and education.

It’s always been difficult in the Arabic-speaking world, too. In 2000, the UN Human Development Report revealed a stark truth about that world: It was insular, with minimal intellectual exchange. Annually, it publishes just 330 books. In fact, in over 1,000 years, fewer than 10,000 books have been translated into Arabic, equivalent to Spain’s output in a single year. Ideas are clearly being stifled.

It was difficult, too, on December 17, 2010, when Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze, protesting the confiscation of his pushcart because he hadn’t paid enough in bribes. But four weeks later, Tunisia’s president was ousted, sparking the Arab Spring. 

So, why this whirlwind tour of history? To show you that, despite confronting all of this difficulty — despite centuries of conflict and cultural suppression — the human heart wants to be free. Students For Liberty is proving that in all of the places I’ve mentioned, and more.

After Bashar al-Assad’s fall in Syria, SFL is on the ground there, training the leaders like Amjad Aun who will, in time, replace Assad’s murderous regime with one that respects individual rights. 

And this year, Students For Liberty — the same kind of education-seeking people who were targeted and slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge 50 years ago — started movements in Cambodia, not to mention Vietnam, Taiwan, and even an under-seige Ukraine. 

In Bali, our Women For Liberty Retreat united students from throughout Asia. And in Argentina, SFLers helped elect Javier Milei and now serve in his administration, which is responsible for dragging inflation to its lowest level in years, and is sparking developments in housing and infrastructure by eliminating regulations.

But if you’re reading this from the United States, know that our work doesn’t take place solely in faraway lands. 

In the U.S., the forces of illiberalism threaten free speech on campuses in a way that is reminiscent of (though hopefully never as violent as) what happened in Cambodia. But threats to free speech aren’t limited to universities. Last year, one of our alumni, Ethan Yang, helped expose what a federal judge called the most massive attack on free speech in the history of the United States: the Biden administration’s coercion of and cooperation with social media platforms to silence people who dared question lockdowns, mandatory masking, and vaccination during Covid.

In Florida and Montana, our students secured laws promising free speech at public universities. In Tennessee, they overturned a pepper spray ban so their female peers can defend themselves from sexual assault. And in Washington, D.C., SFLers are taking a stand for freedom: New SFL board member Trace Mitchell is chief counsel to a House committee on regulation, and our Benaya Cherlow is supporting the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

With 13,000 alumni, 2,556 volunteers, and 3,746 events reaching almost a quarter of a million people last year — a 42% increase — SFL is growing fast. And we’re doing it by investing in a global pipeline of leaders.

But why? What difference does it really make?

It sure makes a difference to one of our students from Myanmar, who was awestruck walking into a McDonald’s for the first time in Thailand. He had never been outside of his home country, and so wasn’t aware how relatively underdeveloped it is. And he was awed not because of what he could get at McDonald’s, but because of what it represented: free markets and freedom. 

It makes a difference, too, for our gay students in places like Afghanistan, where homosexuality is a capital crime. Liberty is literally a life-or-death proposition there.

The majority might always remain silent. Students For Liberty, from Cambodia to Syria, from Ukraine to the U.S., will not. Because they know — they live — what Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived (and died) for all those years ago: Even where it’s difficult, even where it’s dangerous, the human heart wants to be free.