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Revision as of 13:09, 22 August 2006

The Joyce Foundation is a non-profit foundation based in the Great Lakes region of the United States.

History

The Joyce Foundation has existed since 1948.

Criticism

The Joyce Foundation underwrites, in its own words, research into gun violence prevention, almost all of which happens to produce research to support additional restrictions on gun ownership and gun rights.

The Joyce Foundation also is a principal source of funding to many gun control organizations in the United States. The most noteworthy of these is the Violence Policy Center, which received $4,154,970 between 1996 and 2006, and calls for an outright ban on handguns, semi-automatic and other firearms, and draconian restrictions on gun owners.

Gun rights activists accuse the Joyce Foundation of creating phony "grassroots" organizations to create the impression of a swell of support for gun control, when, in reality, the organizations may consist of only a few dozen members.

Governance

Current members of the board of directors of the Joyce Foundation are: John T. Anderson, Chairman, Ellen S. Alberding, President, Robert G. Bottoms, Michael F. Brewer, Charles U. Daly, Anthony S. Earl, Roger R. Fross, Howard L. Fuller, Carlton L. Guthrie, Marion T. Hall, Valerie B. Jarrett, Daniel P. Kearney and Paula Wolff.

The Joyce Foundation has a staff of about 27.

Past and present grantees

Organizations largely funded or sustained by the Joyce Foundation

These are a few of the organizations that appear to be largely or completely funded by the Joyce Foundation:

• Firearms Law Center (now Legal Community Against Violence)
• Franklin County Prevention Institute
• Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan (HELP) Network
• Indiana Partnership to Prevent Firearm Violence
• Legal Community Against Violence (formerly Firearms Law Center)
• Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence
• On-Target Coalition
• Violence Policy Center: $4,154,970 between 1996 and 2006.
• WAVE Educational fund

Law review symposia

The Joyce Foundation has sponsored symposium issues of some law reviews, generally offering to pay for the symposium if an external editor is selected. The editor carefully solicits and chooses the articles to appear in the symposium. The Joyce Foundation then pays for the cost of copies to be distributed to judges and legislators. Law reviews that have cooperated in this manner include:

• Chicago-Kent Law Review (Vol. 76 No. 1, 2000, edited by Carl T. Bogus)
• Fordham Law Review (Vol. 73 No. 2, November 2004)
• Stanford Law and Policy Review (Vol. 17:3, Spring 2006, editorial contributions by Saul Cornell)

Law review symposia controveries - Pro-Gun Rights Perspective

In the case of the Chicago-Kent Law Review symposium issue, the external editor purposely solicited only one side of the debate. As Professor Randy Barnett of Boston University Law School, who played a part in moving Chicago-Kent Law Review to a symposium model, explains:

When I saw an announcement for the Second Amendment symposium funded by the Joyce Foundation, what immediately struck me was the completely one-sided composition of the contributors. So I contacted a former colleague of mine at Chicago-Kent and offered to participate as a commentator, provided I was given the same remuneration as other presenters. I also offered to recruit some other scholars who would represent some diversity of opinion. My erstwhile colleague said this was not possible. The first reason he offered for this was the supposed lack of civility between pro- and anti-individual rights scholars. When I objected to this reason, it became clear that this was not the real rationale. Later, Carl Bogus told me (as he has subsequently written elsewhere) that the lack of balance was intentional and meant to counter the overwhelming dominance of the individual rights position. The idea, he said, was to work out the alternative paradigm with scholars who were dissenters from the individual rights position and provide fresh thinking:

We felt that, for a variety of reasons, the collective rights model was under represented in the debate, and wanted to give scholars an opportunity to enhance or further illuminate the collective rights position. Sometimes a more balanced debate is best served by an unbalanced symposium. I did not, therefore, invite anyone who I knew subscribed to the individual rights model.

One consequence of this unbalanced view is that it creates a perception by those who have only seen this symposium issue that there is only one scholarly perspective on this subject.

Law review symposia controveries - Pro-Gun Control Perspective

The Chicago-Kent Law Review symposium issue was devoted to new research on the collective rights model. The Fordham issue looked at a range of issues in the gun debate from different points of view. The Stanford issue also focused on new research on the Second Amendment and gun policy. The conferences from which the published issues emerged included scholars from the collective rights, individual rights, and new civic rights models.

Other academic publication support

A similar approach is used in the field of public health. For example:

• A $250,000 grant to the UCLA School of Public Health resulted in a special edition of Evaluation Review (Vol. 30, No. 3, June 2006)

Direct academic sponsorship

• A $400,000 grant to The Ohio State University's John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy to establish a Second Amendment Research Center, directed by OSU Associate Professor of History Saul Cornell.

External links

• The Joyce Foundation -- Official website
• Legal Community Against Violence -- Official website
• Arms and the Law Blog commentary

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