After the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, there were many lessons to learn about overcoming extremism in America.
In 2017, Mike created a bipartisan coalition including the Anti-Defamation League, the Ford Foundation, the Charles Koch Institute, the Fetzer Institute, and New America to generate best practices and alliances against extremism.
This led to two national summits, a podcast series featuring conversations with front-line leaders, and a final report in the fall of 2019 with case studies and best practices.
And the work continues today.
Communities Overcoming Extremism’s work:
Public Sector Summit
In the fall of 2018, over a hundred public sector leaders, including mayors and leaders in public safety, education, and the nonprofit sector, gathered at Washington University in St. Louis for two days of candid discussion of their efforts combating extremism.
The event included conversations on legal means to fight domestic terrorism, combating implicit bias in society and in policing, the role of faith-based institutions, and how schools can make a difference in decreasing marginalization and radicalization.
Private Sector Summit
In the summer of 2019, close to a hundred leaders in the private sector, including a dozen major tech companies, convened at Airbnb’s headquarters in San Francisco to share efforts to create trust and safety and push back against extremism on their platforms.
“Overcoming Extremism” podcast
Communities Overcoming Extremism released the 10-episode “Overcoming Extremism” podcast series, featuring in-depth conversations between Mike and leaders on the front-lines against extremism, including Mayor Jesse Arreguin of Berkeley, Jonathan Greenblatt, President and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Pastor and former Charlottesville Mayor Alvin Edwards, and Samar Ali, founder of Millions of Conversations.
The Final Report
In the fall of 2019 at a major public event at New America in Washington, D.C., Communities Overcoming Extremism released its 88-page final report, containing dozens of best practices, case studies, and lessons learned for the nation’s work against extremism.
You can watch the event here.
Taking the lessons on the road
During 2020, in cooperation with several institutional partners of Communities Overcoming Extremism, Mike will be appearing in communities around the country for workshops and roundtables on the findings in the annual report.
Please contact Mike at mike [at] mikesigner [dot] com if you are interested in having a workshop in your community.
Recent events (2020)
On August 10, 2020, Mike joined Congressman Adam Smith, Amy Spitalnick, Executive Director of Integrity First for America, and Muhammed Fraser-Rahim, Executive Director North America for the Quilliam Foundation, for “Fighting White Nationalism and Police Violence: Three Years after Charlottesville.”
On August 26th, 2020, Mike was interviewed by Spectrum Labs AI for a “Fireside Chat” titled “Extremism in Online Communities,” where he spoke about extremist behaviors, indicators, and how companies can best design Trust & Safety policies and teams to identify and counteract extremism in their communities.
On July 30, 2020, Mike joined
former national security prosecutor Mary McCord, the Anti-Defamation League’s Senior VP George Selim, Raúl Torrez, District Attorney of Bernalillo County, New Mexico.
for “A Conversation on Political Violence, Extremism, and American Democracy,” moderated by Michel Martin of National Public Radio.
The conversation included the announcement of a new toolkit and the formation of a pro bono coalition to provide help to localities.
In the Media
National Public Radio covered the project’s efforts to take stock of mistakes made and move forward from them.
TV stations around the country covered the release of Communities Overcoming Extremism’s final report.
Mike co-authored an article with Mary McCord of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University in The Washington Post about the successful strategy of suing militia organizations to prevent them from entering the city again.