Thank you for raising questions about ACE’s values and priorities. While we understand that the original claim made in the post has since been retracted, we still wanted to take the opportunity to respond—both for transparency and trust within the community, and to engage our team in clarifying our approach. These conversations help us reflect, improve, and ultimately strengthen our work to reduce animal suffering as effectively as possible.
ACE’s mission remains squarely focused on identifying, promoting and fundraising for impactful strategies and organizations to help non-human animals at scale. At the same time, we recognize that this work does not happen in a vacuum. While not the aim of our work, we affirm in our guiding principles the importance of treating all people—regardless of gender identity, race, sexuality, or political beliefs—with empathy and respect, just as we show non-human animals compassion. We strive to ensure that our practices support high-performing, mission-driven teams and reflect our commitment to fairness and respect—without prescribing any particular ideology.
People across the political spectrum care about animals, and our goal is to welcome that broad support. As we continue to support effective animal advocacy, we remain committed to broadening the movement, welcoming counterfactual supporters, and making decisions that maximize our collective impact.
Thank you very much for responding on behalf of ACE.
I completely agree with you that ACE should do everything that you said:
“we affirm in our guiding principles the importance of treating all people—regardless of gender identity, race, sexuality, or political beliefs—with empathy and respect, just as we show non-human animals compassion. We strive to ensure that our practices support high-performing, mission-driven teams and reflect our commitment to fairness and respect—without prescribing any particular ideology.
People across the political spectrum care about animals, and our goal is to welcome that broad support.”
However, I disagree that this has been ACE’s position in the past. If ACE has changed its position and you no longer support what people on the right would describe as woke ideology, I encourage you to do some editing of the material that is still on your website.
Does ACE still stand by its 2021 post “Apply for funding from ACE movement grants”, which states that ACE is not able to fund “groups or projects that do not support ACE’s views on diversity, equity, and inclusion”? That 2017 blog post endorsed in 2021 is clearly “prescribing a particular ideology” (woke), the type that I argue is at least off-putting to about half of the general population.
From the 2017 blog post:
“If you work for an animal charity, your organization may wish to consider the following options:
State explicitly that your organization opposes all systems of oppression;21″
“Non-participation in oppressive systems means complacency with them as it does nothing to dismantle them. Therefore, we commit to unapologetically base our actions on:
Note that anti-semitism is conspicuously absent from the list of 20 “anti-s”, but anti-zionism is present. Apparently they think that Israeli Jews should pack up their bags and leave behind the one state where they can be free from the persecution they’ve endured for millenia, and that this view is morally obligatory. I disagree, and I have no conection to Judaism or Israel.
‘White vegans have no problem saying “kill all humans” in response to speciesism. But when women say “kill all men” in response to patriarchy, or when people of color say “kill all white people” in response to racist oppression, suddenly it’s “violence.” Hypocrisy.’
Well, I’m a white vegan and I have a big problem with people who say “kill all humans”, as I have with anyone who says “kill all men” or “kill all white people”. No one should be defending people who say “kill all (insert indiscriminate group of people)”! But it’s certainly not the first time that a woke activist has defended such a statement. It’s not an isolated incident.
Endorsing an organization that promotes this rhetoric seems to be a clear example of ‘prescribing a particular ideology’ that is not universally shared and is in direct opposition to the stated goal of ‘treating all people with empathy and respect’.
As an aside, I would like to offer some thoughts on why I think woke ideology is bad. I’m all for treating all people with empathy and respect. I’m against racism but not anti-racist. A lot of innocent people have had their carreers and life ruined by anti-racist and woke activists for expressing perfectly defensible opinions. I highly recommend John McWhorter’s book “Woke Racism: How a New Religion has Betrayed Black America”, which among other things, has many examples of victims of woke activism.
Thank you for raising questions about ACE’s values and priorities. While we understand that the original claim made in the post has since been retracted, we still wanted to take the opportunity to respond—both for transparency and trust within the community, and to engage our team in clarifying our approach. These conversations help us reflect, improve, and ultimately strengthen our work to reduce animal suffering as effectively as possible.
ACE’s mission remains squarely focused on identifying, promoting and fundraising for impactful strategies and organizations to help non-human animals at scale. At the same time, we recognize that this work does not happen in a vacuum. While not the aim of our work, we affirm in our guiding principles the importance of treating all people—regardless of gender identity, race, sexuality, or political beliefs—with empathy and respect, just as we show non-human animals compassion. We strive to ensure that our practices support high-performing, mission-driven teams and reflect our commitment to fairness and respect—without prescribing any particular ideology.
People across the political spectrum care about animals, and our goal is to welcome that broad support. As we continue to support effective animal advocacy, we remain committed to broadening the movement, welcoming counterfactual supporters, and making decisions that maximize our collective impact.
Thank you very much for responding on behalf of ACE.
I completely agree with you that ACE should do everything that you said:
“we affirm in our guiding principles the importance of treating all people—regardless of gender identity, race, sexuality, or political beliefs—with empathy and respect, just as we show non-human animals compassion. We strive to ensure that our practices support high-performing, mission-driven teams and reflect our commitment to fairness and respect—without prescribing any particular ideology.
People across the political spectrum care about animals, and our goal is to welcome that broad support.”
However, I disagree that this has been ACE’s position in the past. If ACE has changed its position and you no longer support what people on the right would describe as woke ideology, I encourage you to do some editing of the material that is still on your website.
Does ACE still stand by its 2021 post “Apply for funding from ACE movement grants”, which states that ACE is not able to fund “groups or projects that do not support ACE’s views on diversity, equity, and inclusion”? That 2017 blog post endorsed in 2021 is clearly “prescribing a particular ideology” (woke), the type that I argue is at least off-putting to about half of the general population.
From the 2017 blog post:
“If you work for an animal charity, your organization may wish to consider the following options:
State explicitly that your organization opposes all systems of oppression;21″
The footnote says:
“For an example, read about Collectively Free.”
And that Collectively Free page says:
“Non-participation in oppressive systems means complacency with them as it does nothing to dismantle them. Therefore, we commit to unapologetically base our actions on:
anti-speciesism, anti-racism, anti-colorism, anti-ableism, anti-sexism, anti-cissexism, anti-heterosexism, anti-binarism, anti-classism, anti-nationalism, anti-fascism, anti-xenophobia, anti-ageism, anti-sizeism, anti-nativism, anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, anti-zionism, anti-totalitarianism, anti-ethnocentrism.”
Note that anti-semitism is conspicuously absent from the list of 20 “anti-s”, but anti-zionism is present. Apparently they think that Israeli Jews should pack up their bags and leave behind the one state where they can be free from the persecution they’ve endured for millenia, and that this view is morally obligatory. I disagree, and I have no conection to Judaism or Israel.
In a blog post titled “20 ways the violence of the oppressed isn’t the same as the violence of the oppressors” Collectively Free claims:
‘White vegans have no problem saying “kill all humans” in response to speciesism. But when women say “kill all men” in response to patriarchy, or when people of color say “kill all white people” in response to racist oppression, suddenly it’s “violence.” Hypocrisy.’
Well, I’m a white vegan and I have a big problem with people who say “kill all humans”, as I have with anyone who says “kill all men” or “kill all white people”. No one should be defending people who say “kill all (insert indiscriminate group of people)”! But it’s certainly not the first time that a woke activist has defended such a statement. It’s not an isolated incident.
Endorsing an organization that promotes this rhetoric seems to be a clear example of ‘prescribing a particular ideology’ that is not universally shared and is in direct opposition to the stated goal of ‘treating all people with empathy and respect’.
As an aside, I would like to offer some thoughts on why I think woke ideology is bad. I’m all for treating all people with empathy and respect. I’m against racism but not anti-racist. A lot of innocent people have had their carreers and life ruined by anti-racist and woke activists for expressing perfectly defensible opinions. I highly recommend John McWhorter’s book “Woke Racism: How a New Religion has Betrayed Black America”, which among other things, has many examples of victims of woke activism.
I would like to end on this question:
Does ACE still stand by the part of their 2021 post “Apply for funding from ACE movement grants” that states that ACE is not able to fund “groups or projects that do not support ACE’s views on diversity, equity, and inclusion”?