3rd Quarter Newsletter: Summer
2025
The Polarization &
Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) is an applied
research lab preventing radicalization to
violent extremism by
strengthening community resilience. We design,
test, and scale-up evidence based tools and
strategies using the
principles of public health.
Please support our
work in preventing extremism! We are funded
by donors and sponsors like you. To donate,
click here.
PERIL's work continues to
generate increased engagement and resource
utilization both in the U.S. and with
international partners. We could not do this
work without you. Thank you for being a vital
part of our
community and for your commitment to preventing
violent extremism.
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What's in
this Newsletter:
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PERIL is going places!
From meeting with new donors, talking to potential
partners, conducting training, talking to the community
or participating in media interviews, our team is
reaching new heights and going places! Check out PERIL's
latest news.
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Message
from the Executive Director
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Uncertainty can be
paralyzing. Antagonistic rhetoric,
chilling. Cascading setbacks,
overwhelming.
It is with no small amount of pride or
sense of urgency that I say that PERIL
is on the move. We’re moving forward
with our partners. And doing that
decisively.
We’re taking our lead from PERIL’s
Founding Director, who was recently
awarded the prestigious Carnegie
Foundation of New York Fellowship to
continue her visionary work on the
growing intersectionality of gendered
violence with violent extremism.
Cynthia’s Man
Up book tour will take PERIL on
the road across the country, to include
workshops on university campuses based
on PERIL’s Not
Just a Joke: Understanding and
Preventing Gender- & Sexuality-Based
Bigotry.
PERIL has been in a New York state of
mind lately, speaking at events for the
NY State Domestic Terrorism Prevention
Unit and for the NYPD Cyber Intelligence
and Counterterrorism Conference,
demonstrating the pragmatic value that
the public safety community places on
prevention. Simultaneously, it is clear
that educators are finding pedagogical
value in PERIL’s public health approach
to prevention. We were thrilled to offer
closing remarks for the NYC Public
Schools’ Invent2Prevent competition in
May, and even more so, to announce that
PERIL’s K-5 digital literacy curriculum
(called DUCC)
– which got its start as an
Invent2Prevent national champion - will
be shared as a resource to elementary
educators in New York City Public
Schools as part of Anti-Bullying Month
in October 2025.
PERIL is gaining traction far beyond New
York, and will be focused on expanding
our Community Advisory, Resource and
Education (CARE) model over the coming
months through continued partnership
with state and local governments and the
philanthropic community. As federal
resources for prevention retract, PERIL
will advance to help meet the need. That
being said, the prevention of harm, hate
and violence is a global calling.
PERIL’s Gendered Violence Division is
therefore proud to support the
Christchurch Call Foundation’s new
initiative, Project Catalyst, tackling
this critical issue on three continents
and in three languages. We’re on the
move.
~ Bill
Braniff
Executive Director,
PERIL
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Key
Quarterly Statistics
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1229
Downloads of
Resources
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95.4%
Training
participants rated our material 4.77/5 or higher
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Partnership
Announcement: Catalyst with Christchurch
Call Foundation
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Catalyst is an 18-month project focused on
the intersection of online misogyny,
gender-based violence, and violent extremism.
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In 2022 and 2023, Christchurch Call leaders
identified Online Gender Based Violence (OGBV) and its
link to violent extremism as a priority.
Catalyst is an 18-month project that seeks to address
online misogyny and gender-based violence as pathways to
radicalisation to terrorism and violent
extremism.
Catalyst will be implemented through a Consortium led by
the Christchurch Call Foundation.
Christchurch Call Foundation's implementing partners
are: ISD, Meedan, Search for Common Ground, PERIL, and
the Blavatnik School of Government, who all bring deep
experience in online interventions, community-based
programming, capacity building, and policy
development.
Engaging the capabilities of the Christchurch Call
Community will be key to the implementation and impact
of Catalyst.
Context: Why online misogyny and gender-based
violence?
We know that misogyny increases vulnerability to violent
extremism. Violent misogyny can also constitute violent
extremism.
Men and boys who support violence against women and
girls (VAWG) are significantly (up to three times) more
likely to support violent extremism
(based on empirical studies from the UK, as well as
across Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and
Libya).
Most terrorists are male. Individual profiles of
terrorists also often reveal past involvement in
intimate partner violence.
Misogynistic grievances also can become ideological
drivers for extremist attacks: between 45%-60% of mass
shootings in the US are motivated by grievances against
women.
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Upcoming
Event
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On Sunday, September 14, 2025 at 5pm ET,
join us for Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss' new book
launch - Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise
of Violent Extremism - with Rachel Louise Snyder
— at the Connecticut Ave Politics and Prose
Bookstore in DC!
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This free event is in partnership with PERIL,
The Sine Institute of Policy & Politics, Bedrock, and the
DC Rape Crisis Center. First come, first served seating.
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PERIL in
the News
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Below are excerpts from the last quarter. We had over
30 media appearances in total! To catch up on all
PERIL news items, take a look at our news on our
website here.
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NEW: PERIL x The Contrarian!
PERIL has been participating in biweekly submissions
with The Contrarian on amplifying our reach in educating
the public on the prevention efforts in reducing the
harms of extremism. Check out all the contributions
below!
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The Today Show, June 22, 2025
In June, political violence continued to escalate. From
a thwarted attack on the mayor of Memphis, TN, an Ohio
congressman, a NYC mayoral candidate, to DC lawmakers'
continued concern for their own safety and their
families. Dr.Cynthia Miller-Idriss participated in this
video interview on Sunday Focus with The Today Show to
discuss why and how we can prevent this trajectory.
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The 19th News, June 25, 2025
In The 19th News, PERIL's Dr.Pasha Dashtgard focuses on how algorithms
for online social media platforms prioritizes content on the manosphere,
tradwives and gendered violence.
"The tradwife movement 'is for men', he stressed. It’s not for women.
It’s cosplaying what men think would be the ideal woman. Tradwife and
manosphere influencers communicate that marriage and children aren’t
optional, according to their detractors and some of their impressionable
teen viewers."
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Team
Updates
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CARE Team Updates
On May 7, 2025, the Michigan CARE Team, along with Dr.
Cynthia Miller-Idriss, participated in the Michigan Hate
and Extremism Town Hall with Attorney General Dana
Nessel and State Representative Noah Arbit.
The following CARE trainings were also
conducted:
- 6/3 Training for the Immigrant and Refugee Resource
Collaborative (IRRC), on the topic of "Understanding Extremism" with 35
participants
- 6/24 "Understanding Extremism" Training for Ingham County with
38 participants
- 6/25 "Understanding Extremism" Training for the Mid State Health Network (MSHN)
with 19 participants
- 6/26 "Understanding Extremism" Training at MI Response to Hate
(MIR2H) Forum, hosted by the MI Department of Civil Rights (MDCR)
with 35 participants
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Comms Team Updates
The top 4 resource downloads over the last
quarter were:
- Not
Just A Joke: 3,508
- Peacemaker's
Toolkit: 1,538
- Building
Resilience and Confronting Risk: Parents &
Caregivers' Guide To Online Radicalization:
1,066
- BRICK
Toolkits (all versions): 1,015
Web updates for the last quarter:
-4000+ active users, up 40% in the last quarter
-3,900 new users, up 42% in the last quarter
-51% engagement rate, up 2.5% in the last
quarter
Social media and overall audience engagement
over the last quarter:
- Public newsletter:
6,788 subscribers; up 2000 from the previous quarter,
with 7,878 opens and clicks
- PERIL
website:
14,063 page views; with 10,491 user engagements
- LinkedIn:
3,504 followers; with 898 content engagements
- BlueSky
Social:
3,600 followers; with 231 content engagements
- META
(FB and IG):
99 followers; with 3,454 content engagements
- 9 total guest speaking engagement
events over the last quarter
- 30 total press interviews to
date
DUCC Team Updates
Schools may be out for summer, but DUCC is busy getting
ready for the fall! The DUCC curriculum is now fully
available on the website, ready for schools and teachers
to use.
The team also attended two conferences in July: The
Innovative Schools Summit in Las Vegas, from July 7-11, and
the Digital Media and Developing Minds International
Scientific Congress in Washington, DC from July
13-16.
If you or someone you know attended one of those
conferences, or want to know more about our work, let us know by emailing us at talktoducc@american.edu
and let’s set up a time to talk!
PERIL is also proud and excited to announce that the DUCC curriculum will be shared as a resource to elementary educators in New York City Public Schools as part of Anti-Bullying Month in October 2025. Check out the
website here.
Training Team Updates
We're thrilled to share highlights from PERIL's recent
training initiatives:
At the Osher Lifelong Learning
Institute (OLLI) - a university-based
program serving adults 50+ with non-credit courses - we
had an incredible opportunity to showcase our prevention
tools and research. Participants were energized to learn about how educators can prevent youth radicalization
by addressing the harmful online rhetoric targeting
young people.
22nd Century Conference:the conference
featured our collaborative session with SPLC based on "Not
Just a Joke", where we used scenario-based
learning to help participants develop prevention
strategies for gender and sexuality-based
bigotry.
Our Hispanic Serving Institutions
webinar launched our exciting new
"Cultivating Belonging and Resilience" toolkit for higher
ed professionals. The response was overwhelming -
participants called the resource perfectly timed and
couldn't wait to implement it on their campuses to
foster belonging and prevent hate.
We were honored to present "Online Tools and
Other Prevention Instruments" to the State
Department's Office of International Visitors for their
International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) on
"Countering Violent Extremism – Community Strategies."
This distinguished group of 16 African government
officials, civil society representatives, and religious
leaders engaged deeply with our prevention approaches as
part of their U.S. program focused on strengthening
community resilience and preventing extremist
violence.
We also just completed the training titled
"Beyond the Echo Chamber: Navigating
Polarization in Campus Discourse" with
26 attendees at the AASCU
Conference.
The momentum is building! We're actively scheduling more
trainings for parents, educators, and school districts.
Know someone who'd benefit? We'd love to connect - reach
out to periltrainings@american.edu
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Research Team Updates
Dr. Ruiqian (Richie) Li presented "Religious
Extremism & PERIL's Interventions" on June
17. Ms. Marylin Rodriguez presented "Equipping
Educators and Administrators with Prevention Tools
for K-12 and Higher Ed" on June 24 and Dr.
Daniel Relihan presented "Vaccination Against Viral
Extremism: A New Approach to Combatting Harmful
Online Narratives" on July 14, 2025 to the
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
(OLLI) classes.
OverZero Project: On July 9th, the Research Team conducted our final project briefing and will submit the project's final report.
For the Building
Networks Guide Longitudinal
Impact Study, the data collection for Wave
4 is going great! 64% of the data has been received, and
our team will begin analyzing once the full dataset is
complete.
PERIL is finalizing a landscape analysis report as part of The Illinois Hate Crimes Project.
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