Biography

Cameron Kasky was a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and one of the students recognized for organizing the gun-control campaign that became March For Our Lives after the shooting there in February 2018.

The 2018 TIME 100

Kasky was named in the 2018 TIME 100, in a joint entry on the Parkland students alongside Jaclyn Corin, David Hogg, Emma González and Alex Wind. The entry was written by Barack Obama, and its argument is about asymmetry: “The Parkland, Fla., students don’t have the kind of lobbyists or big budgets for attack ads that their opponents do.” Obama described them as young people “seared by memories” who “don’t intimidate easily” and are “comfortable speaking truth to power”, and credited them with persuading some statehouses and retailers to change.

March For Our Lives as an Organization

The March For Our Lives Foundation is a 501(c)(3) registered in Washington, DC, with an IRS ruling date of August 2018 — six months after the shooting. Its filings show revenue between roughly 1.2millionand1.2 million and 2.5 million in the tax years 2020 to 2023, with expenses exceeding revenue in every one of those four years.

Digital Political Impact

  • One of a small group of students whose organizing, conducted largely through social platforms in the days after a shooting, was followed within months by a national mobilization and a standing organization
  • The interval between events was short: shooting in February 2018, march in March, federal tax exemption in August
  • The TIME 100 entry was written by a former U.S. president

What Is Not Established Here

Removed in the citation audit: his birth year; Instagram and Twitter follower counts; the account of him being a junior at the school on 14 February 2018 and gathering fellow students at his home to found Never Again MSD; the use of the #NeverAgain hashtag and the claim of national attention “within days”; the 24 March 2018 date and location of the March For Our Lives rally and the claim that it drew hundreds of thousands; and his speech at it. The TIME 100 entry is the source for his recognition; it does not date or size the march, and no first-party March For Our Lives account was reachable in this pass — the organization’s mission page 301-redirects to a host that returns 404.

Sources

  1. 01.

    Obama, B. (2018). Parkland Students — The 100 Most Influential People of 2018. The TIME 100 entry itself, written by Barack Obama, naming Cameron Kasky, Jaclyn Corin, David Hogg, Emma González and Alex Wind. Source for Kasky's inclusion in the 2018 list, for the framing that 'the Parkland, Fla., students don't have the kind of lobbyists or big budgets for attack ads that their opponents do', for Obama's description of them as young leaders who 'don't intimidate easily' and are 'comfortable speaking truth to power', and for the claim that they persuaded some statehouses and retailers to change. The entry does not name March For Our Lives.

    time.com/collections/most-influential-people-2018/5217568/parkland-students
  2. 02.

    Internal Revenue Service, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. March For Our Lives Foundation — IRS Form 990 filings (EIN 83-0885411). 501(c)(3) organization in Washington, DC, with an IRS ruling date of August 2018 — six months after the shooting and five after the march. Total revenue $2,468,494 (2020), $1,233,506 (2021), $2,304,328 (2022) and $1,422,489 (2023), against expenses of $3,116,969, $1,851,634, $2,177,654 and $1,753,224 respectively; the organization spent more than it raised in each of those four years.

    projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/830885411.json