The Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) is the main Turkish lobby organization in the United States. Its stated purpose includes education and congressional advocacy. It is based in Washington, D.C., with an office in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

. A

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of ...

non-profit organization, it engages in educational, cultural, social and political activities and it's closely aligned to the

Congressional Caucus on Turkey and Turkish Americans The Congressional Caucus on Turkey and Turkish Americans (Turkey Caucus) was established by US Congressmen Robert Wexler (D-Florida), Ed Whitfield (R-Kentucky) and Kay Granger (R-Texas) in March 2001. The Turkey Caucus is a bi-partisan platform fo ...

. The organization has received criticism for making inaccurate claims about the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through t ...

. Historian Richard Hovannisian states that TCA "has become a driving force behind contemporary efforts to deny the truth of the Armenian Genocide".

Legal actions

In November 2010 the Turkish Coalition of America sued the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

and the director of its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies for defamation and violation of the group's First Amendment rights after the university had issued a list of "unreliable websites" and warned students not to reference them in their studies. The website of the Turkish Coalition of America was at the head of that list for asserting that the

in 1915 should be understood as part of inter-communal warfare between Ottoman Armenians and Ottoman Muslims. In 2011 a federal judge dismissed the suit, finding that the case centered on academic freedom and stating "The ability of the University ... to determine the reliability of sources available to students to use in their research falls squarely within the University's freedom to determine how particular course work shall be taught."

Bruce Fein Bruce Fein (born March 12, 1947) is an American lawyer who specializes in constitutional and international law. Fein has written numerous articles on constitutional issues for ''The Washington Times'', ''Slate.com'', ''The New York Times'', ' ...

, attorney for the Turkish Coalition, called the academic freedom argument "a bogus claim" and "a cover" to suppress ideas the University doesn't like. The Turkish Coalition of America appealed the case in February 2012. In May 2012 the Eighth U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the University of Minnesota, dismissing the Turkish Coalition of America's claims. Counsel for the University of Minnesota, Mark Rotenberg, said the decision "confirms the right of universities and their faculty to offer scholarly criticism and critique on websites without fear of legal exposure."Appeals court rules for U of M in case over 'unreliable websites' http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/150171485.html

Legal actions

References

Related links