Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Randall Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina. For his education he attended St. Albans School, Princeton University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court of the United States. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Mr Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002). A member of the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, Mr. Kennedy is also a Trustee emeritus of Princeton University.
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; Former President, American Civil Liberties Union
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023. Her books about free speech include: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (Oxford University Press 2023); HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press 2018); and Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (Scribner 1995), which was republished with a new Preface in 2024 as part of the NYU Classics Series. Her many honors and awards include the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. She serves on the Advisory Boards of several organizations that do free speech work, including: ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin.
Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Randall Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina. For his education he attended St. Albans School, Princeton University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court of the United States. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Mr Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002). A member of the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, Mr. Kennedy is also a Trustee emeritus of Princeton University.
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; Former President, American Civil Liberties Union
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023. Her books about free speech include: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (Oxford University Press 2023); HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press 2018); and Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (Scribner 1995), which was republished with a new Preface in 2024 as part of the NYU Classics Series. Her many honors and awards include the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. She serves on the Advisory Boards of several organizations that do free speech work, including: ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin.
Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale College, summa cum laude, in 1980 and from Yale Law School in 1984, and clerking for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 at the age of 26. He is Yale’s only living professor to have won the University’s unofficial triple crown — the Sterling Chair for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching, and the Lamar Award for alumni service.
Amar’s work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 50 cases — tops among scholars under age 70. According to both Fred Shapiro’s landmark 2021 study of lifetime scholarly citations and Heinonline’s most recent tabulation of lifetime law-review citations, Amar is America’s second most-cited legal scholar still under age 70. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has written widely for popular publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Atlantic. He was an informal consultant to the popular TV show The West Wing and his scholarship has been showcased on many broadcasts, including The Colbert Report, Morning Joe, AC360, Velshi, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fareed Zakaria GPS, Erin Burnett Outfront, and Constitution USA with Peter Sagal.
He is the author of more than a hundred law review articles and several books, including The Bill of Rights (1998 — winner of the Yale University Press Governors’ Award), America’s Constitution (2005 — winner of the ABA’s Silver Gavel Award), America’s Unwritten Constitution (2012 — named one of the year’s 100 best nonfiction books by The Washington Post), and The Constitution Today (2016 — named one of the year’s top ten nonfiction books by Time magazine). The first volume of his ambitious trilogy on American constitutional history from the Founding to the present, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. The second volume, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920, will be published in September 2025 and is already available for pre-order. All together, his nonfiction books have won two starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and three starred reviews from Kirkus—tops, it is believed, among legal scholars under age 70. Together with Vikram David Amar (YLS ’88), he has a bi-weekly column on the Supreme Court on the distinguished website SCOTUSblog. Along with Andy Lipka, he co-hosts a popular and free weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution, whose listeners are eligible for CLE credit in most American jurisdictions. A wide assortment of his articles and op-eds and video links to many of his public lectures and free online courses may be found at akhilamar.com.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law (Retired)
Gail Heriot is a recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego. She also served as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2007 to 2025. She is also the chairman of the board of the American Civil Rights Project and the chair emerita of the Civil Rights practice group at the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy.
Professor Heriot is a prolific writer in the area of civil rights. She is the author of many law review articles. She is also the editor (along with Maimon Schwarzschild) of the 2021 anthology, A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education. Her upcoming book is entitled, Why We Walk on Eggshell: How Our Civil Rights Laws Helped Bring About the Woke Era—And the Trump Era, Too.
Her writings for a general audience have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the National Review and many other newspapers and magazines.
In 1996, she co-chaired the successful “Yes on Proposition 209” campaign, which amended the California Constitution to prohibit state-sponsored discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. In 2020, she co-chaired the “No on Proposition 16” campaign, which successfully prevented Proposition 209’s repeal.
Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Randall Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina. For his education he attended St. Albans School, Princeton University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court of the United States. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Mr Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002). A member of the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, Mr. Kennedy is also a Trustee emeritus of Princeton University.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Judge Stephen Alexander Vaden was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 7, 2025. Alongside Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, Deputy Secretary Vaden leads the Department’s operations and implements policies that support America’s food and farm systems. A native of Union City, Tennessee, Deputy Secretary Vaden brings expertise in agricultural policy, law, and rural development. Previously, he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade and as General Counsel of USDA. Throughout Deputy Secretary Vaden’s time as General Counsel, he led successful Supreme Court litigation, advanced regulatory reform, and supported the implementation of the 2018 Farm Bill. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and Vanderbilt University. A public servant with strong agricultural roots, Deputy Secretary Vaden is committed to revitalizing rural America and ensuring an abundant, affordable, and safe U.S. food supply.
Devon Westhill is the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Westhill on October 7, 2025.
Westhill returns to the USDA where he previously headed the civil rights office as Deputy Assistant Secretary in President Trump’s first term. His previous government appointments also include service at the U.S. Department of Labor, liaison to the Administrative Conference of the U.S., and liaison to the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Prior to returning to government service, Westhill was President and General Counsel of a nonprofit civil rights organization.
Westhill has testified on civil rights matters before Congress, federal agencies, and as an expert witness in federal court. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio and TV programs, and he is frequently quoted in print publications, and his writing has appeared in numerous national outlets. A U.S. Navy veteran, Westhill earned his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his JD from the University of Florida.
Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale College, summa cum laude, in 1980 and from Yale Law School in 1984, and clerking for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 at the age of 26. He is Yale’s only living professor to have won the University’s unofficial triple crown — the Sterling Chair for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching, and the Lamar Award for alumni service.
Amar’s work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 50 cases — tops among scholars under age 70. According to both Fred Shapiro’s landmark 2021 study of lifetime scholarly citations and Heinonline’s most recent tabulation of lifetime law-review citations, Amar is America’s second most-cited legal scholar still under age 70. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has written widely for popular publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Atlantic. He was an informal consultant to the popular TV show The West Wing and his scholarship has been showcased on many broadcasts, including The Colbert Report, Morning Joe, AC360, Velshi, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fareed Zakaria GPS, Erin Burnett Outfront, and Constitution USA with Peter Sagal.
He is the author of more than a hundred law review articles and several books, including The Bill of Rights (1998 — winner of the Yale University Press Governors’ Award), America’s Constitution (2005 — winner of the ABA’s Silver Gavel Award), America’s Unwritten Constitution (2012 — named one of the year’s 100 best nonfiction books by The Washington Post), and The Constitution Today (2016 — named one of the year’s top ten nonfiction books by Time magazine). The first volume of his ambitious trilogy on American constitutional history from the Founding to the present, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. The second volume, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920, will be published in September 2025 and is already available for pre-order. All together, his nonfiction books have won two starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and three starred reviews from Kirkus—tops, it is believed, among legal scholars under age 70. Together with Vikram David Amar (YLS ’88), he has a bi-weekly column on the Supreme Court on the distinguished website SCOTUSblog. Along with Andy Lipka, he co-hosts a popular and free weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution, whose listeners are eligible for CLE credit in most American jurisdictions. A wide assortment of his articles and op-eds and video links to many of his public lectures and free online courses may be found at akhilamar.com.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law (Retired)
Gail Heriot is a recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego. She also served as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2007 to 2025. She is also the chairman of the board of the American Civil Rights Project and the chair emerita of the Civil Rights practice group at the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy.
Professor Heriot is a prolific writer in the area of civil rights. She is the author of many law review articles. She is also the editor (along with Maimon Schwarzschild) of the 2021 anthology, A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education. Her upcoming book is entitled, Why We Walk on Eggshell: How Our Civil Rights Laws Helped Bring About the Woke Era—And the Trump Era, Too.
Her writings for a general audience have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the National Review and many other newspapers and magazines.
In 1996, she co-chaired the successful “Yes on Proposition 209” campaign, which amended the California Constitution to prohibit state-sponsored discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. In 2020, she co-chaired the “No on Proposition 16” campaign, which successfully prevented Proposition 209’s repeal.
Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Randall Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina. For his education he attended St. Albans School, Princeton University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court of the United States. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Mr Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002). A member of the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, Mr. Kennedy is also a Trustee emeritus of Princeton University.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Judge Stephen Alexander Vaden was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 7, 2025. Alongside Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, Deputy Secretary Vaden leads the Department’s operations and implements policies that support America’s food and farm systems. A native of Union City, Tennessee, Deputy Secretary Vaden brings expertise in agricultural policy, law, and rural development. Previously, he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade and as General Counsel of USDA. Throughout Deputy Secretary Vaden’s time as General Counsel, he led successful Supreme Court litigation, advanced regulatory reform, and supported the implementation of the 2018 Farm Bill. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and Vanderbilt University. A public servant with strong agricultural roots, Deputy Secretary Vaden is committed to revitalizing rural America and ensuring an abundant, affordable, and safe U.S. food supply.
Devon Westhill is the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Westhill on October 7, 2025.
Westhill returns to the USDA where he previously headed the civil rights office as Deputy Assistant Secretary in President Trump’s first term. His previous government appointments also include service at the U.S. Department of Labor, liaison to the Administrative Conference of the U.S., and liaison to the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Prior to returning to government service, Westhill was President and General Counsel of a nonprofit civil rights organization.
Westhill has testified on civil rights matters before Congress, federal agencies, and as an expert witness in federal court. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio and TV programs, and he is frequently quoted in print publications, and his writing has appeared in numerous national outlets. A U.S. Navy veteran, Westhill earned his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his JD from the University of Florida.
Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law School
Brian Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, where his research focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection, and constitutional law. He is best known for his empirical studies of class action settlements as well as his book The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Professor Fitzpatrick joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Before earning his law degree, Fitzpatrick graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses.
Director of Litigation and Senior Attorney, Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute
Theodore H. Frank is director at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute and the Center for Class Action Fairness. Frank founded and ran CCAF as a non-profit, public interest law firm in 2009.
Frank has won several landmark appeals and tens of millions of dollars for consumers and other plaintiffs through his class action work. Adam Liptak of The New York Times calls Frank “the leading critic of abusive class action settlements” and the American Lawyer Litigation Daily referred to him as “the indefatigable scourge of underwhelming class action settlements.”
Previously, Frank clerked for the Honorable Frank H. Easterbrook on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and was a litigator at firms in Washington and Los Angeles and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Frank is a frequent public speaker and has testified before Congress multiple times on legal issues. He has been profiled by The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, GQ, and the ABA Journal, among other publications.
In 2008, Frank was elected to membership in the American Law Institute. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society Litigation Practice Group. Frank graduated from The University of Chicago Law School in 1994 with high honors and as a member of the Order of the Coif and the Law Review. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the state bars of California and Illinois.
Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Randall Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina. For his education he attended St. Albans School, Princeton University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court of the United States. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Mr Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002). A member of the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, Mr. Kennedy is also a Trustee emeritus of Princeton University.
Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law School
Brian Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, where his research focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection, and constitutional law. He is best known for his empirical studies of class action settlements as well as his book The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Professor Fitzpatrick joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Before earning his law degree, Fitzpatrick graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses.
Director of Litigation and Senior Attorney, Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute
Theodore H. Frank is director at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute and the Center for Class Action Fairness. Frank founded and ran CCAF as a non-profit, public interest law firm in 2009.
Frank has won several landmark appeals and tens of millions of dollars for consumers and other plaintiffs through his class action work. Adam Liptak of The New York Times calls Frank “the leading critic of abusive class action settlements” and the American Lawyer Litigation Daily referred to him as “the indefatigable scourge of underwhelming class action settlements.”
Previously, Frank clerked for the Honorable Frank H. Easterbrook on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and was a litigator at firms in Washington and Los Angeles and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Frank is a frequent public speaker and has testified before Congress multiple times on legal issues. He has been profiled by The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, GQ, and the ABA Journal, among other publications.
In 2008, Frank was elected to membership in the American Law Institute. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society Litigation Practice Group. Frank graduated from The University of Chicago Law School in 1994 with high honors and as a member of the Order of the Coif and the Law Review. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the state bars of California and Illinois.
Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Randall Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina. For his education he attended St. Albans School, Princeton University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court of the United States. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Mr Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002). A member of the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, Mr. Kennedy is also a Trustee emeritus of Princeton University.
University Professor of Law and Executive Director, Liberty & Law Center, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
David Bernstein holds a University Professorship chair at the Antonin Scalia Law School, where he has been teaching since 1995. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Georgetown University, William & Mary, Brooklyn Law School, the University of Turin, and Hebrew University. Professor Bernstein teaches Constitutional Law, Evidence, and Products Liability.
A prolific author, Professor Bernstein often challenges the conventional wisdom with prodigious research and sharp, original analysis. He is the author of five books, and coauthor of two more. Professor Bernstein’s book Rehabilitating Lochner was praised across the political spectrum as “intellectual history in its highest form,” a “fresh perspective and a cogent analysis,” “delightful and informative,” “sharp and iconoclastic,” and “a terrific work of historical revisionism.” Columnist George Will praised Bernstein’s most recent book, Classified, The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America, as “perhaps the most consequential American book of 2022.”
Professor Bernstein has also written dozens of articles and essays published in major law reviews, including the California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, and Yale Law Journal. An article he coauthored, Defending Daubert: It’s Time to Amend Federal Rule of Evidence 702, directly inspired a pending amendment to Rule 702.
Professor Bernstein blogs at the Instapundit.com, the Times of Israel, and the Volokh Conspiracy. He is a graduate of the Yale Law School, where he was senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and a John M. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Policy.
Director, Independent Women's Law Center, Independent Women's
Jennifer C. Braceras, a member of the Federalist Society Board of Visitors, is the director of Independent Women’s Law Center and a former member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Ms. Braceras is a graduate of the Harvard Law School, where she served as an editor of the Law Review. After law school, she clerked for two federal judges and practiced labor and employment law with the Boston law firm Ropes & Gray.
A long time political columnist and editor, Ms. Braceras's writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the Hill, and National Review Online. She co-hosts At the Bar, a bimonthly virtual happy hour discussion about issues at the intersection of law, politics, and culture.
Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Randall Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina. For his education he attended St. Albans School, Princeton University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court of the United States. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Mr Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002). A member of the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, Mr. Kennedy is also a Trustee emeritus of Princeton University.
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Randall Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina. For his education he attended St. Albans School, Princeton University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court of the United States. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Mr Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002). A member of the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, Mr. Kennedy is also a Trustee emeritus of Princeton University.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Kenneth Kiyul Lee is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was appointed in June 2019 and is based in San Diego, California.
Prior to his appointment, he was a partner at the law firm of Jenner & Block in Los Angeles. Judge Lee previously served as an Associate Counsel to President George W. Bush and as Special Counsel to Senator Arlen Specter, then-chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He started his legal career at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York.
Judge Lee received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, and his A.B. from Cornell University, summa cum laude. He clerked for Judge Emilio M. Garza of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; Former President, American Civil Liberties Union
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023. Her books about free speech include: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (Oxford University Press 2023); HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press 2018); and Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (Scribner 1995), which was republished with a new Preface in 2024 as part of the NYU Classics Series. Her many honors and awards include the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. She serves on the Advisory Boards of several organizations that do free speech work, including: ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Randall Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina. For his education he attended St. Albans School, Princeton University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court of the United States. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Mr Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002). A member of the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, Mr. Kennedy is also a Trustee emeritus of Princeton University.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Kenneth Kiyul Lee is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was appointed in June 2019 and is based in San Diego, California.
Prior to his appointment, he was a partner at the law firm of Jenner & Block in Los Angeles. Judge Lee previously served as an Associate Counsel to President George W. Bush and as Special Counsel to Senator Arlen Specter, then-chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He started his legal career at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York.
Judge Lee received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, and his A.B. from Cornell University, summa cum laude. He clerked for Judge Emilio M. Garza of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; Former President, American Civil Liberties Union
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023. Her books about free speech include: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (Oxford University Press 2023); HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press 2018); and Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (Scribner 1995), which was republished with a new Preface in 2024 as part of the NYU Classics Series. Her many honors and awards include the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. She serves on the Advisory Boards of several organizations that do free speech work, including: ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin.
A Plea for Free Speech in Boston, Remembering Frederick Douglass's 1860 Speech
Randall Kennedy, Nadine Strossen
Harvard Student Chapter
On Wednesday, November 29, the Harvard Student Chapter held a conversation, produced in partnership with...
A Plea for Free Speech in Boston, Remembering Frederick Douglass's 1860 Speech
Randall Kennedy, Nadine Strossen
Harvard Student Chapter
On Wednesday, November 29, the Harvard Student Chapter held a conversation, produced in partnership with...
SFFA and Beyond
Akhil Reed Amar, Gail L. Heriot, Randall Kennedy, Stephen Alexander Vaden, Devon Westhill
2023 National Lawyers Convention
This year the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Students for Fair Admissions Inc....
SFFA and Beyond
Akhil Reed Amar, Gail L. Heriot, Randall Kennedy, Stephen Alexander Vaden, Devon Westhill
2023 National Lawyers Convention
This year the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Students for Fair Admissions Inc....
"The Diversity Lie" 20 Years Later
Brian T. Fitzpatrick, Theodore "Ted" Frank, Randall Kennedy
In 2003, Professor Brian Fitzpatrick published a piece titled "The Diversity Lie" in which he...
"The Diversity Lie" 20 Years Later
Brian T. Fitzpatrick, Theodore "Ted" Frank, Randall Kennedy
In 2003, Professor Brian Fitzpatrick published a piece titled "The Diversity Lie" in which he...
Feddie Night Fights: Classified: Can We Separate Race And State?
David Bernstein, Jennifer C. Braceras, Randall Kennedy
Notre Dame Student Chapter
The Federalist Society’s Student Division & Notre Dame Student Chapter present Feddie Night Fights:Classified: Can We...
Showcase Panel I: Law, Social Justice, Wokeness and the Protests: Where Do We Go From Here?
Randy E. Barnett, Randall Kennedy, Kenneth Kiyul Lee, John O. McGinnis, Nadine Strossen, Eugene B. Meyer
2020 National Lawyers Convention
On November 12, 2020, the Federalist Society hosted a virtual panel for the 2020 National...
Showcase Panel I: Law, Social Justice, Wokeness and the Protests: Where Do We Go From Here?
Randy E. Barnett, Randall Kennedy, Kenneth Kiyul Lee, John O. McGinnis, Eugene B. Meyer, Nadine Strossen
2020 National Lawyers Convention
On November 12, 2020, the Federalist Society hosted a virtual panel for the 2020 National...