This Annual Report is a celebration of the tireless work and generous contributions of our volunteers and supporters in 2023. Here, I want to share with you a bird’s-eye view of what we’ve accomplished in the past year and what we hope to do going forward.
As you will see in these pages, the Society hosted thousands of programs across the country in 2023, most of them organized by volunteers. Student and lawyers chapter programs have surpassed pre-Covid levels—in terms of both number and quality—and we have continued to produce excellent publications and videos about important legal and public policy issues.
In many ways, 2023 was a year of good news. We’ve seen the principles we have been discussing for more than forty years become ascendant in some respects. But it was also a year of tremendous challenges. We saw disturbing organized attacks on free speech at elite law school campuses that captured national attention, and we are now seeing, among other things, a disturbing unequal application of universities’ policies on these questions.
In this present climate, I am particularly struck by the courage of our student volunteers. There are numerous pressures and incentives for them not to get involved with the Federalist Society at this crucial point in their nascent careers. Radical ideologies have spread far beyond the classroom to the elite law firms and corporate boardrooms, and it would surely be safer for them to keep their heads down. And yet our students remain undaunted. Th ey have gotten involved, and they posted strong numbers in all meaningful measures last year—membership, events, and attendance.
We have gone back to fundamentals in our programs. While it is always important to stay tethered to our roots, this revisiting of our foundations is also in response to increasing challenges in the broader legal and political culture. The public square is filled with voices that are constantly telling us that our Constitution, laws, and legal traditions are instruments of oppression; that our courts and judges are not merely mistaken but completely illegitimate; that free speech is a tool of the powerful that should be curtailed to avoid causing discomfort; and that the United States is an irredeemably flawed country that systematically mistreats women and racial and ethnic minorities. Given these challenges, we have been focusing and will continue to focus on three key areas.
Click the download link for the full annual report!
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public policy matters. Any expressions of opinion are those of the author. We welcome responses to the views presented here. To join the debate, please email us at info@fedsoc.org.
