Solicitor, U.S. Department of Labor
Jonathan Berry is Solicitor at the U.S. Department of Labor, in service to President Trump’s agenda to put American workers first. He leads the Department’s lawyers in advising the Secretary and agency leadership on all aspects of law and in representing the Department in court. He was previously managing partner at Boyden Gray PLLC, where he provided strategic counsel and litigated on issues at the intersection of law, politics, and public policy. Earlier, he headed the regulatory office at Labor, and also served at the Department of Justice, in the first Trump Administration. Mr. Berry served as a law clerk to Judge Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and to Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Litigation Fellow, Institute for Justice
Matt Liles is a Litigation Fellow at the Institute for Justice. He returns to IJ after having worked as both a law clerk and intern in IJ’s Arlington, Virginia office. In his role as a Litigation Fellow, Matt litigates cutting-edge constitutional cases protecting Americans' property rights and economic liberty.
Matt received his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law, where he served on the executive board of the Texas Federalist Society and as Submissions Editor for the Texas Review of Law & Politics. He also received his B.A. in Government from the University of Texas. As an undergraduate, Matt was a plaintiff in a successful First Amendment lawsuit on behalf of campus free speech.
After completing the Fellowship, Matt will serve as a law clerk in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He is a member of the District of Columbia bar.
Arbitrator, American Arbitration Association & Former Deputy Director, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), U.S. Department of Labor
Bob Gaglione is an Arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association based in San Diego, California. He also teaches law and politics courses at several universities in Southern California.
From 2019-2021, Mr. Gaglione was a Presidential appointee serving as Deputy Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) at the U.S. Department of Labor.
Mr. Gaglione has over 30 years of legal experience, including most recently, serving as founder and principal of Gaglione Law Group in San Diego, CA, where he practiced civil litigation including business, employment, insurance, real estate, and tort litigation. He previously served as a partner at the law firm of McInnis, Fitzgerald, Rees & Sharkey – one of San Diego’s largest law firms at the time.
For more than a decade, Mr. Gaglione has been as a member of the American Arbitration Association National Roster of Neutrals and Panel of Arbitrators. He served as an Arbitrator or Mediator in close to 100 cases before he went to work for the Department of Labor. .
Mr. Gaglione was elected by his peers to a three-year term on the San Diego County Bar Association Board of Directors from 2011-2014. He is a founding Director of the San Diego Chapter of the Federalist Society and a Chair of the Board of Advisors of this chapter. Mr. Gaglione is a Past President of the Todd American Inn of Court and a past Chair of the Bar History Committee and Litigation Section of the San Diego County Bar Association. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the San Diego-Imperial Council of Boy Scouts of America.
Mr. Gaglione is AV-rated by Martindale Hubbell and has been featured in Best’s Directory of Recommended Insurance Attorneys, Law & Business Directory of Environmental Attorneys and Who’s Who in American Law. Mr. Gaglione has been included in the San Diego Daily Transcript Top Attorneys, was named a Super Lawyer numerous times, and has made the list of Top Lawyers in San Diego Magazine.
Mr. Gaglione has taught law and political science courses at DeVry University, Keller Graduate School of Management, and JP Catholic University. He is also a frequent lecturer at the University of San Diego School of Law, San Diego State University, and California Western School of Law.
Mr. Gaglione hosted a radio show known as Independent Counsel: the news from a legal perspective for over seven years. He is also a frequent legal commentator on radio and television news programs.
Mr. Gaglione received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of San Diego School of Law. He is a member of the California, District of Columbia, and New York Bars. He is also admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and all United States District Courts in California.
Founder, Justice Legal Strategies PLLC
Jon Greenbaum, the founder of Justice Legal Strategies, is one of the top civil rights and voting rights lawyers in the country, having worked for over 25 years in key positions at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. Jon has litigated some of the most important and complex civil rights cases in this century. Jon also has two decades of experience as a manager of large legal teams and has collaborated closely with a variety of external partners. Jon brings his skills as a litigator, legal thinker, developer and implementer of programs, and manager of people and processes to help progressive legal organizations achieve greater impact through innovative and carefully considered strategies and the ability to create legal teams that thrive.
For nearly fifteen years as Chief Counsel at the Lawyers’ Committee, Jon managed a multi-unit legal department with as many as forty people, served on the Executive Management Team, and co-led teams with law firm partners and nonprofit leaders. Jon worked with staff lawyers and pro bono counsel, public policy teams, communications professionals, organizers, social scientists, clients, external partners, and others to craft multifaceted responses to civil rights issues.
Jon brings his skills as a litigator, legal thinker, developer and implementer of programs, and manager of people and processes to help progressive legal organizations achieve greater impact through innovative and carefully considered strategies and the ability to create legal teams that thrive.
Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Professor Emeritus of Public Policy, Univ. of Maryland Baltimore County
George R. La Noue is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Professor Emeritus of Public Policy at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He has served as a trial expert in twenty cases involving public procurement preferences. For thirty years, he was Director of the Project on Civil Rights and Public Contracts at UMBC which recently contributed 289 public contracting disparity studies to the Library of Congress. He has been a consultant to nine governments and trial expert in thirty cases where the validity of disparity studies was at issue.
Prof. La Noue can be reached by email at glanoue@umbc.edu.
Partner at K&L Gates, Former OFCCP Director, and President-Elect of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia
Craig E. Leen is a partner in the Washington, DC office of K&L Gates, where he is a member of the Labor, Employment, and Workplace Safety practice group. Mr. Leen is also the President-Elect of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia.
Mr. Leen was formerly the Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) at the U.S. Department of Labor, where he reported directly to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Labor.
Mr. Leen serves as a Professorial Lecturer in Law and Professor of Government Lawyering at The George Washington University Law School, as Vice Chair of the District of Columbia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, as Co-Chair of the DC Family Support Council, and as Chair of the Civil and Human Rights Committee of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia.
Prior to his federal service at OFCCP, Mr. Leen was the City Attorney of the City of Coral Gables, and before that was Chief of the Appeals Section and then Chief of the Federal Litigation Section at the Miami-Dade County Attorney's Office. Earlier in his career, Mr. Leen served as a law clerk to the Honorable Robert E. Keeton, United States District Judge, District of Massachusetts.
In recognition of his public service, Mr. Leen received the Secretary's Exceptional Achievement Award - Professional while at the U.S. Department of Labor, and the Paul S. Buchman Award for Outstanding Contribution in the Area of Legal Public Service while in local government.
Mr. Leen is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, and New York, and is also board certified by The Florida Bar in city, county, and local government law.
Mr. Leen received his Juris Doctorate from Columbia Law School, graduating as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and having served as a teaching fellow in both Contracts and Torts. Mr. Leen received his Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, from Georgetown University, where he majored in both Government and Economics.
Adjunct Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Jenny R. Yang served in the White House, Domestic Policy Council as a Deputy Assistant to the President for Racial Justice and Equity until March 2024. From the first day of the Biden-Harris Administration until March 2023, she served as the Director of the Office of Federal Contracts Compliance Programs at the U.S. Department of Labor. Before that she served on the Biden-Harris Labor Transition Team. Ms. Yang served as Chair, Vice-Chair, and Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 2013 to 2018.
Ms. Yang is currently teaching Employment Law at New York University School of Law. She previously served as a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute and a consultant with Working Ideal from 2019-2020. She spent a decade representing workers in complex nationwide employment discrimination and wage and hour actions as a partner and Chair of the Diversity Committee at Cohen Milstein. Before that, she served as a Senior Trial Attorney with the U.S. Department of
Justice, Civil Rights Division, Employment Litigation Section. She began her career at the National Employment Law Project protecting the rights of garment workers. Prior to that she clerked for Judge Edmund Ludwig of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Ms. Yang served a co-chair of the first national board of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum. A graduate of Cornell University, she earned a B.A. in Government. She earned a J.D. from NYU School of Law where she was a Root-Tilden Public Interest scholar and served as Notes Editor of the Law Review.
Arbitrator, American Arbitration Association & Former Deputy Director, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), U.S. Department of Labor
Bob Gaglione is an Arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association based in San Diego, California. He also teaches law and politics courses at several universities in Southern California.
From 2019-2021, Mr. Gaglione was a Presidential appointee serving as Deputy Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) at the U.S. Department of Labor.
Mr. Gaglione has over 30 years of legal experience, including most recently, serving as founder and principal of Gaglione Law Group in San Diego, CA, where he practiced civil litigation including business, employment, insurance, real estate, and tort litigation. He previously served as a partner at the law firm of McInnis, Fitzgerald, Rees & Sharkey – one of San Diego’s largest law firms at the time.
For more than a decade, Mr. Gaglione has been as a member of the American Arbitration Association National Roster of Neutrals and Panel of Arbitrators. He served as an Arbitrator or Mediator in close to 100 cases before he went to work for the Department of Labor. .
Mr. Gaglione was elected by his peers to a three-year term on the San Diego County Bar Association Board of Directors from 2011-2014. He is a founding Director of the San Diego Chapter of the Federalist Society and a Chair of the Board of Advisors of this chapter. Mr. Gaglione is a Past President of the Todd American Inn of Court and a past Chair of the Bar History Committee and Litigation Section of the San Diego County Bar Association. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the San Diego-Imperial Council of Boy Scouts of America.
Mr. Gaglione is AV-rated by Martindale Hubbell and has been featured in Best’s Directory of Recommended Insurance Attorneys, Law & Business Directory of Environmental Attorneys and Who’s Who in American Law. Mr. Gaglione has been included in the San Diego Daily Transcript Top Attorneys, was named a Super Lawyer numerous times, and has made the list of Top Lawyers in San Diego Magazine.
Mr. Gaglione has taught law and political science courses at DeVry University, Keller Graduate School of Management, and JP Catholic University. He is also a frequent lecturer at the University of San Diego School of Law, San Diego State University, and California Western School of Law.
Mr. Gaglione hosted a radio show known as Independent Counsel: the news from a legal perspective for over seven years. He is also a frequent legal commentator on radio and television news programs.
Mr. Gaglione received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of San Diego School of Law. He is a member of the California, District of Columbia, and New York Bars. He is also admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and all United States District Courts in California.
Founder, Justice Legal Strategies PLLC
Jon Greenbaum, the founder of Justice Legal Strategies, is one of the top civil rights and voting rights lawyers in the country, having worked for over 25 years in key positions at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. Jon has litigated some of the most important and complex civil rights cases in this century. Jon also has two decades of experience as a manager of large legal teams and has collaborated closely with a variety of external partners. Jon brings his skills as a litigator, legal thinker, developer and implementer of programs, and manager of people and processes to help progressive legal organizations achieve greater impact through innovative and carefully considered strategies and the ability to create legal teams that thrive.
For nearly fifteen years as Chief Counsel at the Lawyers’ Committee, Jon managed a multi-unit legal department with as many as forty people, served on the Executive Management Team, and co-led teams with law firm partners and nonprofit leaders. Jon worked with staff lawyers and pro bono counsel, public policy teams, communications professionals, organizers, social scientists, clients, external partners, and others to craft multifaceted responses to civil rights issues.
Jon brings his skills as a litigator, legal thinker, developer and implementer of programs, and manager of people and processes to help progressive legal organizations achieve greater impact through innovative and carefully considered strategies and the ability to create legal teams that thrive.
Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Professor Emeritus of Public Policy, Univ. of Maryland Baltimore County
George R. La Noue is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Professor Emeritus of Public Policy at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He has served as a trial expert in twenty cases involving public procurement preferences. For thirty years, he was Director of the Project on Civil Rights and Public Contracts at UMBC which recently contributed 289 public contracting disparity studies to the Library of Congress. He has been a consultant to nine governments and trial expert in thirty cases where the validity of disparity studies was at issue.
Prof. La Noue can be reached by email at glanoue@umbc.edu.
Partner at K&L Gates, Former OFCCP Director, and President-Elect of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia
Craig E. Leen is a partner in the Washington, DC office of K&L Gates, where he is a member of the Labor, Employment, and Workplace Safety practice group. Mr. Leen is also the President-Elect of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia.
Mr. Leen was formerly the Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) at the U.S. Department of Labor, where he reported directly to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Labor.
Mr. Leen serves as a Professorial Lecturer in Law and Professor of Government Lawyering at The George Washington University Law School, as Vice Chair of the District of Columbia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, as Co-Chair of the DC Family Support Council, and as Chair of the Civil and Human Rights Committee of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia.
Prior to his federal service at OFCCP, Mr. Leen was the City Attorney of the City of Coral Gables, and before that was Chief of the Appeals Section and then Chief of the Federal Litigation Section at the Miami-Dade County Attorney's Office. Earlier in his career, Mr. Leen served as a law clerk to the Honorable Robert E. Keeton, United States District Judge, District of Massachusetts.
In recognition of his public service, Mr. Leen received the Secretary's Exceptional Achievement Award - Professional while at the U.S. Department of Labor, and the Paul S. Buchman Award for Outstanding Contribution in the Area of Legal Public Service while in local government.
Mr. Leen is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, and New York, and is also board certified by The Florida Bar in city, county, and local government law.
Mr. Leen received his Juris Doctorate from Columbia Law School, graduating as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and having served as a teaching fellow in both Contracts and Torts. Mr. Leen received his Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, from Georgetown University, where he majored in both Government and Economics.
Adjunct Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Jenny R. Yang served in the White House, Domestic Policy Council as a Deputy Assistant to the President for Racial Justice and Equity until March 2024. From the first day of the Biden-Harris Administration until March 2023, she served as the Director of the Office of Federal Contracts Compliance Programs at the U.S. Department of Labor. Before that she served on the Biden-Harris Labor Transition Team. Ms. Yang served as Chair, Vice-Chair, and Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 2013 to 2018.
Ms. Yang is currently teaching Employment Law at New York University School of Law. She previously served as a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute and a consultant with Working Ideal from 2019-2020. She spent a decade representing workers in complex nationwide employment discrimination and wage and hour actions as a partner and Chair of the Diversity Committee at Cohen Milstein. Before that, she served as a Senior Trial Attorney with the U.S. Department of
Justice, Civil Rights Division, Employment Litigation Section. She began her career at the National Employment Law Project protecting the rights of garment workers. Prior to that she clerked for Judge Edmund Ludwig of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Ms. Yang served a co-chair of the first national board of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum. A graduate of Cornell University, she earned a B.A. in Government. She earned a J.D. from NYU School of Law where she was a Root-Tilden Public Interest scholar and served as Notes Editor of the Law Review.
Senior Counsel & Director of the Center for Religious Schools, Alliance Defending Freedom
Gregory S. Baylor serves as senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, where he is the director of the Center for Religious Schools and senior counsel with the Center for Public Policy.
Since joining ADF in 2009, Baylor has focused on defending and advancing the religious freedom of faith-based educational institutions through advice, education, legislative and public advocacy, and representation in disputes. He has testified about religious liberty issues three times before congressional committees and numerous times before state legislative committees.
Greg serves on the board of directors of the International Alliance for Christian Education, the board of directors of the Association for Biblical Higher Education, the board of directors of the Association for Christian Schools International, the board of advisors of the Museum of the Bible, and advisory board of the Center for Academic Faithfulness and Flourishing.
Greg earned his Juris Doctor in 1990 from Duke University School of Law, where he graduated Order of the Coif, with high honors, and served on the editorial board of the Duke Law Journal. He received his bachelor’s degree in Honors English in 1987 from Dartmouth College. Following graduation from law school, he served as law clerk to the Hon. Jerry E. Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He practiced labor and employment law at two large international law firms for three years before joining the staff of Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom, where he served for 15 years prior to joining ADF. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife (a medical doctor) and two daughters.
Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Rachel N. Morrison is an attorney and Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she directs EPPC’s Administrative State Accountability Project. Her legal and policy work focuses on religious liberty, health care rights of conscience, the right to life, nondiscrimination, and civil rights.
Before joining EPPC, Ms. Morrison served as an Attorney Advisor and Special Assistant to General Counsel Sharon Fast Gustafson at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where she focused on religious discrimination issues and was a member of the General Counsel’s Religious Discrimination Work Group. Before that, she served as Litigation Counsel for Americans United for Life and as a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, defending the right to life and religious freedom for all. She also clerked on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Ms. Morrison’s legal analysis has been published in the Seton Hall Law Review, the Pepperdine Law Review, and the Ave Maria Law Review, as well as various other print media outlets.
Ms. Morrison earned her J.D., magna cum laude, from the Pepperdine University School of Law, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as an editor for the Pepperdine Law Review and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. She received her B.A. in Mathematics and Speech Communication, summa cum laude, from Whitworth University (Spokane, WA). She is a member of the District of Columbia and the Washington State bars.
Ms. Morrison lives with her husband and daughter in Virginia.
CEO and Director, National Jewish Advocacy Center
Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. is the CEO and Director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, Inc. He has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and, by Presidential appointment, as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council.
Goldfeder has taught law across the country and around the world as Senior Lecturer at Emory University School of Law, Spruill Family Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Director of the Restoring Religious Freedom Project, and as a visiting professor at Georgia State University School of Law, Florida Southern College, University of Padua (Italy), Scuola Galileana (Italy), IDC’s Radzyner Law School (Israel) and Bar Ilan Law School (Israel).
Goldfeder holds two rabbinic ordinations (yoreh yoreh; Yeshiva University and Rivavot Ephraim) and two judicial ordinations (yadin yadin; Rav Gedaliah Dov Schwartz, Av Beth Din, Rabbinical Council of America and Chicago Rabbinical Council, and Rav Dovid Schochet, President, Toronto Rabbinical Council).
Goldfeder’s work focuses on law and religion, constitutional law, and international law. He publishes widely in those areas, including both academically and in popular publications like CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Forbes, and other major media outlets. He is also co-author of the five-volume treatise Religious Organizations and the Law (Westlaw). Goldfeder handles cases involving antisemitism issues around the country, and lectures and writes widely on those topics. He has worked with local, state, and federal legislators on measures to support the Jewish community, and has defended students, professors, businesses, and nonprofits targeted for their support of the Jewish State. He has worked on cases at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, and has successfully represented clients including American and Israeli nonprofits in federal litigation.
In 2017, he received the Opher Aviran Stand with Israel Award from Hillel, and in 2018, the Jon Barkan Israel Advocacy Award from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in recognition of his work. He received his Doctorate and LLM degrees from Emory University and his Juris Doctor degree from NYU School of Law. He received his Bachelor of Arts at Yeshiva University in Journalism.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
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.
Professor and D’Alemberte Chair in Constitutional Law, Florida State University College of Law
Alexander Tsesis is the D’Alemberte chair in constitutional law at the Florida State University College of Law. He is also the general editor of the Cambridge Studies on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Oxford Theoretical Foundations in Law. Tsesis’ scholarship and teaching focus on a breadth of subjects, including constitutional law, civil rights, constitutional reconstruction, interpretive methodology, free speech theory, and legal history.
Tsesis’ most recent book is Free Speech in the Balance (Cambridge University Press 2020). His previous books include Constitutional Ethos: Liberal Equality for the Common Good (Oxford University Press 2017) and For Liberty and Equality: The Life and Times of the Declaration of Independence (Oxford University Press 2012), We Shall Overcome: A History of Civil Rights and the Law (Yale University Press 2008), The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom (New York University Press 2004), and Destructive Messages: How Hate Speech Paved the Way for Harmful Social Movements (New York University Press 2002). He also edited a collection of essays in Promises of Liberty (Columbia University Press 2010). The subjects of his articles range from cyber speech, constitutional interpretation, civil rights law, and human rights. They have appeared or will appear in a variety of law reviews across the country, including the Boston University Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Southern California Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and Vanderbilt Law Review.
CEO and Director, National Jewish Advocacy Center
Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. is the CEO and Director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, Inc. He has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and, by Presidential appointment, as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council.
Goldfeder has taught law across the country and around the world as Senior Lecturer at Emory University School of Law, Spruill Family Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Director of the Restoring Religious Freedom Project, and as a visiting professor at Georgia State University School of Law, Florida Southern College, University of Padua (Italy), Scuola Galileana (Italy), IDC’s Radzyner Law School (Israel) and Bar Ilan Law School (Israel).
Goldfeder holds two rabbinic ordinations (yoreh yoreh; Yeshiva University and Rivavot Ephraim) and two judicial ordinations (yadin yadin; Rav Gedaliah Dov Schwartz, Av Beth Din, Rabbinical Council of America and Chicago Rabbinical Council, and Rav Dovid Schochet, President, Toronto Rabbinical Council).
Goldfeder’s work focuses on law and religion, constitutional law, and international law. He publishes widely in those areas, including both academically and in popular publications like CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Forbes, and other major media outlets. He is also co-author of the five-volume treatise Religious Organizations and the Law (Westlaw). Goldfeder handles cases involving antisemitism issues around the country, and lectures and writes widely on those topics. He has worked with local, state, and federal legislators on measures to support the Jewish community, and has defended students, professors, businesses, and nonprofits targeted for their support of the Jewish State. He has worked on cases at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, and has successfully represented clients including American and Israeli nonprofits in federal litigation.
In 2017, he received the Opher Aviran Stand with Israel Award from Hillel, and in 2018, the Jon Barkan Israel Advocacy Award from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in recognition of his work. He received his Doctorate and LLM degrees from Emory University and his Juris Doctor degree from NYU School of Law. He received his Bachelor of Arts at Yeshiva University in Journalism.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
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.
Professor and D’Alemberte Chair in Constitutional Law, Florida State University College of Law
Alexander Tsesis is the D’Alemberte chair in constitutional law at the Florida State University College of Law. He is also the general editor of the Cambridge Studies on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Oxford Theoretical Foundations in Law. Tsesis’ scholarship and teaching focus on a breadth of subjects, including constitutional law, civil rights, constitutional reconstruction, interpretive methodology, free speech theory, and legal history.
Tsesis’ most recent book is Free Speech in the Balance (Cambridge University Press 2020). His previous books include Constitutional Ethos: Liberal Equality for the Common Good (Oxford University Press 2017) and For Liberty and Equality: The Life and Times of the Declaration of Independence (Oxford University Press 2012), We Shall Overcome: A History of Civil Rights and the Law (Yale University Press 2008), The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom (New York University Press 2004), and Destructive Messages: How Hate Speech Paved the Way for Harmful Social Movements (New York University Press 2002). He also edited a collection of essays in Promises of Liberty (Columbia University Press 2010). The subjects of his articles range from cyber speech, constitutional interpretation, civil rights law, and human rights. They have appeared or will appear in a variety of law reviews across the country, including the Boston University Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Southern California Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and Vanderbilt Law Review.
Law Clerk, United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas
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On December 11, 2024, in Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment v. SEC, the Fifth Circuit...
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Topics
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Federal civil rights enforcement in the employment area is handled by the Equal Employment Opportunity...
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Robert J. Gaglione, Jon Greenbaum, George R. La Noue, Craig E. Leen, Jenny R. Yang
Federal civil rights enforcement in the employment area is handled by the Equal Employment Opportunity...
Explainer Episode 82 - Is Gender Dysphoria a Protected Disability?
Gregory Baylor, Rachel N. Morrison
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In the wake of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack in Israel, there have been...
Addressing Antisemitism in Higher Education
Mark Goldfeder, Ilya Shapiro, Nadine Strossen, Alexander Tsesis
In the wake of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack in Israel, there have been...
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Topics
Power to Persuade: The FCC’s Authority to Interpret Section 230 Post-Loper Bright
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