Distinguished Professor of Law, Jamie L. Whitten Chair of Law and Government, University of Mississippi School of Law
Biography
Professor Ronald J. Rychlak is the Jamie L. Whitten Chair of Law and Government and Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi. He is a legal advisor to the Holy See’s delegation to the United Nations and chair of the Mississippi Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. He serves as the university’s Faculty Athletic Representative and is on the executive committee of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). In 2019 he received the university’s highest research and publication recognition, the “Distinguished Research and Creative Achievement Award” based upon his reputation for scholarly activity and leadership roles in professional societies. In 2023, he received the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, the University’s highest award in honor of service, for “placing service to others and the community before oneself, while embodying the qualities of honesty, morality, ethics, integrity, responsibility, determination, courage, and compassion.” In 2024, he was voted “Outstanding Law Professor” by the law school student body.
Ron is the author, co-author, or editor of twelve books and over 100 articles. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints at the Vatican called his book, Hitler, the War, and the Pope “definitive” in its response to charges made against the leader of the Catholic Church during World War II. He has been published in Notre Dame Law Review, UCLA Law Review, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other periodicals and journals. Media appearances include CNN, ABC, Fox News, The National Geographic TV Network, The Military Channel, C-SPAN, and more.
Ron and his wife Claire are proud of their six children, two sons-in-law, one daughter-in-law, and three granddaughters. They live in Oxford, Mississippi.
Cory Liu is a state district judge in Austin, Texas. He previously served as assistant general counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Mr. Liu clerked for Judge Andrew Oldham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago.
Research Fellow, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute
Biography
Trevor Burrus is a research fellow in the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and Center for the Study of Science, as well as managing editor of the Cato Supreme Court Review. His research interests include constitutional law, civil and criminal law, legal and political philosophy, legal history, and the interface between science and public policy. His academic work has appeared in journals such as the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the New York University Journal of Law and Liberty, the New York University Annual Survey of American Law, the Syracuse Law Review, and many others. His popular writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, USA Today, Forbes, the Huffington Post, the New York Daily News, and others.
Burrus lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Foundation for Economics Education, and other organizations, and he frequently appears on major media outlets. He is also the co-host of Free Thoughts, a weekly podcast that covers topics in libertarian theory, history, and philosophy.
He is the editor of A Conspiracy against Obamacare (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and Deep Commitments: The Past, Present, and Future of Religious Liberty (Cato, 2017), and holds a BA in philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a JD from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Biography
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 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.
David J. Bier is an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. He is an expert on visa reform, border security, and interior enforcement, and his work has been cited in the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Politico, and many other print and online publications.
From 2013 to 2015, Mr. Bier drafted immigration legislation as senior policy advisor for Congressman Raúl Labrador, a member of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security. Previously, he worked as the immigration policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and most recently as the director of immigration policy at the Niskanen Center.
Mr. Bier has a B.A. in political science from Grove City College in Pennsylvania.
Senior Legal Fellow, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
Biography
Hans A. von Spakovsky is a leading national expert on a wide range of legal and constitutional issues, including civil rights, elections, the First Amendment, immigration, executive authority, the rule of law, and government reform.
He is the former Senior Legal Fellow and Manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal & Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
He is a former member of President Donald Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. From 2006 to 2007, von Spakovsky was a member of the Federal Election Commission. He served as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2002 to 2005. Prior to entering public service, Hans von Spakovsky worked for 17 years as a government affairs consultant, in a corporate legal department, and in private practice.
He is a 1984 graduate of the Vanderbilt University School of Law and received a B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981, which he attended on a National Merit Scholarship. He is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
He is the 2016 winner of the Drs. W. Glenn and Rita Ricardo Campbell Award from the Heritage Foundation and received Meritorious Service Awards from the U.S. Department of Justice in 2003, 2004, and 2005.
von Spakovsky is the coauthor of “Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk” (Encounter 2012) and “Obama’s Enforcer: Eric Holder’s Justice Department” (HarperCollins/Broadside 2014). His 2011 series “Every Single One” at PJ Media was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and his articles have appeared in Fox News, National Review Online, and the Wall Street Journal.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Biography
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 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.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Biography
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 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.