The Future of Free Speech in Public Schools
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Constitutional Scholarship Director and Senior Legal Analyst, Pacific Legal Foundation
Anastasia Boden is Director of Constitutional Scholarship at Pacific Legal Foundation, where she leads the organization’s Supreme Court commentary and directs scholarly analysis in support of the firm’s litigation. She has represented entrepreneurs and small businesses nationwide in challenges to onerous licensing regimes, anti-competitive titling restrictions, Certificate of Need (“competitor’s veto”) laws, and other forms of unnecessary red tape that block economic opportunity.
Prior to this role, Anastasia developed nearly a dozen constitutional challenges to Certificate of Need laws across the country, helping spur legislative reform in Montana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Her victories include a ruling invalidating Houston’s busking restrictions, multiple appellate decisions expanding access to the courts for civil rights plaintiffs, and the legislative repeal of Virginia’s happy-hour advertising ban.
Her writings on law and liberty have been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Forbes, and more, and she has appeared on Headline News, CBS News, Fox News, ReasonTV, Newsmax, and John Stossel. In 2020, she was featured on Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen’s Supreme Court shortlist.
Anastasia earned her BA with dean’s honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her JD from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was research assistant to Professor Randy E. Barnett—the “intellectual godfather” of the constitutional challenge to Obamacare. She is the co-creator of the podcast Dissed, about infamous Supreme Court dissents. She authors the biweekly newsletter SCOTUS Scoop and the column, “In Dissent” for SCOTUSblog.
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Goldwater Institute
U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Utah
Melissa Holyoak was nominated by President Trump to serve as U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah on January 29, 2026. Holyoak was appointed on November 17, 2025 by Attorney General Pam Bondi to serve as Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah.
Prior to that, Holyoak served as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission from March 25, 2024 until her appointment as U.S. Attorney. During her FTC tenure, Commissioner Holyoak strove to vigorously enforce the antitrust and consumer protection laws while acting within the agency’s constitutional and statutory remit. She spoke widely about a range of FTC priorities, including improving competition enforcement, effectively applying existing laws to emerging trends in technology, and protecting children and teens online. She also published numerous statements about FTC matters.
Holyoak brings extensive experience as a litigator and leader. She served as Solicitor General with the Utah Attorney General’s Office where she oversaw the civil appeals, criminal appeals, constitutional defense and special litigation, and antitrust and data privacy divisions. She also managed multistate matters including those involving consumer protection and antitrust claims.
Before taking on that role, she served as president and general counsel of Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest law firm and in other public interest attorney positions with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Center for Class Action Fairness. Holyoak represented class members challenging unfair class actions and consumers fighting regulatory abuse in federal district courts and appellate courts across the country.
Holyoak has argued in the Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth and D.C. Circuits. She is a former prosecutor and attorney with O’Melveny & Myers LLP. She graduated from the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law in 2003 as a member of the Order of the Coif and the Law Review. Holyoak is a member of the bars of Utah, D.C., and Missouri (inactive). Her husband Dr. Joshua Holyoak is a urologist and together they have four beautiful children.
U.S. Attorney, Middle District of Tennessee, U.S. Department of Justice
Braden Boucek was sworn in on December 24, 2025, as the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee. Prior to becoming United States Attorney, Mr. Boucek served as the senior vice president of litigation at the Southeastern Legal Foundation having previously served as the vice president of legal affairs at the Beacon Center. Mr. Boucek has extensive experience as a prosecutor, starting his career at the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office before serving for two years as an Assistant District Attorney General in Williamson County. He was a federal prosecutor for ten years, first serving as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Western District of Tennessee from 2005 to 2011. From 2011 to 2015, Mr. Boucek was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee, the district he now leads as the United States Attorney.
Anne Fleming Research Professor; Professor of Law, Georgetown Law
Laura K. Donohue is a Professor of Law at Georgetown Law, Director of Georgetown's Center on National Security and the Law, and Director of the Center on Privacy and Technology. She writes on constitutional law, legal history, emerging technologies, and national security law. Her most recent book, The Future of Foreign Intelligence: Privacy and Surveillance in a Digital Age (Oxford University Press, 2016), was awarded the 2016 IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize. She also has written The Cost of Counterterrorism: Power, Politics, and Liberty (Cambridge University Press, 2008); and Counterterrorist Law and Emergency Law in the United Kingdom 1922-2000 (Irish Academic Press, 2007).
Professor Donohue's articles have been published by California Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, Stanford Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and other scholarly journals.
In November 2015, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court appointed her as one of five amici curiae under the 2015 USA FREEDOM Act.
Professor Donohue is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations; an Advisory Board Member of the Electronic Privacy Information Center; and a Member of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security. She is a Senior Scholar at Georgetown Law's Center for the Constitution.
Donohue obtained her AB in Philosophy (with Honors) from Dartmouth College; her MA in Peace Studies (with Distinction) from the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland; her JD (with Distinction) from Stanford Law School; and her PhD in History from the University of Cambridge, England.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Robert Frommer serves as a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice. He joined the Institute in August 2008 and is currently litigating on behalf of SpeechNow.org, a group challenging the federal campaign finance laws regarding free speech.
Before joining IJ, Robert was an attorney with the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, where he litigated both complex litigation and public-interest matters. He is a former law clerk to Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Robert received his law degree magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 2004, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as both a book review editor for the Michigan Law Review and president of the Federalist Society student chapter. Before going to law school, Robert earned a master's degree in economics from George Mason University.
Trial Attorney, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice (incoming)
Adam Griffin is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Law. During law school, he served as a research assistant to Professor Stephen E. Sachs and UNC Law Dean Martin Brinkley. After law school, he spent two years litigating for liberty at the Institute for Justice as an inaugural Law and Liberty Fellow. He served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Richard E. Myers in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, and is now a separation-of-powers attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation.
Partner, King & Spalding LLP
Jim Vines specializes in environmental, health and safety, or EHS, matters and is head of our U.S. OSHA and international health & safety practice. A substantial portion of his practice is advising clients in response to industrial accidents resulting in serious injuries, fatalities and catastrophic damage to facilities. He has had leadership roles in such matters for over 25 years and has handled major industrial incident and crisis response in the U.S. and overseas with particular experience in the oil and gas, chemical, petro-chemical, automotive, and rubber/synthetic rubber industries. Jim also represents clients in other corporate crises situations involving high profile government investigation and enforcement actions addressing EHS and other regulatory compliance issues. A common characteristic of these matters is the need for privileged internal investigations to support response to numerous simultaneous government investigations involving civil and criminal scrutiny. Such matters also typically include challenges to the adequacy of corporate governance processes related to regulatory compliance.
Chief Deputy Attorney General
Ryan Newman is currently Chief Deputy Attorney General for Florida Office of the Attorney General.
During the first Trump Administration, he served as Counselor to the United States Attorney General for national security and international affairs, Deputy General Counsel (Legal Counsel) for the Department of Defense, and Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice. Prior to serving in the Executive Branch, Ryan was Chief Counsel to United States Senator Ted Cruz during the 114th Congress.
Ryan served as a law clerk to the Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the United States Supreme Court, the Honorable Richard J. Leon on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and the Honorable J.L. Edmondson on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Prior to law school, Ryan was an armor officer in the United States Army assigned to the 1st Squadron, 10th U.S. Cavalry Regiment (Buffalo Soldiers). He deployed to Iraq in 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Ryan graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1998. He earned his law degree with high honors from The University of Texas School of Law in 2007.
Partner, Williams & Connolly
Sarah Harris is a partner in Williams & Connolly’s Supreme Court and Appellate practice, where she represents clients in high-stakes appeals in the U.S. Supreme Court and federal and state appellate courts across the country. She has argued five cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and she has presented many arguments in federal courts of appeals and state appellate courts. Her cases have run the gamut of substantive areas, including constitutional law—especially First Amendment and separation-of-powers issues—as well as administrative law, arbitration, class actions, antitrust, False Claims Act litigation, commercial litigation, and federal civil procedure.
Sarah is widely recognized for her appellate advocacy. Chambers USA has recognized her as “Up and Coming” in Appellate Law. She has been named to Bloomberg Law’s 40 Under 40 list of top lawyers nationwide and to Benchmark Litigation’s “40 & Under Hot List,” as well as a an appellate “Rising Star” by The National Law Journal and Law360, a “Next Generation Lawyer” by The Legal 500, and as one of Bloomberg Law’s “Five Fresh Faces to Know in Appellate.”
Sarah clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Laurence Silberman on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Sandra Lynch on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Before joining Williams & Connolly, she served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel.
Sarah received her undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Princeton University, and her J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. She also holds a Ph.D. and M. Phil. from the University of Cambridge.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Herman O. Loewenstein Professor of Law Emerita, Vanderbilt Law School
Suzanna Sherry's work in the area of constitutional law has earned her national recognition as one of the most well-known scholars in the field. The author of more than 100 books and articles, she also writes extensively on federal courts and federal court procedures. After graduating from law school, Professor Sherry was a clerk for the Honorable John C. Godbold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Montgomery, Alabama, and then served as an associate with the law firm of Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin in Washington, D.C. She joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 2000 as the inaugural holder of the Cal Turner Chair, having previously served on the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School since 1982. She was named the Herman O. Loewenstein Professor of Law in 2006.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.
Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.
Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Stone Hilton, Founding Partner
A founding partner of Stone Hilton, Judd Stone is well respected both in Texas and across the nation as an insightful and tenacious appellate litigator. A lifelong Texan, Judd has argued dozens of appeals in both federal and state court, including arguing eight cases before the United States Supreme Court.
Judd began his legal career clerking for United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Fifth Circuit Chief Judge Edith H. Jones. With a J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law where he graduated first in his class, Judd's academic and professional credentials place him among the most distinguished lawyers in the profession. At the helm of countless major legal battles and emergency appeals for the State of Texas, Judd's deep understanding of the law and persuasive advocacy have been instrumental in shaping legal precedents. His tenure as the Solicitor General of Texas is a testament to his expertise and the trust placed in him by high-ranking state officials. Judd's strategic prowess extends beyond the courtroom; his advisory roles have made him a respected figure among policymakers.
His contributions to Stone Hilton and the legal community are characterized by his meticulous approach to cases, his acumen as a counselor, and his unwavering commitment to justice. As a partner at Stone Hilton, Judd continues to apply his formidable talents to advocate for his clients with the utmost dedication and to uphold the pillars of integrity and excellence that the firm stands for.
Special Counsel, Hunton Andrews Kurth
After serving on the United State Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit from 2005, Judge Griffith stepped down from the bench in 2020. Currently he is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, a Fellow at the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University, and Special Counsel in the Washington, DC office of the law firm of Hunton Andrews Kurth. Most recently, he was a member of President Biden's Commission on the Supreme Court. He is the author of Civic Charity and the Constitution , and the co-author, along with former judges Michael Luttig and Michael McConnell, of Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election. https://lostnotstolen.org/ . Before being appointed to the D. C. Circuit, Judge Griffith was the General Counsel at BYU; Senate Legal Counsel, the non-partisan chief legal officer of the U. S. Senate; and a partner at Wiley, Rein & Fielding. Long active in rule-of-law programs in former communist nations, Judge Griffith is a member of the international advisory board of the CEELI Institute in Prague. He is a graduate of BYU and the University of Virginia School of Law and is a member of the American Law Institute.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.