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Senior Fellow, Claremont Institute and Adjunct Professor, John Hopkins University
Ken Masugi, non-resident Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute, has had diverse careers in academia, think-tanks, and government. He teaches graduate courses for Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Advanced Studies in American Government in Washington, DC. He has held positions at a variety of universities and college programs, including a federal prison and Princeton University. He taught for three years at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he was John M. Olin Distinguished Visiting Professor.
Masugi has also served in the federal government for ten years, as a special assistant and speechwriter to the heads of the Departments of Labor and Justice and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He is the co-author, co-editor, or editor of 10 books on American politics and author of over 100 articles and reviews on American politics, political philosophy, constitutional development, and films. He is a regular columnist for the web magazine American Greatness. He has recorded CDs of lectures on American presidential rhetoric and Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. He has helped develop the Claremont Institute as Director of the Bicentennial of the Constitution project, Editor of The Claremont Review of Books, and inaugural director of the Center for Local Government.
Masugi is currently preparing a monograph on Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and a series of studies on Aristotle’s political philosophy. He is working on a book on the Declaration of Independence and changing American diversity. He is the recipient of several academic honors, including a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Cologne, Germany (1975-76), and has lectured at a variety of American and international institutions. He holds his B.A., with honors, from Claremont McKenna College and his Ph.D. from The New School for Social Research.
Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Health Law, Policy, and Ethics; Co-Director, Georgetown-Johns Hopkins Joint Program in Law and Public Health, Georgetown University
M. Gregg Bloche, M.D., J.D., is Professor of Law at Georgetown University and author of The Hippocratic Myth: Why Doctors Are Under Pressure to Ration Care, Practice Politics, and Compromise Their Promise to Heal. He is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on health law and policy. Bloche’s writing has appeared in a wide range of venues, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs and the Journal of the American Medical Association; leading law reviews; and the New York Times, Washington Post, & other media outlets. He has also been a frequent commentator in national broadcast media. He was a health care advisor to President Obama’s 2008 campaign, as well as the presidential transition, and he spoke frequently for the campaign as a “surrogate.” Bloche has held teaching and research appointments at the University of Chicago, UCLA, and Columbia law schools, as well as the Brookings Institution, and the Harvard School of Public Health. He is a graduate of the law and medical schools at Yale, and he completed a residency in psychiatry at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. His awards and honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award in Health Policy Research. Bloche serves on several editorial boards and has advised governments and non-profits in the U.S. and abroad on a wide range of health policy issues. He lives in Washington, D.C.
University Professor, Founding Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law, Faculty Director of O’Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law, Georgetown University, Director, World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Public Health Law & Human Rights
Lawrence O. Gostin is University Professor, Georgetown University’s highest academic rank conferred by the University President. Prof. Gostin directs the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and is the Founding O’Neill Chair in Global Health Law. He served as Associate Dean for Research at Georgetown Law from 2004 to 2008. He is Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University and Professor of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University.
Prof. Gostin is the Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. The WHO Director-General has appointed Prof. Gostin to high-level positions, including the International Health Regulations (IHR) Roster of Experts and the Expert Advisory Panel on Mental Health. He served on the Director-General’s Advisory Committee on Reforming the World Health Organization, as well as numerous WHO expert advisory committees, including on the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework, smallpox, genomic sequencing data, migrant health, and NCD prevention. He served on the WHO/Global Fund Blue Ribbon Expert Panel: The Equitable Access Initiative to develop a global health equity framework. He co-chairs the Lancet Commission on Global Health Law.
Professor Gostin served on two global commissions to report on the lessons learned from the 2015 West Africa Ebola epidemic. He was also senior advisor to the United Nations Secretary General’s post-Ebola Commission. He also served on the drafting team for the G-7 Summit in Tokyo 2016, focusing on global health security and Universal Health Coverage.
Prof. Gostin holds multiple international academic professorial appointments, including at Oxford University, the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa), and Melbourne University. Prof. Gostin served on the Governing Board of Directors of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health.
Prof. Gostin holds editorial appointments in leading academic journals throughout the world. He is the Legal and Global Health Correspondent for the Journal of the American Medical Association. He is also Founding Editor-in-Chief of Laws (an international open access law journal). He was formally the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics.
Prof. Gostin holds four honorary degrees. In 1994, the Chancellor of the State University of New York conferred an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree. In 2006, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Vice Chancellor awarded Cardiff University’s (Wales) highest honor, an Honorary Fellow. In 2007, the Royal Institute of Public Health (United Kingdom) appointed Prof. Gostin as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health (FRSPH). In 2012, the Chancellor of the University of Sydney – on the nomination of the Deans of the Law and Medical Schools – conferred a Doctor of Laws (honoris causa), presided by two Justices of Australia’s highest court—Justices Kirby and Haydon.
Prof. Gostin is an elected lifetime Member of the National Academy of Medicine/ National Academy of Sciences. He has served on the National Academy’s Board on Health Sciences Policy, the Board on Population Health, the Human Subjects Review Board, and the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law. He currently serves on the National Academies of Sciences Engineering, and Medicine, Board on Global Health. Gostin chaired the National Academy’s Committee on Global Solutions to Falsified, Substandard, and Counterfeit Medicines. He has chaired National Academy Committees on national preparedness for mass disasters, health informational privacy, public health genomics, and human subject research on prisoners.
Prof. Gostin is also a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Fellow of the Hastings Center. In 2016, President Obama appointed Prof. Gostin to a six-year term on the President’s National Cancer Advisory Board to advise the nation on cancer prevention, research, and policy. He also serves on the National Institutes of Health Director’s Advisory Committee on the ethics of public/private partnerships to end the opioid crisis.
Prof. Gostin has led major law reform initiatives in the U.S., including drafting the Model Emergency Health Powers Act (MEHPA) to combat bioterrorism (following the post-9/11 anthrax attacks) and the “Turning Point” Model State Public Health Act. He also spearheaded the World Health Organization and International Development Law Organization’s major report, Advancing the Right to Health: The Vital Role of Law.
Prof. Gostin’s proposal for a Framework Convention on Global Health – an international treaty ensuring the right to health – is now part of a global campaign, endorsed by the UN Secretary-General and Director of UNAIDS.
In the United Kingdom, Lawrence Gostin was the Legal Director of the National Association for Mental Health, Director of the National Council of Civil Liberties (the UK equivalent of the ACLU), and a Fellow at Oxford University. He helped draft the Mental Health Act (England and Wales) and brought landmark cases before the European Court of Human Rights.
Prof. Gostin’s books include: Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint (University of California Press, 3rd ed., 2016); Public Health Law and Ethics: A Reader (University of California Press, 3rd ed., 2018); Human Rights in Global Health: Rights-Based Governance for a Globalizing World (Oxford University Press, 2018); Law and the Health System (Foundation Press, 2014); Principles of Mental Health Law & Practice (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Gostin’s classic text, Global Health Law (Harvard University Press, 2014) is read throughout the world—translated and published in both simplified and traditional Chinese, and in Spanish. Paul Farmer, Partners in Health, says of his book: Global Health Law is “more than the definitive book on a dynamic field. Gostin harnesses the power of international law and human rights as tools to close unconscionable health inequities — the injustices that burden marginalized populations throughout the world. Gostin presents a forceful vision, one that deserves a wide embrace.”
In a 2012 systematic empirical analysis of legal scholarship, independent researchers ranked Prof. Gostin 1st in the nation in productivity among all law professors, and 11th in in impact and influence. A 2017 and 2018 systematic empirical analysis ranked Prof. Gostin 1st in the nation for citations in health law.
Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Health Law & Policy, Georgetown University
David A. Hyman, M.D., J.D., is the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Health Law & Policy at Georgetown University. Professor Hyman focuses his research and writing on the regulation and financing of health care. He teaches or has taught health care regulation, civil procedure, insurance, medical malpractice, law & economics, professional responsibility, and tax policy.
While serving as Special Counsel to the Federal Trade Commission, Professor Hyman was principal author and project leader for the first joint report ever issued by the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, “Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition” (2004). He is also the author of Medicare Meets Mephistopheles, which was selected by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce/National Chamber Foundation as one of the top ten books of 2007, and the co-author (with Charles Silver) of Overcharged: Why Americans Pay Too Much for Health Care (2018). He has published widely in student-edited law reviews and peer-reviewed medical, health policy, law, and economics journals.
Professor from Practice, Georgetown University
Since 2001, Professor Westmoreland has taught at Georgetown about health law, about federal budgets, and about legislation. Prior to that, he was the senior policy fellow at the Federal Legislation Clinic.
He has worked extensively on public health and health finance policy. He has served as Counsel to the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment in the U.S. House of Representatives and later as the Director of the Medicaid program at HHS. Outside of government, he served as counsel to the Advisory Committee on Tobacco Policy and Public Health and as an advisor to both the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. He has been the recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator in Health Policy Award, working on budget process and health policy.
Director, ENRD, Pacific Legal Foundation
Mark Miller is the Director of the Environment and Natural Resources practice group at Pacific Legal Foundation, where he leads the firm’s efforts to protect individuals and small businesses from government overreach in matters involving land and water, and its efforts to encourage America to better harness its abundant natural resources, including energy resources, minerals, timber, and grazing lands. Mark first joined PLF in 2014.
A seasoned appellate specialist, Mark has litigated several high-profile cases for PLF, including Weyerhaeuser v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., and United States v. Robertson, all of them unanimous Supreme Court of the United States wins for property owners fighting federal overreach via the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act.
In 2020, Mark left PLF to serve as General Counsel and later Chief of Staff for then-South-Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. As Noem’s longest-serving chief of staff, he worked behind the scenes to advance limited government, cut red tape, defend individual rights, and promote free-market principles. In 2023, he returned home to PLF.
A frequent commentator and public speaker, Mark regularly appears in print, on radio and TV, and before legislative committees across the country. His commentary and work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CBS News, The View, CBN, and Fox News. He is a regular guest each Thursday morning on SiriusXM’s POTUS channel, offering insight on Supreme Court cases and trends.
Mark earned both his undergraduate and law degrees with honors from the University of Florida. He clerked for U.S. District Judge Henry Lee Adams, Jr., and Florida state appellate Judge Emerson R. Thompson, Jr.—two mentors who deepened his commitment to the Bill of Rights, especially the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
Mark serves on the Board of Trustees for the University of Florida College of Law, and he is a member of the boards of directors for both Americans United for Life, the nation’s oldest pro-life non-profit law firm, and Farm of the Child USA, a nonprofit that supports an orphanage and school for children in need in Honduras called La Finca del Niño.
Chief Judge, Florida Eleventh Judicial Circuit
Chief Judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan was appointed to the Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida in April 2012 and was sworn in as the Court's Chief Judge in July 2025. She has also served as a judge in the Criminal Division. Prior to her appointment, Judge Fajardo Orshan was a partner in her law firm where she specialized in the area of Family and Matrimonial Law. Judge Fajardo Orshan began her legal career as an Assistant State Attorney in Miami-Dade County and also worked in the area of civil litigation with the firm of Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP.
Throughout her legal and judicial career, Judge Fajardo Orshan has been involved with numerous civic and professional organizations, and in many, she assumed leadership positions. She continues to remain involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Cuban American Bar Association, the Dade County Bar Association, the Federalist Society and Kidside. As a member of the judiciary, Judge Fajardo Orshan is also involved with the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Professionalism Committee, the Florida Conference of Circuit Judges, the Florida Bar Family Law Rules Committee, and the Florida Supreme Court Steering Committee on Families and Children.
Judge Fajardo Orshan also enjoys grooming future lawyers as adjunct professor at Florida International University College of Law where she teaches Family Law.
Judge Fajardo Orshan has been a member of the Florida Bar since 1996 and is a member of the Federal Bar for the Southern District of Florida. Judge Fajardo Orshan graduated from Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center and received a Bachelor's in Science degree from Florida International University.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Judge Readler earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan. After graduating, he served as a law clerk to Judge Alan Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler then began practicing law in the Columbus office of the international law firm Jones Day, eventually spending ten years as a partner in the firm’s Issues and Appeals Practice Group. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler appeared in state and federal trial and appellate courts around the country, most frequently the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler also successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court in McQuiggin v. Perkins on behalf of an inmate claiming actual innocence. His other pro bono representations include representing capital defendants before the Tenth Circuit and the Supreme Court of Ohio, as well as representing defendants sentenced to life in prison before the Sixth Circuit. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler traveled to Nairobi with Lawyers Without Borders to train Kenyan lawyers in prosecuting domestic violence cases, and he was also a recipient of the American Marshall Memorial Fellowship awarded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Following his career in private practice, Judge Readler served as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice from 2017 to 2019. In that role, Judge Readler led and supervised over 1,000 lawyers in the Department’s largest litigating division, briefing and arguing several cases on behalf of the United States in federal courts across the country, including high-profile cases significant to the Administration and the Department. In March 2019, Judge Readler was confirmed to serve as a Circuit Judge on the Sixth Circuit. He resides in Columbus.
Of Counsel, BakerHostetler
Mark Braden concentrates his work principally on the law of the political process, including work with election and campaign agencies, voting issues, redistricting, and ethics and lobbying regulations – areas in which he has substantial knowledge and unusual experience.
He provides effective, and often highly innovative, legal guidance when representing individuals and organizations in the political arena and counseling some of the largest political action committees (PACs) and campaigns in the nation. Mark spent 10 years as chief counsel to the Republican National Committee prior to joining BakerHostetler. He is widely recognized for his knowledge of state election laws, having served as chief counsel to the Ohio Elections Commission and election counsel to the Ohio Secretary of State. Mark has played a significant role in the redistricting process nationwide. And in campaign finance, he was the father of “soft money” as originally used in national campaigns.
Mark is a former member of the adjunct faculty of George Washington University and Catholic University, and former special election law counsel to the United States House of Representatives’ Administration Committee. He has testified before congressional committees and the Federal Election Commission, and his experience in the legal and political arenas has resulted in invitations to lecture at universities and institutes nationwide. He has authored International Election Principles: Election, Chapter: “Early and Absentee Voting” (ABA Publishing, 2009) and Election Reform in the United States after Bush v. Gore, eds. Grofman & Alvarez, Chapter: “Entering the Political Thicket” (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
Partner, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC
Jason Torchinsky is a partner at Holtzman Vogel Josefiak PLLC, specializing in campaign finance, election law, lobbying disclosure and issue advocacy groups. Politico recently named him one of the “50 Politicos to Watch,” and in 2007, Campaigns and Elections Magazine named him a “Rising Star of Politics.”
In addition to his practice counseling clients on compliance with campaign finance, ethics laws, lobbying disclosure and election laws, Mr. Torchinsky has served as lead counsel in a number of litigation matters. Representative matters in the redistricting area include Louisiana House of Representatives v. Holder (D.D.C.) (Section 5 pre-clearance action), City of Sandy Springs v. Holder (D.D.C.) (Section 5 bailout action), and Fletcher v. Lamone (D. Md.) (challenging Maryland’s Congressional Districting map). In the campaign finance context, he is currently representing clients in Alliance for America’s Future v. State (Nevada Supreme Court) and Van Hollen v. Federal Election Commission (D.D.C.) (Representing intervenor defendants). He has also represented Virginia candidates in recounts and voter registration challenges before various Virginia Circuit Courts.
Mr. Torchinsky frequently lectures on campaign finance redistricting and ethics related subjects and provides commentary to the media on election related matters.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Torchinsky was Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice. During the 2004 election cycle, he served as Deputy General Counsel to Bush-Cheney ’04 and Deputy General Counsel to the 2005 Presidential Inaugural Committee.
He holds a B.A. in Government and Public Policy from the College of William and Mary and a J.D. from the College of William and Mary School of Law. He is a member of the Virginia Bar, the District of Columbia Bar, the Republican National Lawyers Association and the Federalist Society.
Harry Kalven, Jr. Professor of Law & Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Institute, University of Chicago Law School
William Baude is a Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of Chicago Law School, where he teaches federal courts, constitutional law, and conflict of laws. His current research interests include different aspects of the Fourteenth Amendment (particularly both Section One and Section Three) and the nature of judicial discretion.
Among his other activities Baude is: the co-editor of two textbooks, The Constitution of the United States and Hart & Wechsler's Federal Courts in the Federal System; an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism; a founding member of the Academic Freedom Alliance; a member of the American Law Institute; an occasional blogger at The Volokh Conspiracy; and a podcaster on Divided Argument. He also recently served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Professor Baude received his BS in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and his JD from Yale Law School. He then clerked for then-Judge Michael McConnell on the United States Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice John Roberts on the United States Supreme Court. Before joining the Chicago faculty, he was a fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and a lawyer in Washington, DC.
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.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large, Syndicated Columnist, Host of "The Josh Hammer Show," Article III Project Senior Counsel, Newsweek, Salem Media, Article III Project, David Horowitz Freedom Center
Josh Hammer is the senior editor-at-large of Newsweek and host of "The Josh Hammer Show," a podcast, a syndicated radio show, and TV program on Salem News Channel. A syndicated columnist through Creators Syndicate, Josh is a frequent pundit and essayist on political, legal, and cultural issues. He is also senior counsel for the Article III Project and Internet Accountability Project, as well as a Shillman Fellow with the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a fellow with the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.
An outspoken conservative, Josh opines on conservative intellectual trends, contemporary domestic and foreign policy debates, constitutional and legal issues, and the intersection of law, politics and culture. He has been published by many leading outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, Daily Mail, Newsweek, the Claremont Review of Books, National Affairs, American Affairs, The New Criterion, The National Interest, National Review, RealClearPolitics, First Things, City Journal, Public Discourse, Law & Liberty, Tablet Magazine, Deseret Magazine, Compact Magazine, Chronicles Magazine, The Spectator, The American Mind, The American Conservative, The European Conservative, American Greatness, American Compass, The Federalist, Blaze Media, TomKlingenstein.com, Townhall, The Daily Wire, The Daily Signal, The Daily Caller, The Epoch Times, Anchoring Truths, Fortune, Fox Business, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, The Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Jewish Journal. He has also had legal scholarship published by the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and the University of St. Thomas Law Journal.
Josh is a college campus speaker through Young America's Foundation and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and a law school campus speaker through the Federalist Society. Prior to Newsweek and The Daily Wire, where he was an editor, Josh worked at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and clerked for the Hon. James C. Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Josh has also served as a John Marshall Fellow with the Claremont Institute and as a Fellow with the James Wilson Institute. He is the former host of "America on Trial with Josh Hammer," a one-season daily podcast with The First that covered the unique legal issues surrounding the 2024 presidential election.
Josh graduated from Duke University, where he majored in economics, and from the University of Chicago Law School. He lives in Florida, but remains an active member of the State Bar of Texas.
Attorney, Institute for Justice
Anya Bidwell (née Cherkasova) leads IJ’s Project on Immunity and Accountability (“PIA”). Through this project, Anya works to promote judicial engagement and ensure that government officials are held to account when they violate individuals’ constitutional rights. Anya also serves as an adviser on the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law, Constitutional Torts project.
One of Anya’s PIA cases—Gonzalez v. Trevino—was heard by the United States Supreme Court on March 20, 2024. She argued the case for the petitioner, with the goal of convincing the Justices that retaliatory arrests not involving on-the-spot decisions by police officers should be actionable under the First Amendment regardless of probable cause. The decision is expected in June.
This was Anya’s third appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court. She second-chaired Brownback v. King (an excessive force case) and Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association v. Thomas (a commerce clause case) in November 2020 and January 2019 respectfully.
Before joining IJ, Anya worked for a top national law firm, handling cases in trial and appellate courts. She earned her J.D. with honors from the University of Texas. Two years prior to entering law school, Anya received a master’s degree in Global Policy Studies, also from the University of Texas, and wrote a thesis on asymmetric warfare.
Anya spent her childhood in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. At 16, she left her family behind and came to America on a university scholarship. Her upbringing motivated her to study law and become an advocate for a strong, independent judiciary.
Anya’s work has been featured in numerous publications, including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, and the Guardian. She is also the host of live recordings of our Short Circuit podcast and a co-producer of our documentary-style podcast Bound by Oath.
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence; Director, James Madison Program, Princeton University
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He has several times been a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. He has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the President’s Council on Bioethics. He has also served as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. He was a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore, he holds the degrees of J.D. and M.T.S. from Harvard University and the degrees of D.Phil., B.C.L., D.C.L., and D.Litt. from Oxford University, in addition to twenty-one honorary doctorates. He is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Bradley Prize, the Irving Kristol Award of the American Enterprise Institute, and Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. His books include Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality and In Defense of Natural Law (both published by Oxford University Press), as well as The Clash of Orthodoxies and Conscience and Its Enemies (both published by ISI Books).
