Executive Director, Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society, The Ohio State University
Biography
Professor Lee J. Strang serves as the inaugural executive director of the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society at The Ohio State University.
Initiated in 2023 by the state of Ohio, the Chase Center will be an academic home at Ohio State for teaching, research, and programing on the foundations of the American constitutional order and its impact on society. As executive director, Professor Strang is responsible for organizing the center, overseeing the hiring and appointment of the center’s faculty, developing curriculum, and delivering student and academic programming. He also holds a faculty appointment in the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State.
Professor Strang is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has published dozens of articles in leading journals in the fields of constitutional law and interpretation, property law, and religion and the First Amendment. He co-edits the textbook Federal Constitutional Law, and his most recent book, Originalism’s Promise: A Natural Law Account of the American Constitution is the first book-length, natural law justification for originalism. He currently is writing on civic thought and leadership, and he is finalizing a book on the history of American Catholic legal education (with John M. Breen).
Before joining Ohio State, Professor Strang served as the inaugural director of the University of Toledo’s Institute of American Constitutional Thought & Leadership. He joined the Toledo College of Law faculty in 2008, was granted tenure in 2010, and was named John W. Stoepler Professor of Law & Values in 2015. The University of Toledo awarded Professor Strang its Outstanding Faculty Research and Scholarship Award in 2017. Before that, he was a visiting professor at Michigan State University College of Law. A graduate of the University of Iowa, where he was articles editor of the Iowa Law Review and Order of the Coif, Professor Strang holds an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School.
Professor Strang has been a visiting scholar at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution and a visiting fellow at the James Madison Program at Princeton University. In 2016, he was appointed to the Ohio Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and reappointed as chair in 2023.
Prior to teaching, Professor Strang served as a judicial clerk for Judge Alice M. Batchelder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was also an associate for Jenner & Block LLP in Chicago, where he practiced in general and appellate litigation.
Professor Strang is a frequent presenter at scholarly conferences. He is the president of the Board of Trustees of Northwest Ohio Classical Academy, Ohio’s first classical charter school. He is also a regular participant in debates at law schools across the country, a contributor to the media, and a speaker to political, civic, and religious groups.
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.
Acting Assistant Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Office of Professional Responsibility, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Biography
Brian M. Fish is currently the Senior Advisor to the General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security where he works on immigration and law enforcement issues. Previously, he was a trial attorney with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where he represented the Department of Homeland Security in removal hearings before the U.S. Immigration Court. Additionally, he was a Special Assistant United States Attorney and a Baltimore City homicide prosecutor. He is a member of the Federalist Society's Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Executive Committee and the President of its Baltimore Lawyers Chapter. He earned his B.A. from LaSalle University in 1992 and his J.D. from Loyola University New Orleans School of Law in 1998.
John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets and Forbes Opinions, a senior economic adviser to H.C. Wainwright Economics, and a senior economic adviser to Toreador Research and Trading (www.trtadvisors.com).
Speaker Information
William J. Moccia
Of Counsel, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Speaker Information
Akiva Shapiro
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Speaker Information
Daniel Suhr
President, Center for American Rights
Biography
Daniel Suhr serves as president of the Center for American Rights, where he spends every day on the front lines of the fight to preserve our rights and liberties. The Center's mission is to advance free speech, free enterprise, and parental freedom in education through strategic, precedent-setting litigation.
Daniel formerly worked as policy director for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, as chief of staff for Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, and as a law clerk for Judge Diane Sykes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He holds a B.A. and J.D. from Marquette University, and master’s degrees from Georgetown and the University of Missouri.
David B. Kopel is Research Director at the Independence Institute; Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute; and Senior Fellow at the University of Wyoming College of Law, Firearms Research Center. He received his B.A. in history with Highest Honors from Brown University and his J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School.
He is the author of over 20 books, including the textbook Firearm Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy (Aspen Pubs. 4th ed. forthcoming 2026). His scholarship and briefs have been cited 7 Supreme Court cases--including Heller, McDonald, and Bruen--and in 140 lower courts opinions. He is the author of 120 scholarly articles. His shorter articles often appear on The Volokh Conspiracy blog, hosted by Reason magazine. His topics of interest include the right to arms throughout history, the Colorado Constitution, and law enforcement policy.
Darrell Miller writes and teaches in the areas of civil rights, constitutional law, civil procedure, state and local government law, and legal history. His scholarship on the Second and Thirteenth Amendments has been published in leading law reviews such as the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, and the Columbia Law Review, and has been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Courts of Appeals, the United States District Courts, and in congressional testimony and legal briefs.
Before coming to Duke, Miller taught at the University of Cincinnati College of Law where he twice received the Goldman Award for Excellence in Teaching. Prior to joining the academy, Miller practiced complex and appellate litigation in Columbus, Ohio. He is a former clerk to Chief Judge R. Guy Cole, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Miller graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. In addition to his law degree, Miller holds degrees from Oxford University, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar, and from Anderson University.
Federal Judicial Service: Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Nominated by Donald J. Trump on February 15, 2018, to a seat vacated by Richard Allen Posner. Confirmed by the Senate on May 14, 2018, and received commission on May 21, 2018.
Education: St. Joseph’s College, Rensselaer, Indiana, B.B.A., 1993 Northwestern University School of Law, J.D., 1998
Professional Career: Law clerk, Hon. Paul V. Niemeyer, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 1998-1999 Law clerk, Hon. Anthony M. Kennedy, Supreme Court of the United States, 1999-2000 Private practice, Cleveland, Ohio, 2000-2002 Assistant U.S. attorney, Southern District of New York, 2002-2006 Counselor to the deputy attorney general, U.S. Department of Justice, 2006 Associate counsel, President George W. Bush, 2007 General counsel, National Security Council, and senior associate counsel, President George W. Bush, 2007-2009 Private practice, Chicago, Illinois, 2009-2018