Deputy Counsel, Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty
Dan Lennington serves as Deputy Counsel at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), where he directs the Equality Under the Law Project. Started in early 2021, the EUL Project has represented dozens of individuals and businesses nationwide, successfully advocating for race neutrality in both public and private programs.
Before joining WILL, Dan served as Assistant Deputy Attorney General in Wisconsin and Assistant U.S. Attorney in Oklahoma. He is a graduate of Hillsdale College.
Dan can be reached at [email protected]. More information about the EUL Project can be found at www.defendequality.org.
Vice President for Legal Strategy, Stand Together
Casey Mattox is Vice President for Legal Strategy at Stand Together and Senior Advisor at
Americans for Prosperity. In these roles he advocates for and creates strategies and
partnerships to ensure a constitutionally limited government that protects the civil liberties of all
Americans. Prior to joining Stand Together and AFP Casey’s legal career focused on defending
the First Amendment rights of students, faculty, healthcare workers and religious organizations.
Casey has a J.D. from Boston College School of Law and an undergraduate degree from the
University of Virginia. You can find him on Twitter at @CaseyMattox_ and on LinkedIn at
@Casey-Mattox-ST.
Supervising Senior Attorney, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)
JT joined FIRE after six years of running his own law firm, where he focused on litigating First Amendment, anti-SLAPP, and digital media issues. During that time, JT testified before the Texas legislature on anti-SLAPP issues and advised organizations and officials on legislation and policy affecting freedom of speech and freedom of the press. He has also provided commentary on First Amendment and open government issues in several media outlets, including The Texas Tribune, Capital Tonight, and Vice.
Before opening his own firm, JT practiced at two nationally prominent firms in Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas.
JT graduated from Vanderbilt University with a double major in computer science and economics. He then earned his law degree from William and Mary Law School.
JT is a member of the Texas, Virginia, and District of Columbia bars. He is also admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States and several United States Courts of Appeals and United States District Courts.
In his free time, JT can usually be found fly fishing, growing hot peppers, and spending time with his family.
Vice President for Legal Strategy, Stand Together
Casey Mattox is Vice President for Legal Strategy at Stand Together and Senior Advisor at
Americans for Prosperity. In these roles he advocates for and creates strategies and
partnerships to ensure a constitutionally limited government that protects the civil liberties of all
Americans. Prior to joining Stand Together and AFP Casey’s legal career focused on defending
the First Amendment rights of students, faculty, healthcare workers and religious organizations.
Casey has a J.D. from Boston College School of Law and an undergraduate degree from the
University of Virginia. You can find him on Twitter at @CaseyMattox_ and on LinkedIn at
@Casey-Mattox-ST.
Supervising Senior Attorney, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)
JT joined FIRE after six years of running his own law firm, where he focused on litigating First Amendment, anti-SLAPP, and digital media issues. During that time, JT testified before the Texas legislature on anti-SLAPP issues and advised organizations and officials on legislation and policy affecting freedom of speech and freedom of the press. He has also provided commentary on First Amendment and open government issues in several media outlets, including The Texas Tribune, Capital Tonight, and Vice.
Before opening his own firm, JT practiced at two nationally prominent firms in Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas.
JT graduated from Vanderbilt University with a double major in computer science and economics. He then earned his law degree from William and Mary Law School.
JT is a member of the Texas, Virginia, and District of Columbia bars. He is also admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States and several United States Courts of Appeals and United States District Courts.
In his free time, JT can usually be found fly fishing, growing hot peppers, and spending time with his family.
Devon Westhill is the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Westhill on October 7, 2025.
Westhill returns to the USDA where he previously headed the civil rights office as Deputy Assistant Secretary in President Trump’s first term. His previous government appointments also include service at the U.S. Department of Labor, liaison to the Administrative Conference of the U.S., and liaison to the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Prior to returning to government service, Westhill was President and General Counsel of a nonprofit civil rights organization.
Westhill has testified on civil rights matters before Congress, federal agencies, and as an expert witness in federal court. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio and TV programs, and he is frequently quoted in print publications, and his writing has appeared in numerous national outlets. A U.S. Navy veteran, Westhill earned his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his JD from the University of Florida.
Deputy Counsel, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty
Luke joined WILL from the Wisconsin Department of Justice where he served for nearly four years as a Deputy Solicitor General and Assistant Attorney General.
Berg has argued nine cases before the Wisconsin Supreme Court and four before the Seventh Circuit, including one en banc argument. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Madison (B.S.) and New York University (J.D.) and served as a law clerk for Judge Diane Sykes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Prior to joining the Wisconsin DOJ in 2015, Berg worked as an attorney for the Office of the Comptroller of Currency in Washington D.C.
Berg resides in Madison with his wife and three boys.
President, General Counsel, and Founder, Child and Parental Rights Campaign, Inc
Vernadette Broyles is the President, General Counsel, and founder of Child and Parental Rights Campaign, Inc. She is an experienced family law litigator and Guardian Ad Litem representing the best interests of children in court, and has been an advocate for student privacy, parental rights, and Title IX protections in public schools. She brings to this role her knowledge and experience in the legislative process and background in science and research. Vernadette graduated with Honors from Yale University with a bachelor of science degree in Biology, and received her law degree from Harvard Law School.
Vernadette has practiced as a commercial litigator and served as a state Prosecutor with the Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney’s Office. Prior to law school, she worked in neuro-pharmaceutical research. Vernadette was appointed by Governor Sonny Perdue to the State Board of the Georgia Department of Human Services for five years, where she co-chaired the Department of Family and Children Services Committee and gained many insights into state child protective services. She has served on Advisory Boards to the U.S. Department of Justice Violence Against Women program and the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention program and as a Public Interest Director with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta. Vernadette has also been featured as a columnist with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She and her husband have two children.
Senior Counsel, Home School Legal Defense Association
William Estrada serves as Senior Counsel for Home School Legal Defense Association. Mr. Estrada served as a legal assistant with HSLDA starting in 2004 while attending Oak Brook School of Law. After he passed the California bar, Mr. Estrada rose to be HSLDA’s director of federal relations. He left in 2018 to work at the US Department of Health and Human Services, where he became a career employee in the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division within the Office for Civil Rights. He is a member of the California Bar, the District of Columbia Bar, and the US Supreme Court bar.
Mr. Estrada previously served the Parental Rights Foundation as their first full-time president from November 2021 to May 2023.
Mr. Estrada and his wife, Rachel, live in Northern Virginia with their two sons, Dominic and Merrick. Mr. Estrada is a man of faith and family. He is a self-proclaimed outdoorsman, foodie, gardener, and a beekeeper.
Partner, Shutts & Bowen LLP
Ben Gibson is an attorney in the Tallahassee office of Shutts & Bowen LLP, where he is Vice-Chair of the Appellate practice group. His statewide practice focuses on government, political, and corporate clients representing them in government affairs, appellate, litigation, and administrative matters.
Most recently, Ben was named general counsel to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ Transition Team, advising the new administration on legal issues and the appointment of three Florida Supreme Court justices. Before joining Shutts, Ben served as the Deputy General Counsel and an Assistant General Counsel to Florida Governor Rick Scott for nearly five years, where he helped advise the Governor on the appointment of more than 120 judges to Florida’s county, circuit, DCA, and Supreme Courts. His extensive responsibilities included providing legal counsel to the Executive Office of the Governor and overseeing high profile legal issues at executive branch agencies.
Gibson’s government law practice includes serving as counsel to state entities, advising on public records, the Sunshine Law, and ethics issues as well as representing clients before state and federal courts and administrative agencies.
His state and federal election law practice focuses on advising candidates, party organizations, and political committees and representing clients in compliance and enforcement matters. As general counsel to the Republican Party of Florida he led all of the party’s legal efforts during the 2018 election cycle including through three statewide recounts.
With a deep understanding of Florida government and politics, Ben has also worked as an attorney with the Florida House of Representatives helping to author the largest rewrite of Florida’s growth management laws in 25 years. Prior to joining Shutts, Ben founded his own law firm focusing on government and election law.
Associate, Consovoy McCarthy PLLC
Mr. Vaseliou assists clients with a variety of litigation and appellate matters that encompass constitutional law, administrative law, and election law.
Before joining the firm, Mr. Vaseliou was a law clerk to Judge Andrew S. Oldham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and to Judge Richard G. Taranto of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Mr. Vaseliou earned his J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was selected for the Order of the Coif. Mr. Vaseliou earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering summa cum laude from the University of Florida. Mr. Vaseliou is a member of the Texas bar.*
*Supervised by principals of the firm who are members of the Virginia bar.
President and General Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
NCLA’s President and General Counsel, Mark Chenoweth, has observed the administrative state up close and personal from perches in all four branches of the federal government. Mark served as the first chief of staff to Congressman Mike Pompeo, as legal counsel to Commissioner Anne Northup at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, as an attorney advisor in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as a law clerk to the Hon. Danny J. Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Mark has worked in several different roles in the private sector as well. He began his legal career in D.C. as a regulatory associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. He then returned to his home state of Kansas to serve as in-house counsel for Koch Industries. Most recently he spent over four years as general counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation.
Mark is a graduate of Yale College and the University of Chicago Law School, where he co-founded the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship and became a Tony Patiño Fellow. Mark has been widely quoted and/or published in newspapers and websites including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New Hampshire Union Leader, and Metropolitan Corporate Counsel. He has also had recurring op-eds in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, and at Forbes.com.
U.S. Representative, Wyoming
Congresswoman Harriet Hageman represents the state of Wyoming in the U.S. House of Representatives. She grew up on a ranch, attended Casper College on a livestock judging scholarship and earned both her bachelor's degree and law degree from the University of Wyoming. A litigator for 34 years, Harriet is nationally known for challenging federal overreach, for protecting water and property rights, for exposing federal land and wildlife mismanagement, and for fighting back against the unconstitutional and unlawful acts of unelected bureaucrats. Harriet has extensive experience engaging in complex trials against federal agencies and has been admitted to practice in several states as well as the United States Supreme Court.
In her freshman term in the 118th Congress, Harriet has been selected to serve on the House Natural Resources committee where she is Chair of the Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs, and also serves on the Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries. Representative Hageman also serves on the Judiciary Committee and Subcommittees on the Constitution and Limited Government; the Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust; and the Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. She has shown her support for American energy independence by serving as Co-Chair of the Congressional Coal Caucus.
Legislation sponsored by Representative Hageman has been focused on reining in the regulatory state, ending the weaponization of our federal government and its proxies against American citizens, and ending the de facto moratorium on American energy production.
Former Acting Assistant Secretary, US Department of Education; Partner, Jackson Bone LLP, U.S. Department of Education
Candice Jackson is an attorney who served as Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights and Deputy General Counsel in the US Department of Education from 2017 to 2021 where she was responsible for drafting the first-ever regulations under Title IX addressing campus sexual harassment and assault. Candice has returned to private law practice and currently represents incarcerated women in California prisons in WoLF’s lawsuit to overturn the 2021 law that allows male criminals to choose to be housed in women’s prisons based on “gender identity.” Candice lives with her wife Patricia and their 9-year-old twins Madelyn and Zachary.
Professor of History, Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center
KC Johnson is professor of history at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, where he has taught since 1999. He has written 13 books on topics in U.S. political history, U.S. foreign policy, and legal and policy debates surrounding campus due process and civil liberties. His Duke lacrosse case blog, Durham-in-Wonderland, was named ABA Journal’s Best Ethics Blog in 2007; and he continues to blog on higher-ed matters at the blog Minding the Campus.
Owner, Schneider Education & Employment Law PLLC
Scott Schneider is the owner and founder of Schneider Education & Employment Law and has advised companies and educational institutions nationwide on a variety of complex legal issues with a focus on particularly sensitive matters like institutional response to sexual misconduct.
Prior to founding Schneider Education & Employment Law, Scott was an equity partner in two major national law firms and served as in-house counsel for Tulane University.
He is a prominent litigator as well as a sought-after advisor on Title IX, labor and employment law issues, and various risk management concerns. He has led numerous investigations of serial sex abuse allegations, allegations of misconduct involving senior leadership and other acts of institutional misconduct. He has also handled various high-profile program reviews of institutional response to sexual misconduct, racial discrimination, athletics department ethics and compliance, and treatment of at-risk employees and students.
Scott has provided training nationally to thousands of personnel on a variety of issues, including Title IX; labor and employment law; faculty hiring, promotion and tenure processes; and Greek Life risk management. Scott also provides expert witness testimony on matters dealing with institutional response to allegations of sexual misconduct.
Scott regularly presents to national organizations, including the National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA), the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), the Association for Student Conduct Administration (ASCA) Gehring Academy, the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA), the Association of College and University Housing Officers-International (ACUHO-I), EDUCAUSE and various associations of independent schools.
Additionally, Scott previously served as an award-winning professor at Tulane University, where he taught courses on higher education and labor and employment law and created the Tulane University Law School’s Title IX certification program. Scott has been retained by the National Center for Campus Public Safety to serve as a faculty member for its Trauma-Informed Sexual Assault Investigation and Adjudication training program for campus officials. Scott also serves on the faculty for the State University of New York’s Student Conduct Institute where he provides training on informal resolution and restorative justice.
The Twin Commands: Streamlining Equality Litigation Based on Students for Fair Admissions
Daniel Lennington
Federalist Society Review, Volume 25
Each year, government contracting programs dole out tens of billions of dollars to businesses that...
Topics
Due Process on Campus: Part III in a Series on the Biden Administration’s Final Title IX Rule
On April 29, 2024, the Department of Education published a 423-page final rule amending its...
Topics
Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York v. Adams: Second Circuit Rules Case Challenging Admissions Policy Change for NYC’s Specialized High Schools Can Move Forward
On September 24, 2024, after nearly six years of litigation, the U.S. Court of Appeals...
Litigation Update: Villarreal v. City of Laredo
Casey Mattox, JT Morris
In Laredo, Texas, officials arrested local journalist and regular government critic Priscilla Villarreal for soliciting...
Litigation Update: Villarreal v. City of Laredo
Casey Mattox, JT Morris
In Laredo, Texas, officials arrested local journalist and regular government critic Priscilla Villarreal for soliciting...
Disparate Impact: Is Equal Outcome the Same as Equal Opportunity?
Devon Westhill
A Regulatory Transparency Project Fourth Branch Video
Everyone agrees that discriminating against people based on factors like race or sex is wrong....
Topics
Civil Rights Commission Publishes New Report on Disparities in Violent Crime Victimization
Recently, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published a report titled “Federal Efforts in Examining...
Topics
Legal Responses to Anti-Semitism on Campus
September is here. For college students, that means it’s the start of a new school...
Plenary Session 3: A Discussion on the Right: Parental Rights in Education
Luke Berg, Vernadette Ramírez Broyles, William Anthony Estrada, Ben J. Gibson, Thomas S. Vaseliou
Next year marks a century since the Supreme Court concluded in Pierce v. Society of...
Plenary Session 1: Title IX: Gender Identity and So Much More
Mark Chenoweth, Harriet Hageman, Candice Jackson, KC Johnson, Scott Schneider
The Biden administration contends that the U.S. Department of Education’s final Title IX regulations published...