Vice President for Legal Affairs, Cato Institute
Roger Pilon is the Cato’s Institute’s vice president for legal affairs, the founding director of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, the inaugural holder of Cato’s B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies, and the founding publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review.
Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at State and Justice, and was a national fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. In 1989 the Bicentennial Commission presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in writing on the U.S. Constitution. In 2001 Columbia University’s School of General Studies awarded him its Alumni Medal of Distinction. Pilon lectures and debates at universities and law schools across the country and testifies often before Congress.
His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Legal Times, National Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Stanford Law and Policy Review, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC’s Nightline, CBS’s 60 Minutes II, Fox News Channel, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, C-SPAN, and other media.
Pilon holds a BA from Columbia University, an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago, and a JD from the George Washington University School of Law.
Professor of Law, Florida International University College of Law
Professor Román is a nationally acclaimed scholar and an award-winning educator with broad teaching interests and an extensive scholarship portfolio. From 1995 to 2002, he was an associate professor and then professor of law at St. Thomas University School of Law. In 2002, he joined the Florida International University College of Law as a founding faculty member, then serving as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2005 to 2007. Before entering academia, he specialized in securities and antitrust litigation at several Wall Street law firms. His teaching experience include constitutional law, administrative law, contracts, torts, criminal law, corporations, comparative corporate law, products liability, agency and partnerships, antitrust, immigration and citizenship studies, professional responsibility, law and accounting, race and the law, remedies, and street law. In addition to winning “professor of the year” twice, he was also the first law professor to receive an Excellence in Scholarship grant at Barry University-St. Thomas University and the first recipient of the FIU’s College of Law Hispanic Law Student Association’s Enma Tarafa Excellence Award. He has also received several FIU top university awards, including being a top scholar and the recipient of outstanding research grants. During this period, he also served as a visiting professor at American University College of Law, the University of Miami, and St. Thomas University.
A prolific scholar and regular contributor to national periodicals, he has published dozens of books, articles, essays, and book chapters on immigration policy, international law, administrative law, antitrust, evidence, and constitutional law. His law review articles have appeared in the leading law journals at Harvard, Yale, UC-Berkeley, Cornell, USC, Ohio State, Georgetown, Indiana, Houston, UC-Davis, Iowa, Miami, Notre Dame, University of Houston, Villanova, San Diego, Rutgers, Florida, and Florida State, among others. His works have been widely cited for their unique contributions to legal history and theory. He has also written several books, and his scholarly productivity and national reputation has led him to recently be named series editor for NYU Press’ series on Citizenship and Migration in the Americas. In just a few years since its creation, the series has published books from many of the academy’s leading scholars. A sought-after speaker and public intellectual, he is often asked by local, national, and international media to provide his views on corporate law, antitrust law, administrative law, civil rights, constitutional law and immigration policy. His op-eds have appeared in national periodicals such as the New York Times, Politico, the Hill, the Huffington Post (former columnist), Bloomberg News (frequent contributor), Al Jazeera, the Miami Herald, the Conversation, and Newsweek. His interviews and presentations have similarly appeared in leading sites such as C-SPAN, the Economic Times, Fortune, Politico, Univision, Telemundo, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and on YouTube. His home institution also recently acknowledged his impact with a featured podcast on his work: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=199122704684753
Partner, Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP
Peter focuses his legal practice on representing management in employment-related litigation and in contract negotiations, NLRB proceedings, EEO matters and arbitration.
Peter Kirsanow is a partner with Benesch’s Labor & Employment Practice Group. He returned to Benesch in January 2008 after serving as a presidential appointee to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington D.C. for two years. While serving on the NLRB, he was involved with significant decisions including Oakwood Healthcare, Inc., Dana/Metaldyne and Oil Capital Sheet Metal, Inc. In addition, Peter testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the nominations of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. He also continues to testify before and advise members of the U.S. Congress on employment law matters, most recently on November 18 before the House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight regarding disparate impact theory.
Peter was recently reappointed by the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives to his fourth consecutive six-year term on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. This is a part-time position which will expire in December 2025.
Recently, Peter and a team of Benesch attorneys served as lead counsel to the National Association of Manufacturers in litigation before the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia against the NLRB, challenging the Board’s Notice of Employer Rights Posting Rule. The court ruled in favor of Benesch’s client, striking down the NLRB’s Rule in its entirety. This ruling impacts over 6,000,000 employers nationwide which would have been subject to the posting requirement.
Additionally, Peter is past chair of the board of directors of the Center for New Black Leadership and is a member of Benesch’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee. This committee helps ensure that the firm promotes an environment in which differences are respected, employees are treated fairly, and individual skills and talents are valued.
Board Member, Center for Equal Opportunity
Roger Clegg is a Board Member at and former President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He focuses on legal issues arising from civil rights laws--including the regulatory impact on business and the problems in higher education created by affirmative action. A former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Clegg held the second highest positions in both the Civil Rights Division (1987-91) and in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1991-93). He has held several other positions at the U.S. Justice Department, including Assistant to the Solicitor General (1985-87), Associate Deputy Attorney General (1984-85), and Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy (1984). Clegg is a graduate of Yale University Law School (1981).
Board Member, Center for Equal Opportunity
Roger Clegg is a Board Member at and former President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He focuses on legal issues arising from civil rights laws--including the regulatory impact on business and the problems in higher education created by affirmative action. A former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Clegg held the second highest positions in both the Civil Rights Division (1987-91) and in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1991-93). He has held several other positions at the U.S. Justice Department, including Assistant to the Solicitor General (1985-87), Associate Deputy Attorney General (1984-85), and Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy (1984). Clegg is a graduate of Yale University Law School (1981).
Board Member, Center for Equal Opportunity
Roger Clegg is a Board Member at and former President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He focuses on legal issues arising from civil rights laws--including the regulatory impact on business and the problems in higher education created by affirmative action. A former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Clegg held the second highest positions in both the Civil Rights Division (1987-91) and in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1991-93). He has held several other positions at the U.S. Justice Department, including Assistant to the Solicitor General (1985-87), Associate Deputy Attorney General (1984-85), and Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy (1984). Clegg is a graduate of Yale University Law School (1981).
Former Solicitor General of Texas
Gregory Scott Coleman was an American lawyer and the first Solicitor General of Texas, serving in that capacity from 1999 to 2001.
Founder and President, American Civil Rights Institute
Ward Connerly is founder and President of the American Civil Rights Institute – a national, not-for-profit organization aimed at educating the public about the need to move beyond race and, specifically, racial and gender preferences. Mr. Connerly has gained national attention as an outspoken advocate of equal opportunity for all Americans, regardless of race, sex, or ethnic background.
Mr. Connerly is author of Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences and his new release Lessons from My Uncle James: Beyond Skin Color to the Content of Our Character. One part memoir, one part moral guide, Lessons from My Uncle James is a touching, funny and ultimately a philosophical book about living a principled and productive life regardless of skin color. Lessons illustrates how Mr. Connerly arrived at the ethics that have guided his life and is a new starting point for the discussion about character that America must have in order to move beyond race for good.
As a member of the University of California Board of Regents, Mr. Connerly focused the attention of the nation on the University's race-based system of preferences in its admissions policy. On July 20, 1995, following Mr. Connerly's lead, a majority of the Regents voted to end the University's use of race as a means for admissions. He was appointed to a 12-year term as UC Regent in March 1993.
In 1995, Mr. Connerly accepted chairmanship of the California Civil Rights Initiative (Proposition 209) campaign. Under his leadership, the campaign successfully obtained more than 1 million signatures and qualified for the November 1996 ballot. California voters passed Proposition 209 by a 55 percent to 45 percent margin.
Mr. Connerly also led the efforts to pass initiatives in the States of Washington, Michigan, Nebraska and Arizona that were patterned after California's Proposition 209, to require equal treatment under the law for all residents in public education, public employment and public contracting.
Mr. Connerly has been profiled on 60 Minutes, the cover of Parade magazine, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek magazine, and virtually every major news magazine in America. He has also appeared on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Crossfire, Hannity & Colmes, Meet the Press, Dateline, NBC Nightly News, CNN, and C-SPAN.
Mr. Connerly is President and Chief Executive Officer of Connerly & Associates, Inc., a Sacramento-based association management and land development consulting firm founded in 1973. He is regarded as one of the housing industry's top experts, possessing a comprehensive knowledge of housing and development issues. He has been inducted as a lifetime member into the California Building Industry Hall of Fame and has been a member of the Rotary Club of Sacramento for over 15 years.
Adjunct Professor of Law, California Western School of Law
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Cato Institute
Roger Pilon is the Cato’s Institute’s vice president for legal affairs, the founding director of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, the inaugural holder of Cato’s B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies, and the founding publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review.
Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at State and Justice, and was a national fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. In 1989 the Bicentennial Commission presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in writing on the U.S. Constitution. In 2001 Columbia University’s School of General Studies awarded him its Alumni Medal of Distinction. Pilon lectures and debates at universities and law schools across the country and testifies often before Congress.
His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Legal Times, National Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Stanford Law and Policy Review, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC’s Nightline, CBS’s 60 Minutes II, Fox News Channel, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, C-SPAN, and other media.
Pilon holds a BA from Columbia University, an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago, and a JD from the George Washington University School of Law.
Founder and President, American Civil Rights Institute
Ward Connerly is founder and President of the American Civil Rights Institute – a national, not-for-profit organization aimed at educating the public about the need to move beyond race and, specifically, racial and gender preferences. Mr. Connerly has gained national attention as an outspoken advocate of equal opportunity for all Americans, regardless of race, sex, or ethnic background.
Mr. Connerly is author of Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences and his new release Lessons from My Uncle James: Beyond Skin Color to the Content of Our Character. One part memoir, one part moral guide, Lessons from My Uncle James is a touching, funny and ultimately a philosophical book about living a principled and productive life regardless of skin color. Lessons illustrates how Mr. Connerly arrived at the ethics that have guided his life and is a new starting point for the discussion about character that America must have in order to move beyond race for good.
As a member of the University of California Board of Regents, Mr. Connerly focused the attention of the nation on the University's race-based system of preferences in its admissions policy. On July 20, 1995, following Mr. Connerly's lead, a majority of the Regents voted to end the University's use of race as a means for admissions. He was appointed to a 12-year term as UC Regent in March 1993.
In 1995, Mr. Connerly accepted chairmanship of the California Civil Rights Initiative (Proposition 209) campaign. Under his leadership, the campaign successfully obtained more than 1 million signatures and qualified for the November 1996 ballot. California voters passed Proposition 209 by a 55 percent to 45 percent margin.
Mr. Connerly also led the efforts to pass initiatives in the States of Washington, Michigan, Nebraska and Arizona that were patterned after California's Proposition 209, to require equal treatment under the law for all residents in public education, public employment and public contracting.
Mr. Connerly has been profiled on 60 Minutes, the cover of Parade magazine, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek magazine, and virtually every major news magazine in America. He has also appeared on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Crossfire, Hannity & Colmes, Meet the Press, Dateline, NBC Nightly News, CNN, and C-SPAN.
Mr. Connerly is President and Chief Executive Officer of Connerly & Associates, Inc., a Sacramento-based association management and land development consulting firm founded in 1973. He is regarded as one of the housing industry's top experts, possessing a comprehensive knowledge of housing and development issues. He has been inducted as a lifetime member into the California Building Industry Hall of Fame and has been a member of the Rotary Club of Sacramento for over 15 years.
Adjunct Professor of Law, California Western School of Law
Is Affirmative Action Compatible with Equal Protection?
Engage Volume 12, Issue 3, November 2011
*Online-Only Issue* ADMINISTRATIVE LAW & REGULATION Goodbye Tax Exceptionalism by Kristin E. Hickman Thinking About...
Affirmative Action
Affirmative Action at the University of Wisconsin and Elsewhere During the Obama Era
Affirmative Action and Higher Education
Madison, WisconsinAffirmative Action in the Obama Era
Affirmative Action
San Francisco Student Chapter
Affirmative Action
Ward Connerly, James Jeffries
On November 4, 2010, the California Western Student Chapter of the Federalist Society hosted this event featuring Mr....
Affirmative Action
California Western Student Chapter
San Diego, CAIs Affirmative Action Compatible with Equal Protection?