President and CEO, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Rachel Laser is the President and CEO at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
As a religious minority – she was raised as a Reform Jew – Rachel personally understands how much it matters that our laws treat everyone fairly and equally. She is an advocate for racial justice and has led workshops, given speeches and worked with schools and universities to challenge racism and expose privilege.
Rachel has written op-eds for major publications, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, and appeared on high-profile media outlets, including MSNBC, Fox News, CNBC, and ABC.
Before joining AU, Rachel served as the deputy director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (the RAC), running interfaith campaigns on LGBTQ+ equality, immigration reform, gun-violence prevention, and paid sick, family and medical leave.
She directed the Culture Program at Third Way, a Washington, D.C., progressive think tank specializing in understanding and reaching moderates. There, she launched the “Come Let Us Reason Together” initiative, which mobilized evangelical Christians and liberals to find shared values and work together on abortion and LGBTQ+ equality.
As senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), Rachel founded and ran the Pharmacy Refusal Project, which put protections in place to ensure that birth control prescriptions are filled – without delay or judgment. She advocated for judicial appointments with a proven record on women’s equality, and lobbied in favor of reproductive health bills.
Rachel is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School. She is also a former national board member of Reproductive Freedom for All (previously NARAL Pro-Choice America).
Rachel lives in Washington, D.C. She and her husband have three children and a dog, Teddy.
Associate Clinical Professor and Director of the Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic, Notre Dame Law School
John Meiser is an associate clinical professor of law and the director of the Law School's Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic. He researches and teaches courses focused on religious liberty, litigation practice, and federal courts.
University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Michael P. Moreland was appointed University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University in 2017. Professor Moreland joined the Villanova faculty in 2006 and served as Vice Dean from 2012 to 2015. His research is primarily in the areas of torts, law and religion, constitutional law, and Catholic social thought, and he regularly teaches Torts, First Amendment, seminars in law and religion, and undergraduate courses in ethics.
Professor Moreland is the co-editor of Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021), and his most recent publications include: “The Authority of Tradition: John Henry Newman and Legal Theory” in Christianity and the Making of Irish Law (Routledge, 2025); “Christianity and Torts” in The Oxford Handbook on Christianity and Law, (Oxford University Press, 2023); “Germaneness and Religious Liberty” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Contingency and Contestation in Christianity and Liberalism” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Friendship as the Primary Purpose of Law” in The American Journal of Jurisprudence 279 (2022); and “The Moral of Torts” (with Jeffrey Pojanowski) in Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021).
Professor Moreland was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture from 2015 to 2017. He was the Forbes Visiting Fellow at Princeton University in the James Madison Program during academic year 2010-11. He has served as the project leader for grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation. He serves as the Chair of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Practice Group Executive Committee and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California.
Professor Moreland received his BA in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, his MA and PhD in theological ethics from Boston College, and his JD from the University of Michigan Law School. Following law school, Professor Moreland clerked for the Honorable Paul J. Kelly Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and was an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where he represented clients in First Amendment, professional liability, and products liability matters. Before coming to Villanova, he served as Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush, where he worked on a range of legal policy issues, including criminal justice, immigration, civil rights, and liability reform.
President and CEO, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Rachel Laser is the President and CEO at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
As a religious minority – she was raised as a Reform Jew – Rachel personally understands how much it matters that our laws treat everyone fairly and equally. She is an advocate for racial justice and has led workshops, given speeches and worked with schools and universities to challenge racism and expose privilege.
Rachel has written op-eds for major publications, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, and appeared on high-profile media outlets, including MSNBC, Fox News, CNBC, and ABC.
Before joining AU, Rachel served as the deputy director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (the RAC), running interfaith campaigns on LGBTQ+ equality, immigration reform, gun-violence prevention, and paid sick, family and medical leave.
She directed the Culture Program at Third Way, a Washington, D.C., progressive think tank specializing in understanding and reaching moderates. There, she launched the “Come Let Us Reason Together” initiative, which mobilized evangelical Christians and liberals to find shared values and work together on abortion and LGBTQ+ equality.
As senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), Rachel founded and ran the Pharmacy Refusal Project, which put protections in place to ensure that birth control prescriptions are filled – without delay or judgment. She advocated for judicial appointments with a proven record on women’s equality, and lobbied in favor of reproductive health bills.
Rachel is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School. She is also a former national board member of Reproductive Freedom for All (previously NARAL Pro-Choice America).
Rachel lives in Washington, D.C. She and her husband have three children and a dog, Teddy.
Associate Clinical Professor and Director of the Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic, Notre Dame Law School
John Meiser is an associate clinical professor of law and the director of the Law School's Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic. He researches and teaches courses focused on religious liberty, litigation practice, and federal courts.
University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Michael P. Moreland was appointed University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University in 2017. Professor Moreland joined the Villanova faculty in 2006 and served as Vice Dean from 2012 to 2015. His research is primarily in the areas of torts, law and religion, constitutional law, and Catholic social thought, and he regularly teaches Torts, First Amendment, seminars in law and religion, and undergraduate courses in ethics.
Professor Moreland is the co-editor of Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021), and his most recent publications include: “The Authority of Tradition: John Henry Newman and Legal Theory” in Christianity and the Making of Irish Law (Routledge, 2025); “Christianity and Torts” in The Oxford Handbook on Christianity and Law, (Oxford University Press, 2023); “Germaneness and Religious Liberty” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Contingency and Contestation in Christianity and Liberalism” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Friendship as the Primary Purpose of Law” in The American Journal of Jurisprudence 279 (2022); and “The Moral of Torts” (with Jeffrey Pojanowski) in Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021).
Professor Moreland was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture from 2015 to 2017. He was the Forbes Visiting Fellow at Princeton University in the James Madison Program during academic year 2010-11. He has served as the project leader for grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation. He serves as the Chair of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Practice Group Executive Committee and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California.
Professor Moreland received his BA in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, his MA and PhD in theological ethics from Boston College, and his JD from the University of Michigan Law School. Following law school, Professor Moreland clerked for the Honorable Paul J. Kelly Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and was an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where he represented clients in First Amendment, professional liability, and products liability matters. Before coming to Villanova, he served as Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush, where he worked on a range of legal policy issues, including criminal justice, immigration, civil rights, and liability reform.
James L. Oberstar Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of St. Thomas School of Law
William S. Boyd Professor of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law
Dr. Leslie C. Griffin is the William S. Boyd Professor of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law. Professor Griffin, who teaches constitutional law, is known for her interdisciplinary work in law and religion. She holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. She is author of the Foundation Press casebook Law and Religion: Cases and Materials (5th edition, 2022) with Andrew L. Seidel. Practicing Bioethics Law (2d ed. 2021) is co-authored with Joan H. Krause, Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. She and University of Pennsylvania Professor Marci Hamilton published Learning Constitutional Law (Cognella Press, 2023).
She wrote the recent book chapter, Bambi Trauma—Surviving TBI Twice, in Traumatic Brain Injury—Challenges (Dr. Ioannis Mavroudis & Alin Ciobica, eds., IntechOpen, 2024), https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/1179800#. And Catholic Sexual Abuse in Louisiana is in the University of Detroit Mercy Law Review, volume 101, p. 375 (2024).
Another article is What Did Those Sixteen Justices Say?, 58 Willamette L. Rev. 163 (2022). A book chapter entitled Rewritten Opinion, Means v. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is in the book Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Health Law Opinions (S. Mohapatra & L. Wiley, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2022). Other recent articles include What is Ethical Discharge?, 10:3 Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics 193 (2020); What Can We Expect of Law and Religion in 2020?, 79 SMU L. Rev. F. 73 (2020); Traumatic Brain Injury: Compassionate Care, Not Clinical Nihilism, 6:2 Journal of Hospital Ethics 87 (Fall 2019) (with Carole S. Anhalt); Conquering Brain Injury, 34:5 Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation 366 (2019), Religious Freedom, Human Rights, and Peaceful Coexistence, 50 Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 77 (2018), Pre-or Post Mortem?, 18 Nevada Law Journal 221 (2017). Her rewritten opinion about the abortion funding case, Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980), is in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (L. Berger, B. Crawford & K. Stanchi, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2016).
Griffin has written numerous amicus briefs defending children's and employees' religious freedom. She blogs for Justia's Verdict column, and posts occasionally on Petrie-Flom’s health law blog.
Other writings include Marriage Rights and Religious Exemptions in the United States, Oxford Handbooks Online (2017), Beyond the Basketball Court: How Brittney Griner’s In My Skin Illustrates Title IX’s Failure to Protect LGBT Athletes at Religious Institutions, 34 Law and Inequality 489 (2016), A Word of Warning from A Woman: Arbitrary, Categorical, and Hidden Religious Exemptions Threaten LGBT Rights, 7 Ala. C.R. & C.L.L. Rev. 97 (2015), and The Catholic Bishops vs. the Contraceptive Mandate, Religions 2015, 6, 1411–1432.
Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Alex Luchenitser is the Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Alex has litigated church-state cases throughout the country for Americans United since January 2001. He has led lawsuits challenging religious proselytization of students in public schools, public funding of religious institutions, discriminatory governmental prayer practices, and government-sponsored religious displays. His successful cases include:
Alex has also authored and edited numerous friend-of-the-court briefs filed on behalf of Americans United. After the Covid-19 pandemic began, Alex led Americans United’s efforts to fight lawsuits that sought religious exemptions from public-health orders, filing fifty friend-of-the-court briefs in such cases around the country, including six in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Alex was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1969 and immigrated to the United States in 1977. He received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in government and economics from Harvard University in 1991, and he received his Juris Doctor with distinction from Stanford Law School in 1994. After finishing law school, Alex served two one-year judicial clerkships, with Justice Warren W. Matthews Jr. of the Alaska Supreme Court and U.S. Magistrate Judge Wayne D. Brazil of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Alex then spent four years in private practice in Northern California, participating in the prosecution of class actions on behalf of investors, consumers, and trust beneficiaries.
Alex has spoken about church-state issues in many television and radio appearances and public presentations and has been quoted in numerous major newspapers. His published articles include:
Alex is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar, is an inactive member of the State Bar of California, and has been admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Federal, and District of Columbia Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia, the Northern District of California, the District of Colorado, the Eastern District of Michigan, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
Associate Attorney, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Branton Nestor is an associate in the Orange County office of Gibson Dunn. He practices in the firm’s Litigation Department and is a member of the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group.
Branton has represented clients in appellate, regulatory, and complex litigation matters across various industries. His experience spans a wide range of subject matters, including constitutional law and administrative law.
He clerked for Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Judge Julius N. Richardson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2019, and Westmont College in 2016. His scholarship has been cited at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Branton is a member of the California bar.
Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Amanda Salz is counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where her practice focuses on First Amendment litigation at both the trial and appellate levels. She is also a member of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Executive Committee.
Before joining Becket, Amanda worked as an associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. As a member of the firm’s appellate group, Amanda litigated many cases involving constitutional and administrative issues. In addition to her experience in private practice, Amanda clerked for the Honorable Andrew S. Oldham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Honorable Reed C. O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
James L. Oberstar Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of St. Thomas School of Law
William S. Boyd Professor of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law
Dr. Leslie C. Griffin is the William S. Boyd Professor of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law. Professor Griffin, who teaches constitutional law, is known for her interdisciplinary work in law and religion. She holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. She is author of the Foundation Press casebook Law and Religion: Cases and Materials (5th edition, 2022) with Andrew L. Seidel. Practicing Bioethics Law (2d ed. 2021) is co-authored with Joan H. Krause, Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. She and University of Pennsylvania Professor Marci Hamilton published Learning Constitutional Law (Cognella Press, 2023).
She wrote the recent book chapter, Bambi Trauma—Surviving TBI Twice, in Traumatic Brain Injury—Challenges (Dr. Ioannis Mavroudis & Alin Ciobica, eds., IntechOpen, 2024), https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/1179800#. And Catholic Sexual Abuse in Louisiana is in the University of Detroit Mercy Law Review, volume 101, p. 375 (2024).
Another article is What Did Those Sixteen Justices Say?, 58 Willamette L. Rev. 163 (2022). A book chapter entitled Rewritten Opinion, Means v. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is in the book Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Health Law Opinions (S. Mohapatra & L. Wiley, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2022). Other recent articles include What is Ethical Discharge?, 10:3 Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics 193 (2020); What Can We Expect of Law and Religion in 2020?, 79 SMU L. Rev. F. 73 (2020); Traumatic Brain Injury: Compassionate Care, Not Clinical Nihilism, 6:2 Journal of Hospital Ethics 87 (Fall 2019) (with Carole S. Anhalt); Conquering Brain Injury, 34:5 Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation 366 (2019), Religious Freedom, Human Rights, and Peaceful Coexistence, 50 Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 77 (2018), Pre-or Post Mortem?, 18 Nevada Law Journal 221 (2017). Her rewritten opinion about the abortion funding case, Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980), is in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (L. Berger, B. Crawford & K. Stanchi, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2016).
Griffin has written numerous amicus briefs defending children's and employees' religious freedom. She blogs for Justia's Verdict column, and posts occasionally on Petrie-Flom’s health law blog.
Other writings include Marriage Rights and Religious Exemptions in the United States, Oxford Handbooks Online (2017), Beyond the Basketball Court: How Brittney Griner’s In My Skin Illustrates Title IX’s Failure to Protect LGBT Athletes at Religious Institutions, 34 Law and Inequality 489 (2016), A Word of Warning from A Woman: Arbitrary, Categorical, and Hidden Religious Exemptions Threaten LGBT Rights, 7 Ala. C.R. & C.L.L. Rev. 97 (2015), and The Catholic Bishops vs. the Contraceptive Mandate, Religions 2015, 6, 1411–1432.
Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Alex Luchenitser is the Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Alex has litigated church-state cases throughout the country for Americans United since January 2001. He has led lawsuits challenging religious proselytization of students in public schools, public funding of religious institutions, discriminatory governmental prayer practices, and government-sponsored religious displays. His successful cases include:
Alex has also authored and edited numerous friend-of-the-court briefs filed on behalf of Americans United. After the Covid-19 pandemic began, Alex led Americans United’s efforts to fight lawsuits that sought religious exemptions from public-health orders, filing fifty friend-of-the-court briefs in such cases around the country, including six in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Alex was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1969 and immigrated to the United States in 1977. He received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in government and economics from Harvard University in 1991, and he received his Juris Doctor with distinction from Stanford Law School in 1994. After finishing law school, Alex served two one-year judicial clerkships, with Justice Warren W. Matthews Jr. of the Alaska Supreme Court and U.S. Magistrate Judge Wayne D. Brazil of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Alex then spent four years in private practice in Northern California, participating in the prosecution of class actions on behalf of investors, consumers, and trust beneficiaries.
Alex has spoken about church-state issues in many television and radio appearances and public presentations and has been quoted in numerous major newspapers. His published articles include:
Alex is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar, is an inactive member of the State Bar of California, and has been admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Federal, and District of Columbia Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia, the Northern District of California, the District of Colorado, the Eastern District of Michigan, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
Associate Attorney, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Branton Nestor is an associate in the Orange County office of Gibson Dunn. He practices in the firm’s Litigation Department and is a member of the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group.
Branton has represented clients in appellate, regulatory, and complex litigation matters across various industries. His experience spans a wide range of subject matters, including constitutional law and administrative law.
He clerked for Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Judge Julius N. Richardson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2019, and Westmont College in 2016. His scholarship has been cited at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Branton is a member of the California bar.
Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Amanda Salz is counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where her practice focuses on First Amendment litigation at both the trial and appellate levels. She is also a member of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Executive Committee.
Before joining Becket, Amanda worked as an associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. As a member of the firm’s appellate group, Amanda litigated many cases involving constitutional and administrative issues. In addition to her experience in private practice, Amanda clerked for the Honorable Andrew S. Oldham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Honorable Reed C. O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Alex Luchenitser is the Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Alex has litigated church-state cases throughout the country for Americans United since January 2001. He has led lawsuits challenging religious proselytization of students in public schools, public funding of religious institutions, discriminatory governmental prayer practices, and government-sponsored religious displays. His successful cases include:
Alex has also authored and edited numerous friend-of-the-court briefs filed on behalf of Americans United. After the Covid-19 pandemic began, Alex led Americans United’s efforts to fight lawsuits that sought religious exemptions from public-health orders, filing fifty friend-of-the-court briefs in such cases around the country, including six in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Alex was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1969 and immigrated to the United States in 1977. He received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in government and economics from Harvard University in 1991, and he received his Juris Doctor with distinction from Stanford Law School in 1994. After finishing law school, Alex served two one-year judicial clerkships, with Justice Warren W. Matthews Jr. of the Alaska Supreme Court and U.S. Magistrate Judge Wayne D. Brazil of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Alex then spent four years in private practice in Northern California, participating in the prosecution of class actions on behalf of investors, consumers, and trust beneficiaries.
Alex has spoken about church-state issues in many television and radio appearances and public presentations and has been quoted in numerous major newspapers. His published articles include:
Alex is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar, is an inactive member of the State Bar of California, and has been admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Federal, and District of Columbia Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia, the Northern District of California, the District of Colorado, the Eastern District of Michigan, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Michael P. Moreland was appointed University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University in 2017. Professor Moreland joined the Villanova faculty in 2006 and served as Vice Dean from 2012 to 2015. His research is primarily in the areas of torts, law and religion, constitutional law, and Catholic social thought, and he regularly teaches Torts, First Amendment, seminars in law and religion, and undergraduate courses in ethics.
Professor Moreland is the co-editor of Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021), and his most recent publications include: “The Authority of Tradition: John Henry Newman and Legal Theory” in Christianity and the Making of Irish Law (Routledge, 2025); “Christianity and Torts” in The Oxford Handbook on Christianity and Law, (Oxford University Press, 2023); “Germaneness and Religious Liberty” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Contingency and Contestation in Christianity and Liberalism” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Friendship as the Primary Purpose of Law” in The American Journal of Jurisprudence 279 (2022); and “The Moral of Torts” (with Jeffrey Pojanowski) in Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021).
Professor Moreland was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture from 2015 to 2017. He was the Forbes Visiting Fellow at Princeton University in the James Madison Program during academic year 2010-11. He has served as the project leader for grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation. He serves as the Chair of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Practice Group Executive Committee and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California.
Professor Moreland received his BA in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, his MA and PhD in theological ethics from Boston College, and his JD from the University of Michigan Law School. Following law school, Professor Moreland clerked for the Honorable Paul J. Kelly Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and was an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where he represented clients in First Amendment, professional liability, and products liability matters. Before coming to Villanova, he served as Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush, where he worked on a range of legal policy issues, including criminal justice, immigration, civil rights, and liability reform.
Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Phil Sechler serves as senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, where he focuses on academic and religious freedom.
Before joining ADF, Sechler had a long career in private practice, with substantial first-chair trial experience in courts around the country on a variety of complex litigation matters. Sechler spent most of his career as a partner in the powerhouse law firm of Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C. He also was a partner in the litigation boutique of Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck & Untereiner LLP.
In August 2013, Sechler took a break from law practice to become a Distinguished Visitor from Practice at Penn State Law School, where he spent four years teaching courses in Evidence, Professional Responsibility, and Advocacy. He also taught at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University and at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he continues to teach a course on Professional Responsibility.
Sechler received his bachelor’s degree with high distinction from Pennsylvania State University, and he earned his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center, where he graduated summa cum laude and was Editor-in-Chief of The Georgetown Law Journal. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Francis D. Murnaghan, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
Sechler is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous federal appellate and trial courts.
Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Alex Luchenitser is the Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Alex has litigated church-state cases throughout the country for Americans United since January 2001. He has led lawsuits challenging religious proselytization of students in public schools, public funding of religious institutions, discriminatory governmental prayer practices, and government-sponsored religious displays. His successful cases include:
Alex has also authored and edited numerous friend-of-the-court briefs filed on behalf of Americans United. After the Covid-19 pandemic began, Alex led Americans United’s efforts to fight lawsuits that sought religious exemptions from public-health orders, filing fifty friend-of-the-court briefs in such cases around the country, including six in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Alex was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1969 and immigrated to the United States in 1977. He received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in government and economics from Harvard University in 1991, and he received his Juris Doctor with distinction from Stanford Law School in 1994. After finishing law school, Alex served two one-year judicial clerkships, with Justice Warren W. Matthews Jr. of the Alaska Supreme Court and U.S. Magistrate Judge Wayne D. Brazil of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Alex then spent four years in private practice in Northern California, participating in the prosecution of class actions on behalf of investors, consumers, and trust beneficiaries.
Alex has spoken about church-state issues in many television and radio appearances and public presentations and has been quoted in numerous major newspapers. His published articles include:
Alex is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar, is an inactive member of the State Bar of California, and has been admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Federal, and District of Columbia Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia, the Northern District of California, the District of Colorado, the Eastern District of Michigan, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Michael P. Moreland was appointed University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University in 2017. Professor Moreland joined the Villanova faculty in 2006 and served as Vice Dean from 2012 to 2015. His research is primarily in the areas of torts, law and religion, constitutional law, and Catholic social thought, and he regularly teaches Torts, First Amendment, seminars in law and religion, and undergraduate courses in ethics.
Professor Moreland is the co-editor of Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021), and his most recent publications include: “The Authority of Tradition: John Henry Newman and Legal Theory” in Christianity and the Making of Irish Law (Routledge, 2025); “Christianity and Torts” in The Oxford Handbook on Christianity and Law, (Oxford University Press, 2023); “Germaneness and Religious Liberty” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Contingency and Contestation in Christianity and Liberalism” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Friendship as the Primary Purpose of Law” in The American Journal of Jurisprudence 279 (2022); and “The Moral of Torts” (with Jeffrey Pojanowski) in Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021).
Professor Moreland was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture from 2015 to 2017. He was the Forbes Visiting Fellow at Princeton University in the James Madison Program during academic year 2010-11. He has served as the project leader for grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation. He serves as the Chair of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Practice Group Executive Committee and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California.
Professor Moreland received his BA in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, his MA and PhD in theological ethics from Boston College, and his JD from the University of Michigan Law School. Following law school, Professor Moreland clerked for the Honorable Paul J. Kelly Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and was an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where he represented clients in First Amendment, professional liability, and products liability matters. Before coming to Villanova, he served as Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush, where he worked on a range of legal policy issues, including criminal justice, immigration, civil rights, and liability reform.
Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Phil Sechler serves as senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, where he focuses on academic and religious freedom.
Before joining ADF, Sechler had a long career in private practice, with substantial first-chair trial experience in courts around the country on a variety of complex litigation matters. Sechler spent most of his career as a partner in the powerhouse law firm of Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C. He also was a partner in the litigation boutique of Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck & Untereiner LLP.
In August 2013, Sechler took a break from law practice to become a Distinguished Visitor from Practice at Penn State Law School, where he spent four years teaching courses in Evidence, Professional Responsibility, and Advocacy. He also taught at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University and at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he continues to teach a course on Professional Responsibility.
Sechler received his bachelor’s degree with high distinction from Pennsylvania State University, and he earned his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center, where he graduated summa cum laude and was Editor-in-Chief of The Georgetown Law Journal. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Francis D. Murnaghan, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
Sechler is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous federal appellate and trial courts.
President and CEO, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Rachel Laser is the President and CEO at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
As a religious minority – she was raised as a Reform Jew – Rachel personally understands how much it matters that our laws treat everyone fairly and equally. She is an advocate for racial justice and has led workshops, given speeches and worked with schools and universities to challenge racism and expose privilege.
Rachel has written op-eds for major publications, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, and appeared on high-profile media outlets, including MSNBC, Fox News, CNBC, and ABC.
Before joining AU, Rachel served as the deputy director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (the RAC), running interfaith campaigns on LGBTQ+ equality, immigration reform, gun-violence prevention, and paid sick, family and medical leave.
She directed the Culture Program at Third Way, a Washington, D.C., progressive think tank specializing in understanding and reaching moderates. There, she launched the “Come Let Us Reason Together” initiative, which mobilized evangelical Christians and liberals to find shared values and work together on abortion and LGBTQ+ equality.
As senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), Rachel founded and ran the Pharmacy Refusal Project, which put protections in place to ensure that birth control prescriptions are filled – without delay or judgment. She advocated for judicial appointments with a proven record on women’s equality, and lobbied in favor of reproductive health bills.
Rachel is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School. She is also a former national board member of Reproductive Freedom for All (previously NARAL Pro-Choice America).
Rachel lives in Washington, D.C. She and her husband have three children and a dog, Teddy.
Associate Clinical Professor and Director of the Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic, Notre Dame Law School
John Meiser is an associate clinical professor of law and the director of the Law School's Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic. He researches and teaches courses focused on religious liberty, litigation practice, and federal courts.
University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Michael P. Moreland was appointed University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University in 2017. Professor Moreland joined the Villanova faculty in 2006 and served as Vice Dean from 2012 to 2015. His research is primarily in the areas of torts, law and religion, constitutional law, and Catholic social thought, and he regularly teaches Torts, First Amendment, seminars in law and religion, and undergraduate courses in ethics.
Professor Moreland is the co-editor of Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021), and his most recent publications include: “The Authority of Tradition: John Henry Newman and Legal Theory” in Christianity and the Making of Irish Law (Routledge, 2025); “Christianity and Torts” in The Oxford Handbook on Christianity and Law, (Oxford University Press, 2023); “Germaneness and Religious Liberty” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Contingency and Contestation in Christianity and Liberalism” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Friendship as the Primary Purpose of Law” in The American Journal of Jurisprudence 279 (2022); and “The Moral of Torts” (with Jeffrey Pojanowski) in Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021).
Professor Moreland was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture from 2015 to 2017. He was the Forbes Visiting Fellow at Princeton University in the James Madison Program during academic year 2010-11. He has served as the project leader for grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation. He serves as the Chair of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Practice Group Executive Committee and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California.
Professor Moreland received his BA in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, his MA and PhD in theological ethics from Boston College, and his JD from the University of Michigan Law School. Following law school, Professor Moreland clerked for the Honorable Paul J. Kelly Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and was an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where he represented clients in First Amendment, professional liability, and products liability matters. Before coming to Villanova, he served as Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush, where he worked on a range of legal policy issues, including criminal justice, immigration, civil rights, and liability reform.
James L. Oberstar Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of St. Thomas School of Law
William S. Boyd Professor of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law
Dr. Leslie C. Griffin is the William S. Boyd Professor of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law. Professor Griffin, who teaches constitutional law, is known for her interdisciplinary work in law and religion. She holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. She is author of the Foundation Press casebook Law and Religion: Cases and Materials (5th edition, 2022) with Andrew L. Seidel. Practicing Bioethics Law (2d ed. 2021) is co-authored with Joan H. Krause, Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. She and University of Pennsylvania Professor Marci Hamilton published Learning Constitutional Law (Cognella Press, 2023).
She wrote the recent book chapter, Bambi Trauma—Surviving TBI Twice, in Traumatic Brain Injury—Challenges (Dr. Ioannis Mavroudis & Alin Ciobica, eds., IntechOpen, 2024), https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/1179800#. And Catholic Sexual Abuse in Louisiana is in the University of Detroit Mercy Law Review, volume 101, p. 375 (2024).
Another article is What Did Those Sixteen Justices Say?, 58 Willamette L. Rev. 163 (2022). A book chapter entitled Rewritten Opinion, Means v. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is in the book Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Health Law Opinions (S. Mohapatra & L. Wiley, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2022). Other recent articles include What is Ethical Discharge?, 10:3 Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics 193 (2020); What Can We Expect of Law and Religion in 2020?, 79 SMU L. Rev. F. 73 (2020); Traumatic Brain Injury: Compassionate Care, Not Clinical Nihilism, 6:2 Journal of Hospital Ethics 87 (Fall 2019) (with Carole S. Anhalt); Conquering Brain Injury, 34:5 Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation 366 (2019), Religious Freedom, Human Rights, and Peaceful Coexistence, 50 Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 77 (2018), Pre-or Post Mortem?, 18 Nevada Law Journal 221 (2017). Her rewritten opinion about the abortion funding case, Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980), is in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (L. Berger, B. Crawford & K. Stanchi, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2016).
Griffin has written numerous amicus briefs defending children's and employees' religious freedom. She blogs for Justia's Verdict column, and posts occasionally on Petrie-Flom’s health law blog.
Other writings include Marriage Rights and Religious Exemptions in the United States, Oxford Handbooks Online (2017), Beyond the Basketball Court: How Brittney Griner’s In My Skin Illustrates Title IX’s Failure to Protect LGBT Athletes at Religious Institutions, 34 Law and Inequality 489 (2016), A Word of Warning from A Woman: Arbitrary, Categorical, and Hidden Religious Exemptions Threaten LGBT Rights, 7 Ala. C.R. & C.L.L. Rev. 97 (2015), and The Catholic Bishops vs. the Contraceptive Mandate, Religions 2015, 6, 1411–1432.
Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Alex Luchenitser is the Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Alex has litigated church-state cases throughout the country for Americans United since January 2001. He has led lawsuits challenging religious proselytization of students in public schools, public funding of religious institutions, discriminatory governmental prayer practices, and government-sponsored religious displays. His successful cases include:
Alex has also authored and edited numerous friend-of-the-court briefs filed on behalf of Americans United. After the Covid-19 pandemic began, Alex led Americans United’s efforts to fight lawsuits that sought religious exemptions from public-health orders, filing fifty friend-of-the-court briefs in such cases around the country, including six in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Alex was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1969 and immigrated to the United States in 1977. He received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in government and economics from Harvard University in 1991, and he received his Juris Doctor with distinction from Stanford Law School in 1994. After finishing law school, Alex served two one-year judicial clerkships, with Justice Warren W. Matthews Jr. of the Alaska Supreme Court and U.S. Magistrate Judge Wayne D. Brazil of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Alex then spent four years in private practice in Northern California, participating in the prosecution of class actions on behalf of investors, consumers, and trust beneficiaries.
Alex has spoken about church-state issues in many television and radio appearances and public presentations and has been quoted in numerous major newspapers. His published articles include:
Alex is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar, is an inactive member of the State Bar of California, and has been admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Federal, and District of Columbia Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia, the Northern District of California, the District of Colorado, the Eastern District of Michigan, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
Associate Attorney, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Branton Nestor is an associate in the Orange County office of Gibson Dunn. He practices in the firm’s Litigation Department and is a member of the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group.
Branton has represented clients in appellate, regulatory, and complex litigation matters across various industries. His experience spans a wide range of subject matters, including constitutional law and administrative law.
He clerked for Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Judge Julius N. Richardson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2019, and Westmont College in 2016. His scholarship has been cited at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Branton is a member of the California bar.
Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Amanda Salz is counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where her practice focuses on First Amendment litigation at both the trial and appellate levels. She is also a member of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Executive Committee.
Before joining Becket, Amanda worked as an associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. As a member of the firm’s appellate group, Amanda litigated many cases involving constitutional and administrative issues. In addition to her experience in private practice, Amanda clerked for the Honorable Andrew S. Oldham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Honorable Reed C. O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Church Autonomy in the Modern Era
CLE credit for this event is available at On-Demand CLE. The First Amendment’s "church autonomy" doctrine...
Church Autonomy in the Modern Era
Religious Liberties Practice Group
Washington, DCAfter Drummond: What’s Next in the Debate over Religious Charter Schools?
Rachel Laser, John A. Meiser, Michael P. Moreland
In Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, the U.S. Supreme Court took up the...
After Drummond: What’s Next in the Debate over Religious Charter Schools?
Rachel Laser, John A. Meiser, Michael P. Moreland
In Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, the U.S. Supreme Court took up the...
After Drummond: What’s Next in the Debate over Religious Charter Schools?
The Roots, Applications, and Trajectory of the Church Autonomy Doctrine
Thomas C. Berg, Leslie C. Griffin, Alex J. Luchenitser, Branton J. Nestor, Amanda Salz
The First Amendment’s Religion Clauses guarantee religious entities the freedom to make certain internal governance...
The Roots, Applications, and Trajectory of the Church Autonomy Doctrine
Thomas C. Berg, Leslie C. Griffin, Alex J. Luchenitser, Branton J. Nestor, Amanda Salz
The First Amendment’s Religion Clauses guarantee religious entities the freedom to make certain internal governance...
The Roots, Applications, and Trajectory of the Church Autonomy Doctrine
A Religious Charter School? A Discussion on the Limits of State Action and Demands of the Free Exercise Clause
Alex J. Luchenitser, Michael P. Moreland, Philip A. Sechler
On June 25, 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the nation’s first religious charter...
A Religious Charter School? A Discussion on the Limits of State Action and Demands of the Free Exercise Clause
Alex J. Luchenitser, Michael P. Moreland, Philip A. Sechler
On June 25, 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the nation’s first religious charter...