James L. Oberstar Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Distinguished Research Professor, Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government, University of Notre Dame
Donald L. Drakeman is Distinguished Research Professor in the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government at the University of Notre Dame, and a Fellow of the Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise at the University of Cambridge. His writings have been cited by the Supreme Courts of the United States and the Philippines. He has published seven books, including The Hollow Core of Constitutional Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Why We Need the Humanities (Palgrave, 2016), and Church, State, and Original Intent (Cambridge University Press, 2010). He received an A.B. magna cum laude from Dartmouth College; a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar; and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and he was the founding chair of the Advisory Council for the James Madison Program on American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
Senior Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Stephanie N. Taub serves as Senior Counsel with First Liberty Institute, focusing on litigation, appellate advocacy, and legal education.
While at First Liberty, her article on the rights of faith-based organizations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been published in the Texas Review of Law and Politics. She has also authored pieces published in National Review, the Daily Signal, the Washington Times, the Des Moines Register, and the New York Daily News. In 2017, Taub was named one of 15 recipients of the James Wilson Fellowship in natural law.
Before joining First Liberty, Taub worked as a law clerk to the Honorable Reed O’Connor in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas.
Taub is a Harvard Law School graduate in the class of 2014 and a Blackstone Fellow in the class of 2012. During law school, she served as Co-President of the HLS Christian Fellowship and Managing Technical Editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal. Taub spent her law school summers defending religious liberty in public interest law firms and clerking in the Texas Office of Solicitor General.
For her undergraduate studies at the University of Southern California, Taub graduated summa cum laude, majoring in Business Administration with a minor in Philosophy.
Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Kayla Toney is Associate Counsel with First Liberty Institute, concentrating on religious liberty matters and First Amendment rights for clients of all faiths.
Prior to joining First Liberty, Kayla litigated religious freedom cases as a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. She clerked for Judge Gregory E. Maggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, where she gained valuable experience in the military justice system. Kayla also worked as a litigation associate in the D.C. office of Winston & Strawn LLP, where she enjoyed working on pro bono religious liberty matters.
Kayla earned her law degree from George Washington University, where she served as president of the Federalist Society chapter, a member of the GW International Law Review, and a writing fellow. She graduated summa cum laude from Grove City College with a degree in history and economics.
A native of Michigan, Kayla is based in First Liberty’s Washington, D.C. office and is licensed to practice law in Virginia and D.C.
Editor at Large, POLITICO
Peter S. Canellos is managing editor for enterprise at POLITICO, overseeing the site’s magazine, investigative journalism and major projects. He has also been POLITICO’s executive editor, overseeing the newsroom during the 2016 presidential coverage, and the editorial page editor of The Boston Globe.
A native of Boston, Peter is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Law School. He spent most of his career at the Globe, where at various points he oversaw the paper’s local news coverage and Washington, D.C., bureau. As the Globe’s editorial page editor, he authored numerous editorials urging Bostonians to overcome their parochial divisions and embrace their status as a world-class city.
He also edited the Globe’s book, “Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy,” which was a top-10 New York Times bestseller in 2009. The book also set the stage for much of the analysis of Kennedy’s career following his death from cancer, and supplied most of the anecdotes for President Barack Obama’s eulogy of Kennedy.
For the past 12 years, Peter has worked with the International Women’s Media Foundation overseeing the Elizabeth Neuffer fellowship, given to a woman journalist from around the world to study human rights at MIT and intern at the Globe and New York Times. He has also traveled overseas on human rights trips with the US Holocaust Museum, International Reporting Project, and Robert Bosch foundation, among other groups.
Peter considers the many young journalists he’s hired and mentored over the years to be his greatest accomplishment. As an editor, he has overseen two Pulitzer Prize-winning projects along with five others that were Pulitzer finalists, among many other awards. As a writer, he was recipient of the American Society of Newspaper Editors award in 2011 for excellence in editorial writing.
Director of Litigation, Texas Public Policy Foundation
Chance Weldon is a Senior Attorney and the Director of Litigation for the Center for the American Future at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Chance was one of the first attorneys hired by former litigation director Rob Henneke in 2015. Since joining the Foundation, Chance has worked on some of its most important cases. From protecting the rights of property owners along the Red River in North Texas (Aderholt v. BLM) to striking down the City of Austin’s onerous short-term rental regulations in Zaatari v. City of Austin, to defending peoples’ ability to maintain their property without suffering ruinous penalties in F.P. Development, LLC v. Canton, to reinvigorating the Commerce Clause in TPPF’s litigation against the Federal Government’s Eviction Moratorium and Vaccine Mandate, Chance has been at the forefront of protecting constitutional rights in Texas and across the country.
Before joining the Foundation, Chance served as a fellow at the Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento, California and the Institute for Justice in Austin, Texas. As a fellow, he worked on wide breadth of litigation involving economic liberty, free speech, school choice, and private property rights.
A Houston native, Chance earned his J.D. from the University of Houston, where he was awarded the Dean’s Merit Scholarship for all three years. Prior to law school, he received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from the University of Houston. He is licensed to practice law in Texas, California (inactive status), the United States Supreme Court, and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits.
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Does Israel’s Destiny Depend on the West or Vice-Versa?: A Review of Josh Hammer’s New Book, Israel & Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West
In the late 1730s, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzatto—known by his name’s Hebrew acronym “Ramchal”—published his...
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The Transcendent Significance of Thanksgiving Day
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Religious Liberty Apologetics
Thomas C. Berg
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Donald L. Drakeman
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22nd Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture by Bari Weiss
On November 10, 2023, Bari Weiss, Founder and Editor of The Free Press, delivered the...
Book Talk—The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan
Austin Lawyers Chapter
Austin, TXA Cord of Three Strands: How Kennedy v. Bremerton School District Changed Free Exercise, Establishment, and Free Speech Clause Doctrine
Stephanie Taub, Kayla Ann Toney
In 2015, Bremerton High School football coach Joseph Kennedy lost his job for kneeling at...
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Ken Starr was a Christian first
This piece was originally published at Deseret News. Earlier this week, I had the bittersweet...
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Kennedy v. Bremerton School District’s Effect on the Establishment Clause
On June 27, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. In...
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Perlot v. Green: Free Expression in Law School
One of the most contested arenas for free expression today continues to be . . ....