Founder, Article III Project
Mike Davis, the former Chief Counsel for Nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, is the founder and president of the Article III Project (A3P). A3P defends constitutionalist judges and the rule of law. Davis also leads the Internet Accountability Project (IAP), an advocacy organization fighting to rein in Big Tech, along with the Unsilenced Majority, an organization dedicated to opposing Cancel Culture and fighting back against the woke mob and their enablers.
As Chief Counsel for Nominations, Davis advised Chairman Grassley and other senators on the confirmation of federal judges and senior Executive Branch appointees, serving as staff lead for 30 hearings and 41 markup meetings. He oversaw the floor votes for 278 nominees, including the confirmations of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the record number of circuit judges confirmed during President Trump’s first two years in office.
Davis has served in all three branches of the federal government, including for President George W. Bush, the Justice Department, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and current Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Davis also led the outside support team for Justice Gorsuch’s successful confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Before returning to public service in 2017, Davis spent nearly ten years as a civil litigator in Denver, working at one of the largest law firms in the world and one of the top-ranked law firms in Colorado before running his own law practice for more than five years.
Davis is from Des Moines, Iowa. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 2000 and Juris Doctor in 2004, both from the University of Iowa. In 2017, Davis received Iowa Law’s “Emerging Leader Award.” Davis also serves on the University of Iowa Political Science Advisory Board.
Presidential Scholar in Residence, New College of Florida
Professor Fish comes to the College of Law from Chicago, where he most recently served as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania (1959) and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University (1960; 1962). He has previously taught at the University of California at Berkeley (1962-74); Johns Hopkins University (1974-85), where he was the Kenan Professor of English and Humanities; and Duke University, where he was Arts and Sciences Professor of English and Professor of Law (1986-1998). From 1993 through 1998 he served as Executive Director of Duke University Press. Dr. Fish served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at The John Marshall Law School from 2000 through 2002.
In addition to being one of the country’s leading public intellectuals, Professor Fish is an extraordinarily prolific author whose works include over 200 scholarly publications and books. While his research covers a variety of fields, Professor Fish has written for many of the country’s leading law journals. including Stanford Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, Columbia Law Review, and Texas Law Review. His exemplary work also includes the following books: John Skelton’s Poetry (1965); Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost (1967) and a Thirtieth Anniversary Edition (1997); Self-Consuming Artifacts: The Experience of Seventeenth-Century Literature (1972); The Living Temple: George Herbert and Catechizing (1978); Is there a Text in This Class? Interpretive Communities and the Sources of Authority (1980); Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies (1989); There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing, Too (1994); Professional Correctness: Literary Studies and Political Change (1995); The Trouble with Principle (1999); and How Milton Works (2001). The Stanley Fish Reader, edited by H. Aram Veeser, was published in 1999. He has also had five books written about his books.
Currently, Professor Fish is working on several publications, including There is No Textualist Position, San Diego Law Review (Spring 2005), Intentional Neglect, New York Times (July 2005), and Academic Cross Dressing: How Intelligent Design Gets Its Arguments from the Left, Harper’s Magazine. Professor Fish will teach a Law & Religion seminar Spring 2006.
Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Joel Gora has been a professor at Brooklyn Law School since 1978, teaching constitutional law, civil procedure and a number of other related courses. He also served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 1993-1997 and again from 2002 through 2006. He is the author of a number of books and articles dealing with First Amendment and other constitutional law issues. He is also an expert on campaign finance law matters, working in the field as both an advocate and an academic. Prior to joining the Brooklyn Law School faculty, Professor Gora was a law clerk at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for two years after he graduated from law school, and then a full-time lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union for almost ten years. During his ACLU career, he worked on dozens of United States Supreme Court cases, including many landmark rulings. Chief among them was the case of Buckley v. Valeo, the Court’s historic 1976 decision on the relationship between campaign finance restrictions and First Amendment rights. He has worked, on behalf of the ACLU, on almost every one of the important campaign finance cases to come before the Court. He also served for more than 25 years on the board of directors of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and as one of its general counsel. He has served as well on a number of policy committees of the New York City Bar, and was also a member of the board of the Federal Bar Council. Professor Gora received his B.A. from Pomona College and LL.B. from Columbia Law School.
President, Defending Education
Nicole Neily is the president and founder of Defending Education, a national membership organization that gives parents, students, and others the resources and support they need to advocate for their children’s education. She is also the executive director of PDE Action, a 501(c)4 advocacy organization.
Defending Education champions equal protection and combats race and sex-based discrimination in both the court of law and the court of public opinion, and has successfully sued school districts and the US Department of Education in federal court; facilitated tens of thousands of comments submitted to the Federal Register; filed dozens of federal OCR and EEOC complaints, as well as over two thousand public records requests since its launch in 2021. The organization regularly releases deep-dive education investigations, recently covering political spending by teachers’ unions, biased accreditation agencies, and ethnic studies curriculum in both K-12 and universities.
Prior to launching Defending Education, Nicole created Speech First, a campus free speech organization that sued 6 public universities under her leadership; she has also worked as president of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity; as executive director and senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum; and at the Cato Institute. She is the mother of two school-aged children and serves on the board of a public university.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
David Stras became a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on January 31, 2018. Before serving on the Eighth Circuit, Judge Stras was an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, a position he occupied from July 1, 2010 until his appointment to the Eighth Circuit.
Prior to becoming a judge, Stras was a member of the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School from 2004 through 2010. He taught and wrote in the areas of federal courts and jurisdiction, constitutional law, criminal law, and law and politics.
Judge Stras received his Bachelor of Arts degree, with highest distinction, in 1995 and his Master of Business Administration in 1999, both from the University of Kansas. He also received his law degree from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1999, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Criminal Procedure Edition of the Kansas Law Review.
Following law school, Stras clerked for The Honorable Melvin Brunetti of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for The Honorable J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
From 2001 to 2002, he practiced white-collar criminal and appellate litigation with the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Following his year in practice, he clerked for The Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Founder, Article III Project
Mike Davis, the former Chief Counsel for Nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, is the founder and president of the Article III Project (A3P). A3P defends constitutionalist judges and the rule of law. Davis also leads the Internet Accountability Project (IAP), an advocacy organization fighting to rein in Big Tech, along with the Unsilenced Majority, an organization dedicated to opposing Cancel Culture and fighting back against the woke mob and their enablers.
As Chief Counsel for Nominations, Davis advised Chairman Grassley and other senators on the confirmation of federal judges and senior Executive Branch appointees, serving as staff lead for 30 hearings and 41 markup meetings. He oversaw the floor votes for 278 nominees, including the confirmations of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the record number of circuit judges confirmed during President Trump’s first two years in office.
Davis has served in all three branches of the federal government, including for President George W. Bush, the Justice Department, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and current Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Davis also led the outside support team for Justice Gorsuch’s successful confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Before returning to public service in 2017, Davis spent nearly ten years as a civil litigator in Denver, working at one of the largest law firms in the world and one of the top-ranked law firms in Colorado before running his own law practice for more than five years.
Davis is from Des Moines, Iowa. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 2000 and Juris Doctor in 2004, both from the University of Iowa. In 2017, Davis received Iowa Law’s “Emerging Leader Award.” Davis also serves on the University of Iowa Political Science Advisory Board.
Presidential Scholar in Residence, New College of Florida
Professor Fish comes to the College of Law from Chicago, where he most recently served as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania (1959) and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University (1960; 1962). He has previously taught at the University of California at Berkeley (1962-74); Johns Hopkins University (1974-85), where he was the Kenan Professor of English and Humanities; and Duke University, where he was Arts and Sciences Professor of English and Professor of Law (1986-1998). From 1993 through 1998 he served as Executive Director of Duke University Press. Dr. Fish served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at The John Marshall Law School from 2000 through 2002.
In addition to being one of the country’s leading public intellectuals, Professor Fish is an extraordinarily prolific author whose works include over 200 scholarly publications and books. While his research covers a variety of fields, Professor Fish has written for many of the country’s leading law journals. including Stanford Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, Columbia Law Review, and Texas Law Review. His exemplary work also includes the following books: John Skelton’s Poetry (1965); Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost (1967) and a Thirtieth Anniversary Edition (1997); Self-Consuming Artifacts: The Experience of Seventeenth-Century Literature (1972); The Living Temple: George Herbert and Catechizing (1978); Is there a Text in This Class? Interpretive Communities and the Sources of Authority (1980); Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies (1989); There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing, Too (1994); Professional Correctness: Literary Studies and Political Change (1995); The Trouble with Principle (1999); and How Milton Works (2001). The Stanley Fish Reader, edited by H. Aram Veeser, was published in 1999. He has also had five books written about his books.
Currently, Professor Fish is working on several publications, including There is No Textualist Position, San Diego Law Review (Spring 2005), Intentional Neglect, New York Times (July 2005), and Academic Cross Dressing: How Intelligent Design Gets Its Arguments from the Left, Harper’s Magazine. Professor Fish will teach a Law & Religion seminar Spring 2006.
Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Joel Gora has been a professor at Brooklyn Law School since 1978, teaching constitutional law, civil procedure and a number of other related courses. He also served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 1993-1997 and again from 2002 through 2006. He is the author of a number of books and articles dealing with First Amendment and other constitutional law issues. He is also an expert on campaign finance law matters, working in the field as both an advocate and an academic. Prior to joining the Brooklyn Law School faculty, Professor Gora was a law clerk at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for two years after he graduated from law school, and then a full-time lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union for almost ten years. During his ACLU career, he worked on dozens of United States Supreme Court cases, including many landmark rulings. Chief among them was the case of Buckley v. Valeo, the Court’s historic 1976 decision on the relationship between campaign finance restrictions and First Amendment rights. He has worked, on behalf of the ACLU, on almost every one of the important campaign finance cases to come before the Court. He also served for more than 25 years on the board of directors of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and as one of its general counsel. He has served as well on a number of policy committees of the New York City Bar, and was also a member of the board of the Federal Bar Council. Professor Gora received his B.A. from Pomona College and LL.B. from Columbia Law School.
President, Defending Education
Nicole Neily is the president and founder of Defending Education, a national membership organization that gives parents, students, and others the resources and support they need to advocate for their children’s education. She is also the executive director of PDE Action, a 501(c)4 advocacy organization.
Defending Education champions equal protection and combats race and sex-based discrimination in both the court of law and the court of public opinion, and has successfully sued school districts and the US Department of Education in federal court; facilitated tens of thousands of comments submitted to the Federal Register; filed dozens of federal OCR and EEOC complaints, as well as over two thousand public records requests since its launch in 2021. The organization regularly releases deep-dive education investigations, recently covering political spending by teachers’ unions, biased accreditation agencies, and ethnic studies curriculum in both K-12 and universities.
Prior to launching Defending Education, Nicole created Speech First, a campus free speech organization that sued 6 public universities under her leadership; she has also worked as president of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity; as executive director and senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum; and at the Cato Institute. She is the mother of two school-aged children and serves on the board of a public university.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
David Stras became a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on January 31, 2018. Before serving on the Eighth Circuit, Judge Stras was an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, a position he occupied from July 1, 2010 until his appointment to the Eighth Circuit.
Prior to becoming a judge, Stras was a member of the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School from 2004 through 2010. He taught and wrote in the areas of federal courts and jurisdiction, constitutional law, criminal law, and law and politics.
Judge Stras received his Bachelor of Arts degree, with highest distinction, in 1995 and his Master of Business Administration in 1999, both from the University of Kansas. He also received his law degree from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1999, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Criminal Procedure Edition of the Kansas Law Review.
Following law school, Stras clerked for The Honorable Melvin Brunetti of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for The Honorable J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
From 2001 to 2002, he practiced white-collar criminal and appellate litigation with the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Following his year in practice, he clerked for The Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.
President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies
Lawrence J. Spiwak is President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of the digital age. Mr. Spiwak is a prolific scholar whose work is frequently cited by policymakers, major news media and academic journals around the world, and is in the top 1.3%of authors downloaded on the Social Science Research Network. Mr. Spiwak currently serves as the co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association’s (FCBA) committee responsible for overseeing the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL and is a member of the program committee of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (“TPRC”). Mr. Spiwak is also the recipient of the FCBA’s Distinguished Service Award. Prior to joining the Phoenix Center, Mr. Spiwak was a Senior Attorney with the Competition Division in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel from 1994-1998. While in college, Mr. Spiwak was accepted into the Presidential Stay-In School program where he was responsible for delivering classified and confidential material among senior White House and Reagan Administration officials and received a full FBI security clearance. Mr. Spiwak received his B.A. with Special Honors from the George Washington University and his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Mr. Spiwak is a member in good standing of the bars of New York, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Of Counsel, Fisher & Phillips, LLP
Greg Grisham has over 25 years of successful experience counseling and representing employers in all aspects of workplace law in Tennessee and across the United States.
He has helped employers avoid claims, charges and lawsuits with a focus on preventative practices. Preventative practices include counseling in situations involving discipline, termination, demotion, promotion and other workplace changes in the terms and conditions of employment, harassment investigations, wage and hour compliance, FMLA Compliance, Reasonable Accommodation assessment, supervisor training and the review of employment policies and procedures. In addition, Greg's practice includes the representation of business entities subject to Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act in Public Accommodation cases.
Greg has successfully litigated hundreds of administrative charges, employment lawsuits, and arbitration demands on behalf of employers, including federal and state law claims alleging discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, defamation, invasion of privacy, breach of contract, wage and hour violations and ERISA violations, among others. He also represents employers before the National Labor Relations Board in unfair labor practice proceedings. He represents employers in the enforcement of post-employment restrictive covenants such as non-compete, non-solicitation and non-disclosure agreements and related trade secret litigation. Greg's practice also includes the defense of property owners and property management companies in federal and state Housing Discrimination charges and litigation. He also advises Tennessee Public Charter Schools on education law and workplace compliance matters.
Greg has extensive experience working with insurance carriers and their insureds in the defense of EPLI claims. He is a regular speaker at public seminars on workplace law issues and has authored numerous articles on a variety of labor and employment law related topics.
Greg holds an AV Preeminent Peer Review rating from Martindale-Hubbell and has been selected for inclusion in Mid-South Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers in America for Employment Litigation-Management side. Greg was elected as a 2016 Fellow to the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and has been selected to the “Top 20 Lawyers in Traditional Labor & Employment Law” list in conjunction with Human Resource Executive Magazine and LawDragon’s 2017 and 2018 “Most Powerful Employment Attorneys” lists and specialty guides. Greg was also named a Fellow in the American Bar Foundation in 2017.
United States Senator from Iowa
Senator Grassley has served as one of Iowa’s U.S. Senators since 1981.
He places a high priority on constituent services, helping Iowans to cut red tape and navigate federal services, from Social Security to veterans’ benefits. He holds the record for the longest consecutive voting streak of any senator in the history of the country. He has not missed a vote since 1993 when he returned home to survey historic flood damage. Senator Grassley has conducted at least one meeting in each of Iowa’s 99 counties every year since his public service began in the U.S. Senate. He says “dialogue is the essence of representative government” and that’s why he keeps his commitment to keep in touch with Iowans by every means available. He responds to every phone call, letter, and email from Iowans, and communicates extensively via social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, website) to connect directly with constituents. Senator Grassley also prioritizes accessibility with journalists as another vital means to communicate and hold himself and government accountable to Iowans.
Countless congressional hearings, policy debates and constituent feedback shape Senator Grassley’s expansive legislative expertise for Iowa’s benefit. For policies impacting health care, taxes, trade, transportation, agriculture, renewable energy, criminal justice, elder justice, foster care, illegal drugs, human trafficking, the federal budget, patent reform, education, national security and the federal judiciary, Chuck Grassley works to make a difference for Iowans.
As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Grassley understands the critical role Congress serves in our system of checks and balances. No matter which political party controls Congress or the White House, Senator Grassley conducts robust oversight of the federal bureaucracy and expects answers from the executive branch.
Using his key committee assignments to benefit Iowans, Senator Grassley works to lessen excessive regulatory and tax burdens that make it harder for families to get ahead and stay ahead. Our nation’s founders established a constitutional framework for economic freedom, innovation and opportunity to limit government’s role in society. His work on the Senate Budget and Finance committees is driven by an acute understanding that Washington can’t spend, tax and borrow America’s way to prosperity.
Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, First Liberty Institute
Lisa Budzynski Ezell is the former Vice President and Director of the Federalist Society’s Lawyers Chapters. In this role, she managed a growing network of over 90 lawyers chapters nationwide, including oversight of leadership recruitment, chapter programming, state conferences, civics education outreach, and young lawyers activities. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Saint Mary’s College in Political Science and History and a Master of Public Policy from George Mason University.
United States Senator from Iowa
Senator Grassley has served as one of Iowa’s U.S. Senators since 1981.
He places a high priority on constituent services, helping Iowans to cut red tape and navigate federal services, from Social Security to veterans’ benefits. He holds the record for the longest consecutive voting streak of any senator in the history of the country. He has not missed a vote since 1993 when he returned home to survey historic flood damage. Senator Grassley has conducted at least one meeting in each of Iowa’s 99 counties every year since his public service began in the U.S. Senate. He says “dialogue is the essence of representative government” and that’s why he keeps his commitment to keep in touch with Iowans by every means available. He responds to every phone call, letter, and email from Iowans, and communicates extensively via social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, website) to connect directly with constituents. Senator Grassley also prioritizes accessibility with journalists as another vital means to communicate and hold himself and government accountable to Iowans.
Countless congressional hearings, policy debates and constituent feedback shape Senator Grassley’s expansive legislative expertise for Iowa’s benefit. For policies impacting health care, taxes, trade, transportation, agriculture, renewable energy, criminal justice, elder justice, foster care, illegal drugs, human trafficking, the federal budget, patent reform, education, national security and the federal judiciary, Chuck Grassley works to make a difference for Iowans.
As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Grassley understands the critical role Congress serves in our system of checks and balances. No matter which political party controls Congress or the White House, Senator Grassley conducts robust oversight of the federal bureaucracy and expects answers from the executive branch.
Using his key committee assignments to benefit Iowans, Senator Grassley works to lessen excessive regulatory and tax burdens that make it harder for families to get ahead and stay ahead. Our nation’s founders established a constitutional framework for economic freedom, innovation and opportunity to limit government’s role in society. His work on the Senate Budget and Finance committees is driven by an acute understanding that Washington can’t spend, tax and borrow America’s way to prosperity.
Co-Chairman, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Leonard is Co-Chairman and former Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society, joining the organization over 25 years ago. Since that time he has been instrumental in helping the organization top 70,000, focusing on the growth of lawyers membership, operations and activities advancing limited, constitutional government. In addition to his work at the Society, Leonard has advised President Trump on judicial selection, assisted with the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh Supreme Court selection and confirmation process, and served as a member of the transition team. He also organized the outside coalition efforts in support of the Roberts and Alito U.S. Supreme Court confirmations. Leonard was appointed by President George W. Bush to three terms to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as chairman. He was also a U.S. Delegate to the UN Council and UN Commission on Human Rights during the Bush Administration. Leonard was the recipient of the 2009 Bradley Prize, along with the other founders and directors of the Federalist Society, for his work in advancing freedom and the rule of law. He is the coeditor of Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House, as well as the author of opinion editorials in the New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Leonard holds degrees from Cornell University and Cornell Law School. He presently resides in Northern Virginia, where he and his wife Sally have raised their seven children.
Founder, Article III Project
Mike Davis, the former Chief Counsel for Nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, is the founder and president of the Article III Project (A3P). A3P defends constitutionalist judges and the rule of law. Davis also leads the Internet Accountability Project (IAP), an advocacy organization fighting to rein in Big Tech, along with the Unsilenced Majority, an organization dedicated to opposing Cancel Culture and fighting back against the woke mob and their enablers.
As Chief Counsel for Nominations, Davis advised Chairman Grassley and other senators on the confirmation of federal judges and senior Executive Branch appointees, serving as staff lead for 30 hearings and 41 markup meetings. He oversaw the floor votes for 278 nominees, including the confirmations of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the record number of circuit judges confirmed during President Trump’s first two years in office.
Davis has served in all three branches of the federal government, including for President George W. Bush, the Justice Department, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and current Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Davis also led the outside support team for Justice Gorsuch’s successful confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Before returning to public service in 2017, Davis spent nearly ten years as a civil litigator in Denver, working at one of the largest law firms in the world and one of the top-ranked law firms in Colorado before running his own law practice for more than five years.
Davis is from Des Moines, Iowa. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 2000 and Juris Doctor in 2004, both from the University of Iowa. In 2017, Davis received Iowa Law’s “Emerging Leader Award.” Davis also serves on the University of Iowa Political Science Advisory Board.
Presidential Scholar in Residence, New College of Florida
Professor Fish comes to the College of Law from Chicago, where he most recently served as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania (1959) and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University (1960; 1962). He has previously taught at the University of California at Berkeley (1962-74); Johns Hopkins University (1974-85), where he was the Kenan Professor of English and Humanities; and Duke University, where he was Arts and Sciences Professor of English and Professor of Law (1986-1998). From 1993 through 1998 he served as Executive Director of Duke University Press. Dr. Fish served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at The John Marshall Law School from 2000 through 2002.
In addition to being one of the country’s leading public intellectuals, Professor Fish is an extraordinarily prolific author whose works include over 200 scholarly publications and books. While his research covers a variety of fields, Professor Fish has written for many of the country’s leading law journals. including Stanford Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, Columbia Law Review, and Texas Law Review. His exemplary work also includes the following books: John Skelton’s Poetry (1965); Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost (1967) and a Thirtieth Anniversary Edition (1997); Self-Consuming Artifacts: The Experience of Seventeenth-Century Literature (1972); The Living Temple: George Herbert and Catechizing (1978); Is there a Text in This Class? Interpretive Communities and the Sources of Authority (1980); Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies (1989); There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing, Too (1994); Professional Correctness: Literary Studies and Political Change (1995); The Trouble with Principle (1999); and How Milton Works (2001). The Stanley Fish Reader, edited by H. Aram Veeser, was published in 1999. He has also had five books written about his books.
Currently, Professor Fish is working on several publications, including There is No Textualist Position, San Diego Law Review (Spring 2005), Intentional Neglect, New York Times (July 2005), and Academic Cross Dressing: How Intelligent Design Gets Its Arguments from the Left, Harper’s Magazine. Professor Fish will teach a Law & Religion seminar Spring 2006.
Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Joel Gora has been a professor at Brooklyn Law School since 1978, teaching constitutional law, civil procedure and a number of other related courses. He also served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 1993-1997 and again from 2002 through 2006. He is the author of a number of books and articles dealing with First Amendment and other constitutional law issues. He is also an expert on campaign finance law matters, working in the field as both an advocate and an academic. Prior to joining the Brooklyn Law School faculty, Professor Gora was a law clerk at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for two years after he graduated from law school, and then a full-time lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union for almost ten years. During his ACLU career, he worked on dozens of United States Supreme Court cases, including many landmark rulings. Chief among them was the case of Buckley v. Valeo, the Court’s historic 1976 decision on the relationship between campaign finance restrictions and First Amendment rights. He has worked, on behalf of the ACLU, on almost every one of the important campaign finance cases to come before the Court. He also served for more than 25 years on the board of directors of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and as one of its general counsel. He has served as well on a number of policy committees of the New York City Bar, and was also a member of the board of the Federal Bar Council. Professor Gora received his B.A. from Pomona College and LL.B. from Columbia Law School.
President, Defending Education
Nicole Neily is the president and founder of Defending Education, a national membership organization that gives parents, students, and others the resources and support they need to advocate for their children’s education. She is also the executive director of PDE Action, a 501(c)4 advocacy organization.
Defending Education champions equal protection and combats race and sex-based discrimination in both the court of law and the court of public opinion, and has successfully sued school districts and the US Department of Education in federal court; facilitated tens of thousands of comments submitted to the Federal Register; filed dozens of federal OCR and EEOC complaints, as well as over two thousand public records requests since its launch in 2021. The organization regularly releases deep-dive education investigations, recently covering political spending by teachers’ unions, biased accreditation agencies, and ethnic studies curriculum in both K-12 and universities.
Prior to launching Defending Education, Nicole created Speech First, a campus free speech organization that sued 6 public universities under her leadership; she has also worked as president of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity; as executive director and senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum; and at the Cato Institute. She is the mother of two school-aged children and serves on the board of a public university.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
David Stras became a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on January 31, 2018. Before serving on the Eighth Circuit, Judge Stras was an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, a position he occupied from July 1, 2010 until his appointment to the Eighth Circuit.
Prior to becoming a judge, Stras was a member of the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School from 2004 through 2010. He taught and wrote in the areas of federal courts and jurisdiction, constitutional law, criminal law, and law and politics.
Judge Stras received his Bachelor of Arts degree, with highest distinction, in 1995 and his Master of Business Administration in 1999, both from the University of Kansas. He also received his law degree from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1999, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Criminal Procedure Edition of the Kansas Law Review.
Following law school, Stras clerked for The Honorable Melvin Brunetti of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for The Honorable J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
From 2001 to 2002, he practiced white-collar criminal and appellate litigation with the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Following his year in practice, he clerked for The Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.
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