Investigative Counsel, U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce
Kent Talbert is a Washington, DC-based attorney with over 25 years’ experience in providing advice on education law and policy in Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, and the private sector. His practice includes legal and policy advice to colleges and universities, for-profit schools, accrediting agencies, the pre-K-12 sector, charter school organizations, trade associations, and education-focused companies, as well as service as an expert witness. He currently serves as Investigative Counsel, U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Prior to establishing his firm, Mr. Talbert practiced at Talbert & Eitel, PLLC from 2010-2012. From 2006-2009 he served as General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Education, advising the Secretary of Education on a broad range of legal and policy matters, including the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965, the drafting and implementation of regulations under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, and major education law cases pending before the Supreme Court of the United States and other appellate and trial courts. During his tenure as General Counsel, Mr. Talbert served as the Chief Regulatory Officer for the Department, overseeing all documents for publication in the Federal Register.
He has provided legal and strategic advice on the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act of 2008, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans With Disabilities Act, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act ("Clery Act"), Federal Student Aid program reviews, negotiated rulemaking, and accreditation.
Prior to his service as General Counsel, Mr. Talbert served as the Department's Deputy General Counsel for Departmental and Legislative Service from 2001-2006. Earlier in his career, Mr. Talbert served for over 12 years on House and Senate staff, both as Education Policy Counsel for the Committee on Education and the Workforce in the U.S. House of Representatives, and as a professional staff member of the Committee on Labor and Human Resources (now Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions) in the U.S. Senate.
Mr. Talbert is a member of the Bars of the District of Columbia and South Carolina, the Alliance of Public Charter School Attorneys, and the National Association of College and University Attorneys where he serves on the Committee on Legal Education. He is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Federal Claims, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and all federal courts in South Carolina and Washington, DC.
Co-Founder and President, Defense of Freedom Institute
Bob is a co-founder and President of DFI. He previously served as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Education from 2017 through 2020 and Deputy General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Education from 2005 until 2009.
During his most recent tenure at the Department, Bob served on the Secretary’s Leadership Team as a strategic and legal adviser on higher education, civil rights, and congressional oversight matters. As the Department’s Regulatory Reform Officer, he also supervised the implementation of the Secretary’s regulatory agenda and was an architect of the Secretary’s reforms concerning Title IX and the Higher Education Act. As Deputy General Counsel, Bob advised on a wide variety of regulatory, legislative, and oversight matters.
Prior to joining the Department in 2017, Bob was vice president for regulatory compliance matters for several postsecondary institutions and practiced education and employment law in Washington, D.C. Before coming to the Department in 2005, he practiced law in New Orleans, litigating commercial, employment, and bankruptcy cases in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi.
Bob earned his A.B. in History from Georgetown University, studied British government and international politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and received his law degree from Tulane University Law School. His articles have been published by National Review, Real Clear Education, Washington Examiner, and other media outlets. Fox News has featured his work.
Bob is a member of the District of Columbia and Louisiana Bars and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Board Member, Center for Equal Opportunity
Roger Clegg is a Board Member at and former President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He focuses on legal issues arising from civil rights laws--including the regulatory impact on business and the problems in higher education created by affirmative action. A former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Clegg held the second highest positions in both the Civil Rights Division (1987-91) and in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1991-93). He has held several other positions at the U.S. Justice Department, including Assistant to the Solicitor General (1985-87), Associate Deputy Attorney General (1984-85), and Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy (1984). Clegg is a graduate of Yale University Law School (1981).
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
James Harvie Wilkinson III is an Article III federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He joined the Court in 1984 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
Born in New York City, New York, Wilkinson graduated from Yale University with his Bachelor's degree in 1967. Wilkinson served in the United States Army from 1968 to 1969 and received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1972.
On the recommendation of Virginia U.S. Senator John Warner, Wilkinson was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit by President Ronald Reagan on January 30, 1984 to a seat vacated by John Butzner, Jr.,. Wilkinson was confirmed by the Senate on August 9, 1984 on a Senate vote and received commission on August 13, 1984. Wilkinson served as the Chief Judge of the Court from 1996 to 2003.
Director, Project for International Religious Liberty, Hudson Institute
Michael J. Horowitz is director of Hudson Institute's Project for Civil Justice Reform and Project for International Religious Liberty. He served as general counsel for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under the Reagan Administration, and has taught law at the University of Mississippi and Georgetown. He has also practiced private law as a partner at national law firms. Horowitz joined Hudson Institute as a Senior Fellow where he has put together left-right coalitions on a wide variety of foreign and domestic issues. He has written frequently and is regularly called to testify and consult with Congress.
Shareholder, Greenberg Traurig LLP
Troy A. Eid focuses his litigation, mediation and transactional practice on government enforcement, investigations and compliance, environmental law, energy and natural resource development, and Federal Indian law and Native American and Alaska Native tribal law. Troy is a trusted advocate and mediator in the Rocky Mountain West and in federal, state and tribal trial and appellate courtrooms across the country.
Partner., Dechert LLP
Mr. Freedman is a graduate of Harvard College (A.B., 1962), Columbia University (M.A., economics, 1963), and Columbia Law School (LL.B., 1966). He clerked for two years on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
President, American Council of Trustees and Alumni
Ms. Neal co-founded the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and has been president since 2003.
For over 15 years, Ms. Neal has been a prominent national player in higher education reform, publishing widely and appearing frequently on radio and television, including the PBS NewsHour, Fox Business News, CNN, Fox News, WGN, and National Public Radio. She has authored or co-authored numerous ACTA studies on historical illiteracy, federal accreditation, governance, intellectual pluralism, and cost, and contributed chapters to Reforming the Politically Correct University (AEI Press, 2009), Accountability in American Higher Education(Palgrave MacMillan, 2010), and Intellectual Property Rights and Capital Formation in the Next Decade (University Press, 1988). She has also convened higher education conferences under the auspices of the Philanthropy Roundtable. In 2007, and again in 2010, Ms. Neal was appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity which advises the U.S. Secretary of Education on federal accreditation.
Ms. Neal has provided expert testimony before the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, the Louisiana Postsecondary Education Commission, the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and in many state capitals, and presented at conferences sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, the University of Notre Dame, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, Montana State University, the American Association of University Professors, and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
Prior to joining ACTA, Ms. Neal served as General Counsel and Congressional Liaison for the National Endowment for the Humanities. She also worked as a First Amendment and communications lawyer for Rogers & Wells and Wiley, Rein & Fielding.
Ms. Neal graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Harvard College with an A.B. in American history and literature. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School where she was president of the Harvard Journal on Legislation. She also holds an honorary doctorate from Colorado Christian University. She has served on the boards of many cultural and civic organizations, and currently is a director of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association and the Alexander Hamilton Institute.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Executive Director, James Madison Program, Princeton University
State Court Docket Watch Summer 2012
In an effort to increase dialogue about state court jurisprudence, the Federalist Society presents State Court...
School Discipline and Disparate Impact
John R. Martin
Note from the Editor: This paper analyzes the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed use of...
The Road to a National Curriculum: The Legal Aspects of the Common Core Standards, Race to the Top, and Conditional Waivers
Kent D. Talbert, Robert S. Eitel
Note from the Editor: This paper examines the U.S. Department of Education’s administration of the...
Engage Volume 13, Issue 1, March 2012
*Online-Only Issue* SPECIAL CONTRIBUTION The Philosopher in Action: A Tribute to the Honorable Edwin Meese...
Responsible Giving to Higher Education
Washington, District of ColumbiaBar Watch Bulletin August 7, 2005
The ABA meeting in Chicago, Illinois included several panel discussions, highlights of which we report...
OCR's Testing (Mis)Guidance: Anti-Education, Anti-Civil Rights
Roger B. Clegg
The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights ("OCR") has decided to wade into...
Did the Law Cause Columbine?
George Nicholson, Ann Beeson, William F. Kilpatrick, J. Harvie Wilkinson, Michael J. Horowitz, James Rapp, Troy A. Eid
APPEARANCES:JUDGE GEORGE NICHOLSON (Court of Appeals, State of California)PANELISTS:MR. TROY EID (Discussion Leader) (Chief Counsel...