Commissioner, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law
Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus is an internationally recognized expert in civil and human rights, as well as a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism on and off university campuses. He is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the leading civil rights legal organization fighting against anti-Semitism. The New York Times has called him “The Man Who Helped Redefine Campus Anti-Semitism.” He been described, in that paper, as “the single most effective and respected force” to combat anti-Semitism.
During his public service career, Marcus served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights; Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
In academia, he serves as Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University. He formerly held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College, served as Visiting Research Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva University, and was a Board of Visitors member George Mason University and Distinguished Senior Fellow at that university’s law school. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.
Marcus is also author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press) and Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (Cambridge University Press). He has published widely in academic journals as well as in more popular venues such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and Politico. He is a graduate of Williams College and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
Earlier in his career, he was a litigation partner in two major law firms, where he conducted complex commercial and constitutional litigation. He also serves as Chairman emeritus of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Civil Rights Practice Group.
Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
Craig Trainor is Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. President Trump nominated Mr. Trainor for this position on February 11, 2025, and the United States Senate confirmed him on October 7, 2025.
A “Day One” Trump-Vance Administration official, he previously served as Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Education, where he spearheaded the Department’s efforts to reorient America’s civil rights regime from an unjust spoils system to one that protects the rights of all Americans. Mr. Trainor’s February 14, 2025, “Dear Colleague” letter is widely considered the Trump Administration’s blueprint for enforcing civil rights laws and restoring the Constitution’s promise of equal protection.
Prior to serving in the Trump-Vance Administration, he was Senior Special Counsel with the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary under Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Senior Litigation Counsel with the America First Policy Institute under the Honorable Pam Bondi.
For over ten years, Mr. Trainor was a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer in New York City, litigating cases in New York state court and the United States District Court for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.
Prior to founding his law practice, he served as a New York City prosecutor, an associate attorney at a white collar criminal defense firm, and a law clerk to Chief Judge Frederick J. Scullin, Jr., United States District Court for the Northern District of New York.
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Devon Westhill is the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Westhill on October 7, 2025.
Westhill returns to the USDA where he previously headed the civil rights office as Deputy Assistant Secretary in President Trump’s first term. His previous government appointments also include service at the U.S. Department of Labor, liaison to the Administrative Conference of the U.S., and liaison to the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Prior to returning to government service, Westhill was President and General Counsel of a nonprofit civil rights organization.
Westhill has testified on civil rights matters before Congress, federal agencies, and as an expert witness in federal court. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio and TV programs, and he is frequently quoted in print publications, and his writing has appeared in numerous national outlets. A U.S. Navy veteran, Westhill earned his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his JD from the University of Florida.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Michael B. Brennan was confirmed and sworn in as a Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in May 2018.
He previously worked as a partner in the Milwaukee law firm of Gass Weber Mullins LLC, where he tried cases and handled appeals in federal and state courts, as a judge on the Milwaukee County Circuit, where he presided over a variety of criminal and civil calendars, and as an assistant district attorney in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office.
Brennan’s undergraduate degree is from the University of Notre Dame, and his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was an editor on the law review and the moot court champion. He served as a law clerk on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Dean Emeritus and Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law & Economics, Columbia Law School
David Schizer is Dean Emeritus and Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law & Economics at Columbia Law School. He served as Dean from 2004 to 2014, and as CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a global Jewish humanitarian organization, from 2017 to 2019. He is the author of How to Save the World in Six (Not So Easy) Steps: Bringing Out the Best in Nonprofits. Schizer serves on the Board of Visitors of the Federalist Society. He is Second Vice Chair of the Tax Section of the New York State Bar Association, a co-founder and co-chair of the Richman Center for Law, Business, and Public Policy at Columbia University, and a co-founder and co-chair of the Center for Israeli Legal Studies at Columbia Law School. Schizer served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Alex Kozinski on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Executive Director, College Autism Network
Lee Burdette Williams has worked in higher education and student affairs for more than three decades and is now Executive Director of the College Autism Network, a nonprofit organization supporting the efforts of autistic college students and the institutions that serve them. She served previously as the Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and Dean of Students at the University of Connecticut.
Lee’s professional interests include student mental health, academic partnerships, learning communities and student culture. A particular interest is in the experiences of autistic students in student conduct processes. She has written extensively on these and other topics and is a frequent speaker and presenter on contemporary issues in higher education. Lee is the author of two books, Emerging Practices and Trends in Peer Education and Learning Communities in Student Affairs: Partnering for Powerful Learning. She is the director of the College Autism Summit, an annual conference that brings together professionals working to support college students with autism. Lee has taught in the student affairs graduate programs at the University of Vermont, the University of Connecticut, Appalachian State University, and the University of Maryland College Park. She received her Ph.D. in College Student Personnel Administration from the University of Maryland College Park, her M.Ed. in Counseling from Salem State University, and her B.A. from Gordon College.
Professor, University of Illinois College of Law
Robin Fretwell Wilson is the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
A scholar in family law, bioethics and law and religion, Professor Wilson has worked extensively on behalf of state and federal law reform efforts in each realm.
Across two decades, she has worked to secure laws protecting the autonomy of patients to decide when they will be used to teach intimate exams to medical students, laws now in place in 22 states—sixteen of which have been enacted since 2019.
Professor Wilson is known for bridging differences in the culture war. In 2015, she spent a month in residence with the Utah legislature, helping Utah state lawmakers to pass anti-discrimination legislation that balances religious liberty and LGBT rights. In 2019, Professor Wilson assisted the governor of Utah to craft regulations banning gay conversion therapy. In 2019, she also aided U.S. Representative Chris Stewart with portions of the “Fairness for All” he introduced in Congress. A member of the American Law Institute and a Fulbright Specialist, Professor Wilson has served as a consultant to the United Arab Emirates’ Judicial Department as they sought to create a parallel court system for the adjudication by expatriates of family law matters using the laws of their home country or of their faith traditions.
Professor Wilson is the author of 20 books, including her 2018 book, Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground, with Yale University Professor William Eskridge, Jr., which is now in paperback at Cambridge University Press. Her other books include: The Contested Place of Religion in Family Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018, ed.), Reconceiving the Family: Critical Reflections on the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution (Cambridge University Press, 2006, ed.); The Handbook of Children, Culture & Violence (Sage Publications, 2006, with Nancy Dowd and Dorothy Singer, eds.); Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, with Douglas Laycock and Anthony Picarello, eds.); Health Law and Bioethics: Cases in Context (Aspen, 2008, with Joan Krause, Sandra Johnson, and Richard Saver, eds.); Domestic Relations: Cases and Materials, 8th edition (Foundation Press, 2017, with Walter Wadlington and Raymond C. O’Brien); and Understanding Family Law, 4th edition (LexisNexis, 2013, with John DeWitt Gregory and Peter N. Swisher). Her articles have appeared in the Boston College Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Illinois Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, San Diego Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, and Washington and Lee Law Review, as well as in numerous peer-reviewed journals.
In 2010 and again in 2016, Professor Wilson was ranked among the Top Ten Family Law Scholars in the United States for scholarly impact. She ranks among the Top 10% of Authors in all time downloads on the Social Science Research Network. Professor Wilson’s scholarship has been cited by the Fifth, Seventh and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, lower federal courts, and the Supreme Courts of Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, and Washington.
Professor Wilson’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, U.S. News and World Report, ABA Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, Chicago Tribune, CNN Headline News, Good Morning America, ABC News, CBS News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence Magazine, The American Prospect, People Magazine, The American Conservative, The Australian, and Al Jazeera, among others. She has presented her research across the world, including the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile, China, Israel, Qatar, the Netherlands, Italy, England, Wales, Poland, Spain, Serbia, Japan, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, and France.
Professor Wilson has seven times been honored for her work on innovative laws that respect all persons. In 2007, she received the Citizen’s Legislative Award for her work on changing Virginia’s informed consent law. In 2018, Professor Wilson received the Thomas L. Kane Religious Freedom Award from the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, which is presented annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of religious liberty for all and who has contributed in significant ways to the defense of religious freedom in the public square.
In 2018, Professor Wilson was honored as one of the 150 for 150: Celebrating the Accomplishments of Women at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for its sesquicentennial celebration. In 2020, Professor Wilson received the 2020 Larine Y. Cowan Make a Difference Award for Advocacy for LGBTQ Affairs, a university-wide honor given by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Partner and Executive Director, Christie 55 Solutions LLC
Rich Bagger is a Partner and Executive Director of Christie 55 Solutions, a New Jersey based consulting firm that provides strategic counsel to assist clients with business strategies and opportunities and with complex public policy and regulatory challenges at the state, federal and international levels. Rich is also an Adjunct Faculty member at Rutgers University and a member of the Board of Directors of Tonix Pharmaceuticals.
Prior to joining Christie 55 Solutions, Rich worked in the health sector for over 25 years, including as the senior most global Corporate Affairs executive for two major biopharmaceutical companies and as legal counsel for a large health plan. From 2012 through 2019, he was Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Market Access for Celgene Corporation, as well as a member of the company’s Executive Committee. During a 16-year career with Pfizer Inc, Rich served from 2006 to 2009 on Pfizer’s senior most management team as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Public Affairs and Policy. Prior to joining Pfizer, Rich was Assistant General Counsel of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey and before that practiced law with McCarter & English.
Rich has a record of public service that spans more than three decades. From 2012 until 2021, he served as a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and was Chair of the Gateway Program Development Corporation for 2017. For six months during 2016, Rich led pre-election transition planning as Executive Director of Trump for America. Rich served from 2010 to 2012 as Chief of Staff for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, responsible for managing implementation of the Governor’s policy agenda and priorities. He was also elected to serve five terms in the New Jersey General Assembly, where he chaired the Appropriations Committee and was elected by his colleagues as Majority Conference Leader. In 2001, Rich was elected to the New Jersey Senate and served there until 2003. Before his election to the Legislature, he was a Council Member and Mayor of Westfield, New Jersey.
Rich served as Board Chair of the National Pharmaceutical Council for 2019 and is a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he chaired the Global Innovation Policy Center from 2014 to 2018. He is also on the Board of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the Advisory Board for the Lerner Center for the Study of Pharmaceutical Management at Rutgers University Business School.
He received an A.B. degree from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs and a J.D. degree from Rutgers University Law School.
Partner and Executive Director, Christie 55 Solutions LLC
Rich Bagger is a Partner and Executive Director of Christie 55 Solutions, a New Jersey based consulting firm that provides strategic counsel to assist clients with business strategies and opportunities and with complex public policy and regulatory challenges at the state, federal and international levels. Rich is also an Adjunct Faculty member at Rutgers University and a member of the Board of Directors of Tonix Pharmaceuticals.
Prior to joining Christie 55 Solutions, Rich worked in the health sector for over 25 years, including as the senior most global Corporate Affairs executive for two major biopharmaceutical companies and as legal counsel for a large health plan. From 2012 through 2019, he was Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Market Access for Celgene Corporation, as well as a member of the company’s Executive Committee. During a 16-year career with Pfizer Inc, Rich served from 2006 to 2009 on Pfizer’s senior most management team as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Public Affairs and Policy. Prior to joining Pfizer, Rich was Assistant General Counsel of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey and before that practiced law with McCarter & English.
Rich has a record of public service that spans more than three decades. From 2012 until 2021, he served as a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and was Chair of the Gateway Program Development Corporation for 2017. For six months during 2016, Rich led pre-election transition planning as Executive Director of Trump for America. Rich served from 2010 to 2012 as Chief of Staff for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, responsible for managing implementation of the Governor’s policy agenda and priorities. He was also elected to serve five terms in the New Jersey General Assembly, where he chaired the Appropriations Committee and was elected by his colleagues as Majority Conference Leader. In 2001, Rich was elected to the New Jersey Senate and served there until 2003. Before his election to the Legislature, he was a Council Member and Mayor of Westfield, New Jersey.
Rich served as Board Chair of the National Pharmaceutical Council for 2019 and is a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he chaired the Global Innovation Policy Center from 2014 to 2018. He is also on the Board of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the Advisory Board for the Lerner Center for the Study of Pharmaceutical Management at Rutgers University Business School.
He received an A.B. degree from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs and a J.D. degree from Rutgers University Law School.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Michael B. Brennan was confirmed and sworn in as a Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in May 2018.
He previously worked as a partner in the Milwaukee law firm of Gass Weber Mullins LLC, where he tried cases and handled appeals in federal and state courts, as a judge on the Milwaukee County Circuit, where he presided over a variety of criminal and civil calendars, and as an assistant district attorney in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office.
Brennan’s undergraduate degree is from the University of Notre Dame, and his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was an editor on the law review and the moot court champion. He served as a law clerk on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Dean Emeritus and Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law & Economics, Columbia Law School
David Schizer is Dean Emeritus and Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law & Economics at Columbia Law School. He served as Dean from 2004 to 2014, and as CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a global Jewish humanitarian organization, from 2017 to 2019. He is the author of How to Save the World in Six (Not So Easy) Steps: Bringing Out the Best in Nonprofits. Schizer serves on the Board of Visitors of the Federalist Society. He is Second Vice Chair of the Tax Section of the New York State Bar Association, a co-founder and co-chair of the Richman Center for Law, Business, and Public Policy at Columbia University, and a co-founder and co-chair of the Center for Israeli Legal Studies at Columbia Law School. Schizer served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Alex Kozinski on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Executive Director, College Autism Network
Lee Burdette Williams has worked in higher education and student affairs for more than three decades and is now Executive Director of the College Autism Network, a nonprofit organization supporting the efforts of autistic college students and the institutions that serve them. She served previously as the Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and Dean of Students at the University of Connecticut.
Lee’s professional interests include student mental health, academic partnerships, learning communities and student culture. A particular interest is in the experiences of autistic students in student conduct processes. She has written extensively on these and other topics and is a frequent speaker and presenter on contemporary issues in higher education. Lee is the author of two books, Emerging Practices and Trends in Peer Education and Learning Communities in Student Affairs: Partnering for Powerful Learning. She is the director of the College Autism Summit, an annual conference that brings together professionals working to support college students with autism. Lee has taught in the student affairs graduate programs at the University of Vermont, the University of Connecticut, Appalachian State University, and the University of Maryland College Park. She received her Ph.D. in College Student Personnel Administration from the University of Maryland College Park, her M.Ed. in Counseling from Salem State University, and her B.A. from Gordon College.
Professor, University of Illinois College of Law
Robin Fretwell Wilson is the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
A scholar in family law, bioethics and law and religion, Professor Wilson has worked extensively on behalf of state and federal law reform efforts in each realm.
Across two decades, she has worked to secure laws protecting the autonomy of patients to decide when they will be used to teach intimate exams to medical students, laws now in place in 22 states—sixteen of which have been enacted since 2019.
Professor Wilson is known for bridging differences in the culture war. In 2015, she spent a month in residence with the Utah legislature, helping Utah state lawmakers to pass anti-discrimination legislation that balances religious liberty and LGBT rights. In 2019, Professor Wilson assisted the governor of Utah to craft regulations banning gay conversion therapy. In 2019, she also aided U.S. Representative Chris Stewart with portions of the “Fairness for All” he introduced in Congress. A member of the American Law Institute and a Fulbright Specialist, Professor Wilson has served as a consultant to the United Arab Emirates’ Judicial Department as they sought to create a parallel court system for the adjudication by expatriates of family law matters using the laws of their home country or of their faith traditions.
Professor Wilson is the author of 20 books, including her 2018 book, Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground, with Yale University Professor William Eskridge, Jr., which is now in paperback at Cambridge University Press. Her other books include: The Contested Place of Religion in Family Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018, ed.), Reconceiving the Family: Critical Reflections on the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution (Cambridge University Press, 2006, ed.); The Handbook of Children, Culture & Violence (Sage Publications, 2006, with Nancy Dowd and Dorothy Singer, eds.); Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, with Douglas Laycock and Anthony Picarello, eds.); Health Law and Bioethics: Cases in Context (Aspen, 2008, with Joan Krause, Sandra Johnson, and Richard Saver, eds.); Domestic Relations: Cases and Materials, 8th edition (Foundation Press, 2017, with Walter Wadlington and Raymond C. O’Brien); and Understanding Family Law, 4th edition (LexisNexis, 2013, with John DeWitt Gregory and Peter N. Swisher). Her articles have appeared in the Boston College Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Illinois Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, San Diego Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, and Washington and Lee Law Review, as well as in numerous peer-reviewed journals.
In 2010 and again in 2016, Professor Wilson was ranked among the Top Ten Family Law Scholars in the United States for scholarly impact. She ranks among the Top 10% of Authors in all time downloads on the Social Science Research Network. Professor Wilson’s scholarship has been cited by the Fifth, Seventh and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, lower federal courts, and the Supreme Courts of Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, and Washington.
Professor Wilson’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, U.S. News and World Report, ABA Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, Chicago Tribune, CNN Headline News, Good Morning America, ABC News, CBS News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence Magazine, The American Prospect, People Magazine, The American Conservative, The Australian, and Al Jazeera, among others. She has presented her research across the world, including the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile, China, Israel, Qatar, the Netherlands, Italy, England, Wales, Poland, Spain, Serbia, Japan, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, and France.
Professor Wilson has seven times been honored for her work on innovative laws that respect all persons. In 2007, she received the Citizen’s Legislative Award for her work on changing Virginia’s informed consent law. In 2018, Professor Wilson received the Thomas L. Kane Religious Freedom Award from the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, which is presented annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of religious liberty for all and who has contributed in significant ways to the defense of religious freedom in the public square.
In 2018, Professor Wilson was honored as one of the 150 for 150: Celebrating the Accomplishments of Women at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for its sesquicentennial celebration. In 2020, Professor Wilson received the 2020 Larine Y. Cowan Make a Difference Award for Advocacy for LGBTQ Affairs, a university-wide honor given by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Don Willett serves on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before joining the federal bench, he served 13 years on the Supreme Court of Texas. His career spans decades of public service, including roles as legal counsel to a Texas Attorney General, a Texas Governor, a U.S. Attorney General, and the President of the United States. Raised by a heroic, widowed mom in a town of 32 people, Judge Willett is his family’s first college graduate. He earned a triple-major B.B.A. from Baylor University (where he serves on the Board of Regents) and three degrees from Duke University (where he served on the Board of Visitors): a J.D. with honors, an M.A. in political science, and an LL.M. in judicial studies. After law school, he clerked on the Fifth Circuit and practiced at Haynes and Boone before entering public service. Judge Willett writes and speaks widely on law, judging, and civic life. He serves on the Advisory Board of the School of Civic Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin, was the longtime editor-in-chief of Judicature: The Scholarly Journal for Judges, teaches at various law schools, and publishes in leading law journals and the popular press. He has received more than a dozen Green Bag honors for “exemplary legal writing,” was named Distinguished Jurist of the Year by the Texas Review of Law & Politics and is a member of the American Law Institute and a Life Fellow of the American, Texas, and Austin Bar Foundations. A former rodeo bull rider and professional drummer, Judge Willett was named “Tweeter Laureate of Texas” in 2015. He is the namesake of Don R. Willett Elementary School—home of mighty Willett Wranglers—located barely a mile from where the Willett family doublewide once stood. He and his radiant wife, Tiffany have three children—Jacob, Shane-David, and Geneviève—plus the family pup, Amicus.
Partner and Executive Director, Christie 55 Solutions LLC
Rich Bagger is a Partner and Executive Director of Christie 55 Solutions, a New Jersey based consulting firm that provides strategic counsel to assist clients with business strategies and opportunities and with complex public policy and regulatory challenges at the state, federal and international levels. Rich is also an Adjunct Faculty member at Rutgers University and a member of the Board of Directors of Tonix Pharmaceuticals.
Prior to joining Christie 55 Solutions, Rich worked in the health sector for over 25 years, including as the senior most global Corporate Affairs executive for two major biopharmaceutical companies and as legal counsel for a large health plan. From 2012 through 2019, he was Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Market Access for Celgene Corporation, as well as a member of the company’s Executive Committee. During a 16-year career with Pfizer Inc, Rich served from 2006 to 2009 on Pfizer’s senior most management team as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Public Affairs and Policy. Prior to joining Pfizer, Rich was Assistant General Counsel of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey and before that practiced law with McCarter & English.
Rich has a record of public service that spans more than three decades. From 2012 until 2021, he served as a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and was Chair of the Gateway Program Development Corporation for 2017. For six months during 2016, Rich led pre-election transition planning as Executive Director of Trump for America. Rich served from 2010 to 2012 as Chief of Staff for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, responsible for managing implementation of the Governor’s policy agenda and priorities. He was also elected to serve five terms in the New Jersey General Assembly, where he chaired the Appropriations Committee and was elected by his colleagues as Majority Conference Leader. In 2001, Rich was elected to the New Jersey Senate and served there until 2003. Before his election to the Legislature, he was a Council Member and Mayor of Westfield, New Jersey.
Rich served as Board Chair of the National Pharmaceutical Council for 2019 and is a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he chaired the Global Innovation Policy Center from 2014 to 2018. He is also on the Board of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the Advisory Board for the Lerner Center for the Study of Pharmaceutical Management at Rutgers University Business School.
He received an A.B. degree from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs and a J.D. degree from Rutgers University Law School.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Michael B. Brennan was confirmed and sworn in as a Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in May 2018.
He previously worked as a partner in the Milwaukee law firm of Gass Weber Mullins LLC, where he tried cases and handled appeals in federal and state courts, as a judge on the Milwaukee County Circuit, where he presided over a variety of criminal and civil calendars, and as an assistant district attorney in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office.
Brennan’s undergraduate degree is from the University of Notre Dame, and his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was an editor on the law review and the moot court champion. He served as a law clerk on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Dean Emeritus and Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law & Economics, Columbia Law School
David Schizer is Dean Emeritus and Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law & Economics at Columbia Law School. He served as Dean from 2004 to 2014, and as CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a global Jewish humanitarian organization, from 2017 to 2019. He is the author of How to Save the World in Six (Not So Easy) Steps: Bringing Out the Best in Nonprofits. Schizer serves on the Board of Visitors of the Federalist Society. He is Second Vice Chair of the Tax Section of the New York State Bar Association, a co-founder and co-chair of the Richman Center for Law, Business, and Public Policy at Columbia University, and a co-founder and co-chair of the Center for Israeli Legal Studies at Columbia Law School. Schizer served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Alex Kozinski on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Executive Director, College Autism Network
Lee Burdette Williams has worked in higher education and student affairs for more than three decades and is now Executive Director of the College Autism Network, a nonprofit organization supporting the efforts of autistic college students and the institutions that serve them. She served previously as the Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and Dean of Students at the University of Connecticut.
Lee’s professional interests include student mental health, academic partnerships, learning communities and student culture. A particular interest is in the experiences of autistic students in student conduct processes. She has written extensively on these and other topics and is a frequent speaker and presenter on contemporary issues in higher education. Lee is the author of two books, Emerging Practices and Trends in Peer Education and Learning Communities in Student Affairs: Partnering for Powerful Learning. She is the director of the College Autism Summit, an annual conference that brings together professionals working to support college students with autism. Lee has taught in the student affairs graduate programs at the University of Vermont, the University of Connecticut, Appalachian State University, and the University of Maryland College Park. She received her Ph.D. in College Student Personnel Administration from the University of Maryland College Park, her M.Ed. in Counseling from Salem State University, and her B.A. from Gordon College.
Professor, University of Illinois College of Law
Robin Fretwell Wilson is the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
A scholar in family law, bioethics and law and religion, Professor Wilson has worked extensively on behalf of state and federal law reform efforts in each realm.
Across two decades, she has worked to secure laws protecting the autonomy of patients to decide when they will be used to teach intimate exams to medical students, laws now in place in 22 states—sixteen of which have been enacted since 2019.
Professor Wilson is known for bridging differences in the culture war. In 2015, she spent a month in residence with the Utah legislature, helping Utah state lawmakers to pass anti-discrimination legislation that balances religious liberty and LGBT rights. In 2019, Professor Wilson assisted the governor of Utah to craft regulations banning gay conversion therapy. In 2019, she also aided U.S. Representative Chris Stewart with portions of the “Fairness for All” he introduced in Congress. A member of the American Law Institute and a Fulbright Specialist, Professor Wilson has served as a consultant to the United Arab Emirates’ Judicial Department as they sought to create a parallel court system for the adjudication by expatriates of family law matters using the laws of their home country or of their faith traditions.
Professor Wilson is the author of 20 books, including her 2018 book, Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground, with Yale University Professor William Eskridge, Jr., which is now in paperback at Cambridge University Press. Her other books include: The Contested Place of Religion in Family Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018, ed.), Reconceiving the Family: Critical Reflections on the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution (Cambridge University Press, 2006, ed.); The Handbook of Children, Culture & Violence (Sage Publications, 2006, with Nancy Dowd and Dorothy Singer, eds.); Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, with Douglas Laycock and Anthony Picarello, eds.); Health Law and Bioethics: Cases in Context (Aspen, 2008, with Joan Krause, Sandra Johnson, and Richard Saver, eds.); Domestic Relations: Cases and Materials, 8th edition (Foundation Press, 2017, with Walter Wadlington and Raymond C. O’Brien); and Understanding Family Law, 4th edition (LexisNexis, 2013, with John DeWitt Gregory and Peter N. Swisher). Her articles have appeared in the Boston College Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Illinois Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, San Diego Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, and Washington and Lee Law Review, as well as in numerous peer-reviewed journals.
In 2010 and again in 2016, Professor Wilson was ranked among the Top Ten Family Law Scholars in the United States for scholarly impact. She ranks among the Top 10% of Authors in all time downloads on the Social Science Research Network. Professor Wilson’s scholarship has been cited by the Fifth, Seventh and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, lower federal courts, and the Supreme Courts of Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, and Washington.
Professor Wilson’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, U.S. News and World Report, ABA Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, Chicago Tribune, CNN Headline News, Good Morning America, ABC News, CBS News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence Magazine, The American Prospect, People Magazine, The American Conservative, The Australian, and Al Jazeera, among others. She has presented her research across the world, including the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile, China, Israel, Qatar, the Netherlands, Italy, England, Wales, Poland, Spain, Serbia, Japan, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, and France.
Professor Wilson has seven times been honored for her work on innovative laws that respect all persons. In 2007, she received the Citizen’s Legislative Award for her work on changing Virginia’s informed consent law. In 2018, Professor Wilson received the Thomas L. Kane Religious Freedom Award from the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, which is presented annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of religious liberty for all and who has contributed in significant ways to the defense of religious freedom in the public square.
In 2018, Professor Wilson was honored as one of the 150 for 150: Celebrating the Accomplishments of Women at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for its sesquicentennial celebration. In 2020, Professor Wilson received the 2020 Larine Y. Cowan Make a Difference Award for Advocacy for LGBTQ Affairs, a university-wide honor given by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Civil Rights in the Second Trump Administration: A Whole-of-Government Shift
Brittany Bull Panuccio, Kenneth L. Marcus, Craig Trainor, Devon Westhill
Shortly after retaking office, President Trump signed executive orders reorienting the federal government’s approach to...
Delaware and Texas: The Future of Corporate Law and Business Courts
CLE credit for this event is available at On-Demand CLE. The status quo shows signs of...
Delaware and Texas: The Future of Corporate Law and Business Courts
Corporations & Securities Practice Group
Washington, DCTopics
Using Public Accommodations Laws to Protect Religious Groups From Private Cancellation
A pioneering case charts how religious groups can harness the power of public accommodations laws...
The Miseducation of America's Elites: A Book Talk with Ilya Shapiro
Austin Lawyers Chapter
Austin, TXTopics
Attorneys General Clash Over What SFFA Decisions Mean For Employer DEI Programs
On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court issued its blockbuster opinions in two cases involving...
Annual Report 2021
Eugene B. Meyer
The Federalist Society has faced two especially serious challenges during the last two years. Along...
Showcase Panel III: Corporate and Academic Management Today
Michael B. Brennan, David M. Schizer, Lee Burdette Williams, Robin Fretwell Wilson, Richard Bagger
The 2021 National Lawyers Convention took place November 11-13, 2021 at the Mayflower Hotel in...
Showcase Panel III: Corporate and Academic Management Today
Richard Bagger, Michael B. Brennan, David M. Schizer, Lee Burdette Williams, Robin Fretwell Wilson
The 2021 National Lawyers Convention took place November 11-13, 2021 at the Mayflower Hotel in...
Showcase Panel III: Corporate and Academic Management Today
2021 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DC