Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Georgetown University
Thomas Farr, Ph.D. is cofounder of the Religious Freedom Institute (RFI), and served as its President from its founding until January 2023. RFI is a non-profit that works to advance religious freedom for everyone, both as a source of individual human dignity and flourishing, and as a source of political stability, economic development, and international security.
A leading authority on international religious freedom, Dr. Farr served for 28 years in the U.S. Army and the U.S. Foreign Service. In 1999 he became the first director of the State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom. He subsequently directed the Witherspoon Institute's International Religious Freedom (IRF) Task Force, was a member of the Chicago World Affairs Council’s Task Force on Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy, taught at the National Defense University, and served on the Secretary of State’s IRF working group.
From 2008 – 2018 Dr. Farr was Associate Professor of the Practice of Religion and World Affairs at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He also founded and directed the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown’s Berkley Center. Farr’s early work on religious freedom can be found here.
A Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina, Farr is a senior fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He serves as a consultant to the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference, and as a member of the advisory councils for the Human Rights Program at Catholic University, the international division of Alliance Defending Freedom, the Alexander Hamilton Society, and the National Museum of American Religion.
His many published works include World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty is Vital to American National Security (Oxford University Press, 2008), a book that has shaped U.S. religious freedom legislation and foreign policy. His later work can be found here.
Farr has been recognized for his contributions to religious freedom for all, as well as to U.S. policy, including the Defender of Religious Freedom Award, Religious Freedom Institute, 2024, the Edwin Meese III Originalism and Religious Liberty Award, Alliance Defending Freedom, 2024, the 15th Annual Religious Liberty Dinner International Award, June 1, 2017. a Lifetime Achievement Recognition, In Defense of Christians, September 2015, and the Jan Karski Wellspring of Freedom Award, Institute on Religion and Public Policy, 2003.
Attorney, Mobile County District Attorney’s Office
Of Counsel, Christian Legal Society's Center for Law & Religious Freedom
Kim Colby has worked for Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom since graduating from Harvard Law School in 1981. She has represented religious groups in several appellate cases, including two cases heard by the United States Supreme Court. She has filed numerous amicus briefs in federal and state courts. In 1984, she assisted in congressional passage of the Equal Access Act, 20 U.S.C. § 4071, et seq., which protects the right of secondary school students to meet for prayer and Bible study on campus. Ms. Colby has prepared several CLS publications addressing issues about religious expression in public schools, including released time programs, implementation of the Equal Access Act, and teachers’ religious expression.
Ms. Colby graduated summa cum laude from the University of Illinois with a major in American History and a particular interest in slavery in colonial North America.
William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law
William (Bill) Marshall joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2001 and serves as the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law. His teaching and research interests include the first amendment, presidential power, election law, federal jurisdiction, federal judicial selection, civil procedure, and media law. Marshall is the author of numerous book chapters, articles, and essays on free speech, separation of powers, the Establishment Clause, and the Free Exercise Clause. His work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Supreme Court Review, and the University of Chicago Law Review, among others.
Marshall received his law degree from the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Marshall was Deputy Counsel to the President and Deputy Assistant to the President during the Clinton Administration and also served as the Solicitor General for the State of Ohio. He has taught at the Northwestern, Boston University, Vanderbilt, Ohio State, DePaul, Case Western Reserve, William and Mary, and the University Connecticut law schools. Prior to beginning his teaching career, Marshall was a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Minnesota.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge O’Scannlain was appointed United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit by President Reagan on September 26, 1986. He received a J.D. degree in 1963 from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in 1957 from St. John’s University. He also earned the LL.M. (Judicial Process) degree at University of Virginia Law School in 1992. He was awarded the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Notre Dame in 2002, the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by Lewis & Clark College in 2003 and the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Portland in 2011.
As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judge O’Scannlain has participated in over 6,000 federal cases and has written hundreds of published opinions on a broad range of subjects including constitutional law, international law, securities law, administrative law, and criminal law. He hears appeals in San Francisco (court headquarters), as well as in Los Angeles (Pasadena), Portland, Seattle, Anchorage and Honolulu. The late Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge O'Scannlain to the Federal Judicial Center's Advisory Committee on Appellate Judge Education. In 2009, Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the International Judicial Relations Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference and subsequently appointed him Chairman in 2010.
President George W. Bush appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation in 2004. Pope Benedict XVI conferred the Order of Saint Gregory the Great on Judge and Mrs. O’Scannlain in 2007.
Judge O’Scannlain’s professional interests also include judicial administration and reform, and continuing legal education. Judge O’Scannlain is former Chair of the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association and has previously chaired the ABA’s Appellate Judges Conference, its Committee on Appellate Practice, and its 9th Appellate Practice Institute. He has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on several occasions, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, and the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals on the subject of court reorganization. In addition to serving as a faculty member at numerous federal appellate practice seminars for judges and attorneys, including New York University Law School’s Institute for Judicial Administration, Judge O’Scannlain is an Adjunct Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School where he teaches a seminar on the Supreme Court. He has served as a Moot Court Judge at distinguished law schools across the United States including Harvard, Yale Stanford, Boalt Hall (Berkeley Law), Virginia, Cornell, Notre Dame, Fordham, Alabama, University of Southern California, King Hall (U.C. Davis) and Loyola Marymount University and in China at Xiamen and Renmin Universities.
Between graduation from Harvard and investiture as a federal judge, Judge O’Scannlain was primarily engaged in private law practice. Between 1969 and 1974, he was consecutively the Deputy Attorney General of Oregon, the Public Utility Commissioner of Oregon, and Director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. He retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in 1978 as a Major after 23 years Reserve and National Guard service, including four years as an enlisted man.
A first generation Irish-American son of immigrant parents from Sligo and Derry, Judge O’Scannlain is married to the former Maura Nolan and has eight children: Sean, Jane, Brendan, Kevin, Megan, Christopher, Anne, and Kate, and nineteen grandchildren. His chambers are in the Pioneer Courthouse in Portland, Oregon.
Director of the Program in Human Rights, Catholic University of America
William L. Saunders is Chair Emeritus of the Religious Liberties Practice Group of the Federalist Society. He is also a religious liberty and human rights scholar as well as director of the Center for Human rights at The Catholic University of America. He is Law Fellow with the Institute for Human Ecology, Professor and Director of the Program in Human Rights in the School of Arts & Sciences and Co-director of the Center for Religious Liberty at the Columbus School of Law. Before joining The Catholic University of America, Mr. Saunders served as Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel with Americans United for Life for ten years. From 1999 to 2009, he was Senior Fellow in Bioethics and Human Rights Counsel at the Family Research Council.
Mr. Saunders attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a Morehead scholarship. He obtained his degree in law from the Harvard Law School.
Mr. Saunders was featured in Harvard’s first Guide to Conservative Public Interest Law in 2003 and again in the 2008 edition. He served on Harvard’s Advisory Committee for its 2008 celebration of public interest law. A member of the Supreme Court bar, he has authored numerous legal briefs in state, federal, foreign, and international courts.
Mr. Saunders’ book, Unborn Human Life and Fundamental Rights: Leading Constitutional Cases Under Scrutiny, was published in 2019. His articles and book chapters have been published by the university presses of Harvard, Villanova, Brigham Young, Fordham, Georgetown, Houston, Scranton, and the Catholic University of America, as well as by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Freedom House, Greenhaven Press, Rowan & Littlefield, Praeger, St. Augustine’s, and Intervarsity press. He has given lectures and participated in debates at many colleges, universities, and law schools, including Princeton, Harvard, Georgetown, and Notre Dame. He delivered the annual J. Michael Miller Lecture at the University of St. Thomas (on international law) in February 2007, the annual R. Wayne Kraft Memorial Lecture (on bioethics) at DeSales University in February 2004 and the annual James Moore Lecture (on human rights violations in Sudan) at Millikin University in 1999. He has also lectured, and/or has been published, in many foreign countries, including Italy, Germany, Poland, Austria, Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Mexico, Qatar, Malaysia, Romania, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom.
In addition to speaking and writing frequently on bioethics topics, Mr. Saunders has submitted testimony to the President’s Council on Bioethics, as well as to UNESCO’s Committee on Bioethics, and has briefed Congressional staff and state legislatures. He is a regular columnist for the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly.
Mr. Saunders has appeared often in the media, including BBC World News, CNN, Fox News, Vatican Radio, and National Public Radio. His articles on issues have appeared in a variety of journals, such as First Things, Human Events, Human Life Review, The Legal Times, Communio, The Family in America: A Journal of Public Policy, Ethics & Medics, and Touchstone.
Mr. Saunders served on the official United States delegation to the UN Special Session on Children in 2001/02. In 2011, he was a speaker at an official briefing at the UN, addressing the topic, why euthanasia is not a human right.
In 2004, he served on the NGO Working Committee in connection with the Doha Intergovernmental Conference for the Family.
Mr. Saunders is Senior Fellow with the Religious Freedom Institute, and Affiliated Scholar with the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Ethics at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He is President of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars and a member of the boards of the International Association of Catholic Bioethicists, the International Right to Life Federation, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, and the Society of Catholic Social Scientists.
In 1999, Mr. Saunders founded Sudan Relief and Rescue, Inc., to aid the persecuted church in Sudan. He has worked for and written on behalf of the persecuted church for many years.
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.
Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Timothy P. Carney is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he works on economic competition, cronyism, civil society, localism, and religion in America. He is concurrently the commentary editor at the Washington Examiner.
Mr. Carney’s latest book, “Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse” (HarperCollins), was published in February 2019. His previous books include “Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses” (Regnery Publishing, 2009) and “The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money” (John Wiley & Sons, 2006), which was awarded the 2008 Culture of Enterprise award by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
In addition to his Washington Examiner columns, Mr. Carney’s work has been published in a variety of magazines, websites, and newspapers, including The Atlantic, New York Post, The New York Times, Reason Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. His television appearances include CNBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and the “PBS NewsHour.”
Mr. Carney has a bachelor’s degree from St. John’s College in Annapolis.
The University of Louisville School of Law
Executive General Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Hiram Sasser is Executive General Counsel for First Liberty Institute, where he oversees First Liberty’s litigation and media efforts. Sasser’s practice focuses on First Amendment and other constitutional and civil rights issues relating to religious liberty. Sasser served as co-counsel in seven victories before the United States Supreme Court, including Groff v. DeJoy (landmark case overturning the “de minimis cost” test for Title VII in place almost 50 years), Kennedy v. Bremerton (landmark case overturning 50 years of Establishment Clause precedent), Carson v. Makin (overturning 40 years of Maine’s discrimination against parents choosing faith-based schools), American Legion v. American Humanist Association (landmark case ending Establishment Clause attacks on veterans’ memorials with religious imagery), Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (granted, vacated, and remanded (twice) in religious wedding service case), and Sause v. Bauer (summary reversal revoking qualified immunity for police who ordered a citizen not to pray in her own home).
In addition to his legal duties, Sasser develops, coordinates, and implements successful media strategies on behalf of his clients. This includes numerous appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNN, and the BBC as well as being heard on various radio stations throughout the United States, Asia, Africa, and Europe.
In 2016, Sasser took a leave of absence to serve a temporary assignment as the Chief of Staff for the Attorney General of Texas. He currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at both The University of Texas at Austin School of Law (teaching Religious Liberty) and Oklahoma City University School of Law (teaching Civil Rights Procedure).
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Former Managing Director, BlackRock Inc.
Joanne Medero was until July 2020 a Managing Director at BlackRock where she was member of their Global Public Policy Group and a Senior Advisor to the Vice Chairman on the intersection of public policy and corporate governance. In June 2021, Ms. Medero was appointed a director/trustee of the Nuveen Funds.
Ms. Medero's service with BlackRock dates back to 1996, including her years with Barclays Global Investors (BGI), which merged with BlackRock in 2009. She joined BGI as its Global General Counsel in 1996 and after more than ten years in that role, became the global head of Government Relations and Public Policy for Barclays’ investment banking and investment management businesses. Prior to joining BGI, Ms. Medero was a partner with Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe specializing in derivatives and market regulation issues. Ms. Medero also served as general counsel of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (1989-1993) and as an associate director for legal and financial affairs at the Office of Presidential Personnel, The White House (1986-1989).
Ms. Medero is a graduate of St. Lawrence University and received her JD from George Washington University.
Chief Legal Officer, First Liberty Institute
Jeff Mateer is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer of First Liberty Institute, where he serves as a member of the executive leadership team and oversees First Liberty’s operations, including its legal, media/communications, external affairs, marketing, and administrative teams, and First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture and Democracy.
Jeff rejoined First Liberty Institute in October 2020 after serving as First Assistant Attorney General of Texas. As First Assistant Attorney General from March 2016 through October 2020, Jeff oversaw all operations of the Texas Attorney’s General Office, which included over 30,000 active cases, almost 800 attorneys and 4,200 employees, and a bi-annual budget of over $1.1 billion.
Prior to joining the Texas Attorney General’s office, Jeff served as General Counsel of First Liberty Institute from February 2010 to March 2016. Jeff was in private litigation practice from 1990 to 2010 at a large Dallas law firm and litigation boutique firms.
During his thirty-year legal career, Jeff has represented clients ranging from large international organizations to local businesses, schools, ministries, churches and individuals in complex federal and state court actions involving religious liberty, civil rights, employment, intellectual property and business matters. In private practice, his clients included the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Citigroup, CNA, ConAgra Foods, former officers and directors of EDS, Ford Motor Company, Pilgrim’s Pride and PNC Bank. He has tried numerous jury and bench trials in both federal and state courts, and has successfully argued before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Texas appellate courts.
In addition to having received an A-V rating by Martindale-Hubbell, Jeff has been honored as a Texas Rising Star and Texas Super Lawyer. He received his undergraduate education at Dickinson College, where he graduated with honors in 1987, and his legal education at Southern Methodist University, where he graduated with honors in 1990. While in law school, he served as an editor of the law review. He is licensed to practice law by the state of Texas and is admitted to practice before all Texas State and Federal District Courts, the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.
Professor Emeritus, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University
In memoriam
Dr. John Baker is Professor Emeritus of Law, and previously the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law, at Louisiana State University Law School. He is currently Visiting Professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law (via Zoom) and has been Visiting Professor at The Center for the Constitution, Georgetown Law School (2013-2020). He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Oriel College, the University of Oxford (2012-2014) and taught at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford in 2014. Dr. Baker has also been an adjunct Fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Spring, 2008) and a Distinguished Scholar at the Catholic University of America Law School (2011-12). He has taught at Tulane Law School, George Mason Law School, Pepperdine Law School, New York Law School, Hong Kong University, and the University of Dallas, School of Management and also taught and/or lectured in 17 foreign countries. Notable among his foreign visits are the
following: Visiting Professor at the University of Lyon III (France) (1999-2011); Visiting Professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Chile (2012), as a Fulbright Specialist (2006); and a Fulbright Scholar at various universities in the Philippines. Dr. Baker received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Michigan Law School and his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Dallas. He also earned a Ph.D. in Political Thought from the University of London. Baker has taught over a dozen different subjects, mostly courses in public law. His main areas of interest are Constitutional Law (particularly federalism and separation of powers), Criminal Law, Anti-Terrorism Law, International Law, Health Care Law, Mediation, and Comparative Law.
In addition to law review articles and book chapters, Dr. Baker’s academic publications include Hall's Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (with Benson, Force and George; 5th ed. Michie, 1993); An Introduction to the Law of the United States (ed. with Levasseur; University Press of America, 1992). He has also published on Forbes.com, FoxNews.com, in The Washington Times, and a number of times in The Wall Street Journal. He argues in federal court, including two oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court. For many years, he co-taught courses for the Federalist Society on separation of powers with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In September 2016, he co-taught a Supreme Court seminar in China with Justice Samuel Alito. Following law school, he served as a law clerk in federal district court and as an assistant district attorney in New Orleans before joining LSU in 1975. While a professor, he has been as a consultant to USAID, USIA (since rolled into the State Department), the Justice Department, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, and the Office of Planning in the White House. He served on an ABA Task Force which issued the report, The Federalization of Crime (1998) and later as a consultant to the “Bi-Partisan Task Force on the Over- federalization of Crime” (2012-2014) created by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. Dr. Baker was a co-founder of the first iteration (1995) of Stratfor Inc., a global intelligence agency. He co-authored its first book: The Intelligence Edge (with Friedman, Friedman and Chapman; Crown Books/Random House 1997). In 2022, he began a short, weekly video podcast available on YouTube and Rumble, The Baker Brief.
Of Counsel, Christian Legal Society's Center for Law & Religious Freedom
Kim Colby has worked for Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom since graduating from Harvard Law School in 1981. She has represented religious groups in several appellate cases, including two cases heard by the United States Supreme Court. She has filed numerous amicus briefs in federal and state courts. In 1984, she assisted in congressional passage of the Equal Access Act, 20 U.S.C. § 4071, et seq., which protects the right of secondary school students to meet for prayer and Bible study on campus. Ms. Colby has prepared several CLS publications addressing issues about religious expression in public schools, including released time programs, implementation of the Equal Access Act, and teachers’ religious expression.
Ms. Colby graduated summa cum laude from the University of Illinois with a major in American History and a particular interest in slavery in colonial North America.
William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law
William (Bill) Marshall joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2001 and serves as the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law. His teaching and research interests include the first amendment, presidential power, election law, federal jurisdiction, federal judicial selection, civil procedure, and media law. Marshall is the author of numerous book chapters, articles, and essays on free speech, separation of powers, the Establishment Clause, and the Free Exercise Clause. His work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Supreme Court Review, and the University of Chicago Law Review, among others.
Marshall received his law degree from the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Marshall was Deputy Counsel to the President and Deputy Assistant to the President during the Clinton Administration and also served as the Solicitor General for the State of Ohio. He has taught at the Northwestern, Boston University, Vanderbilt, Ohio State, DePaul, Case Western Reserve, William and Mary, and the University Connecticut law schools. Prior to beginning his teaching career, Marshall was a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Minnesota.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge O’Scannlain was appointed United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit by President Reagan on September 26, 1986. He received a J.D. degree in 1963 from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in 1957 from St. John’s University. He also earned the LL.M. (Judicial Process) degree at University of Virginia Law School in 1992. He was awarded the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Notre Dame in 2002, the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by Lewis & Clark College in 2003 and the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Portland in 2011.
As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judge O’Scannlain has participated in over 6,000 federal cases and has written hundreds of published opinions on a broad range of subjects including constitutional law, international law, securities law, administrative law, and criminal law. He hears appeals in San Francisco (court headquarters), as well as in Los Angeles (Pasadena), Portland, Seattle, Anchorage and Honolulu. The late Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge O'Scannlain to the Federal Judicial Center's Advisory Committee on Appellate Judge Education. In 2009, Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the International Judicial Relations Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference and subsequently appointed him Chairman in 2010.
President George W. Bush appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation in 2004. Pope Benedict XVI conferred the Order of Saint Gregory the Great on Judge and Mrs. O’Scannlain in 2007.
Judge O’Scannlain’s professional interests also include judicial administration and reform, and continuing legal education. Judge O’Scannlain is former Chair of the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association and has previously chaired the ABA’s Appellate Judges Conference, its Committee on Appellate Practice, and its 9th Appellate Practice Institute. He has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on several occasions, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, and the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals on the subject of court reorganization. In addition to serving as a faculty member at numerous federal appellate practice seminars for judges and attorneys, including New York University Law School’s Institute for Judicial Administration, Judge O’Scannlain is an Adjunct Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School where he teaches a seminar on the Supreme Court. He has served as a Moot Court Judge at distinguished law schools across the United States including Harvard, Yale Stanford, Boalt Hall (Berkeley Law), Virginia, Cornell, Notre Dame, Fordham, Alabama, University of Southern California, King Hall (U.C. Davis) and Loyola Marymount University and in China at Xiamen and Renmin Universities.
Between graduation from Harvard and investiture as a federal judge, Judge O’Scannlain was primarily engaged in private law practice. Between 1969 and 1974, he was consecutively the Deputy Attorney General of Oregon, the Public Utility Commissioner of Oregon, and Director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. He retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in 1978 as a Major after 23 years Reserve and National Guard service, including four years as an enlisted man.
A first generation Irish-American son of immigrant parents from Sligo and Derry, Judge O’Scannlain is married to the former Maura Nolan and has eight children: Sean, Jane, Brendan, Kevin, Megan, Christopher, Anne, and Kate, and nineteen grandchildren. His chambers are in the Pioneer Courthouse in Portland, Oregon.
Director of the Program in Human Rights, Catholic University of America
William L. Saunders is Chair Emeritus of the Religious Liberties Practice Group of the Federalist Society. He is also a religious liberty and human rights scholar as well as director of the Center for Human rights at The Catholic University of America. He is Law Fellow with the Institute for Human Ecology, Professor and Director of the Program in Human Rights in the School of Arts & Sciences and Co-director of the Center for Religious Liberty at the Columbus School of Law. Before joining The Catholic University of America, Mr. Saunders served as Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel with Americans United for Life for ten years. From 1999 to 2009, he was Senior Fellow in Bioethics and Human Rights Counsel at the Family Research Council.
Mr. Saunders attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a Morehead scholarship. He obtained his degree in law from the Harvard Law School.
Mr. Saunders was featured in Harvard’s first Guide to Conservative Public Interest Law in 2003 and again in the 2008 edition. He served on Harvard’s Advisory Committee for its 2008 celebration of public interest law. A member of the Supreme Court bar, he has authored numerous legal briefs in state, federal, foreign, and international courts.
Mr. Saunders’ book, Unborn Human Life and Fundamental Rights: Leading Constitutional Cases Under Scrutiny, was published in 2019. His articles and book chapters have been published by the university presses of Harvard, Villanova, Brigham Young, Fordham, Georgetown, Houston, Scranton, and the Catholic University of America, as well as by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Freedom House, Greenhaven Press, Rowan & Littlefield, Praeger, St. Augustine’s, and Intervarsity press. He has given lectures and participated in debates at many colleges, universities, and law schools, including Princeton, Harvard, Georgetown, and Notre Dame. He delivered the annual J. Michael Miller Lecture at the University of St. Thomas (on international law) in February 2007, the annual R. Wayne Kraft Memorial Lecture (on bioethics) at DeSales University in February 2004 and the annual James Moore Lecture (on human rights violations in Sudan) at Millikin University in 1999. He has also lectured, and/or has been published, in many foreign countries, including Italy, Germany, Poland, Austria, Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Mexico, Qatar, Malaysia, Romania, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom.
In addition to speaking and writing frequently on bioethics topics, Mr. Saunders has submitted testimony to the President’s Council on Bioethics, as well as to UNESCO’s Committee on Bioethics, and has briefed Congressional staff and state legislatures. He is a regular columnist for the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly.
Mr. Saunders has appeared often in the media, including BBC World News, CNN, Fox News, Vatican Radio, and National Public Radio. His articles on issues have appeared in a variety of journals, such as First Things, Human Events, Human Life Review, The Legal Times, Communio, The Family in America: A Journal of Public Policy, Ethics & Medics, and Touchstone.
Mr. Saunders served on the official United States delegation to the UN Special Session on Children in 2001/02. In 2011, he was a speaker at an official briefing at the UN, addressing the topic, why euthanasia is not a human right.
In 2004, he served on the NGO Working Committee in connection with the Doha Intergovernmental Conference for the Family.
Mr. Saunders is Senior Fellow with the Religious Freedom Institute, and Affiliated Scholar with the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Ethics at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He is President of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars and a member of the boards of the International Association of Catholic Bioethicists, the International Right to Life Federation, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, and the Society of Catholic Social Scientists.
In 1999, Mr. Saunders founded Sudan Relief and Rescue, Inc., to aid the persecuted church in Sudan. He has worked for and written on behalf of the persecuted church for many years.
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.
Of Counsel, Christian Legal Society's Center for Law & Religious Freedom
Kim Colby has worked for Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom since graduating from Harvard Law School in 1981. She has represented religious groups in several appellate cases, including two cases heard by the United States Supreme Court. She has filed numerous amicus briefs in federal and state courts. In 1984, she assisted in congressional passage of the Equal Access Act, 20 U.S.C. § 4071, et seq., which protects the right of secondary school students to meet for prayer and Bible study on campus. Ms. Colby has prepared several CLS publications addressing issues about religious expression in public schools, including released time programs, implementation of the Equal Access Act, and teachers’ religious expression.
Ms. Colby graduated summa cum laude from the University of Illinois with a major in American History and a particular interest in slavery in colonial North America.
William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law
William (Bill) Marshall joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2001 and serves as the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law. His teaching and research interests include the first amendment, presidential power, election law, federal jurisdiction, federal judicial selection, civil procedure, and media law. Marshall is the author of numerous book chapters, articles, and essays on free speech, separation of powers, the Establishment Clause, and the Free Exercise Clause. His work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Supreme Court Review, and the University of Chicago Law Review, among others.
Marshall received his law degree from the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Marshall was Deputy Counsel to the President and Deputy Assistant to the President during the Clinton Administration and also served as the Solicitor General for the State of Ohio. He has taught at the Northwestern, Boston University, Vanderbilt, Ohio State, DePaul, Case Western Reserve, William and Mary, and the University Connecticut law schools. Prior to beginning his teaching career, Marshall was a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Minnesota.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge O’Scannlain was appointed United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit by President Reagan on September 26, 1986. He received a J.D. degree in 1963 from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in 1957 from St. John’s University. He also earned the LL.M. (Judicial Process) degree at University of Virginia Law School in 1992. He was awarded the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Notre Dame in 2002, the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by Lewis & Clark College in 2003 and the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Portland in 2011.
As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judge O’Scannlain has participated in over 6,000 federal cases and has written hundreds of published opinions on a broad range of subjects including constitutional law, international law, securities law, administrative law, and criminal law. He hears appeals in San Francisco (court headquarters), as well as in Los Angeles (Pasadena), Portland, Seattle, Anchorage and Honolulu. The late Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge O'Scannlain to the Federal Judicial Center's Advisory Committee on Appellate Judge Education. In 2009, Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the International Judicial Relations Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference and subsequently appointed him Chairman in 2010.
President George W. Bush appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation in 2004. Pope Benedict XVI conferred the Order of Saint Gregory the Great on Judge and Mrs. O’Scannlain in 2007.
Judge O’Scannlain’s professional interests also include judicial administration and reform, and continuing legal education. Judge O’Scannlain is former Chair of the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association and has previously chaired the ABA’s Appellate Judges Conference, its Committee on Appellate Practice, and its 9th Appellate Practice Institute. He has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on several occasions, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, and the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals on the subject of court reorganization. In addition to serving as a faculty member at numerous federal appellate practice seminars for judges and attorneys, including New York University Law School’s Institute for Judicial Administration, Judge O’Scannlain is an Adjunct Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School where he teaches a seminar on the Supreme Court. He has served as a Moot Court Judge at distinguished law schools across the United States including Harvard, Yale Stanford, Boalt Hall (Berkeley Law), Virginia, Cornell, Notre Dame, Fordham, Alabama, University of Southern California, King Hall (U.C. Davis) and Loyola Marymount University and in China at Xiamen and Renmin Universities.
Between graduation from Harvard and investiture as a federal judge, Judge O’Scannlain was primarily engaged in private law practice. Between 1969 and 1974, he was consecutively the Deputy Attorney General of Oregon, the Public Utility Commissioner of Oregon, and Director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. He retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in 1978 as a Major after 23 years Reserve and National Guard service, including four years as an enlisted man.
A first generation Irish-American son of immigrant parents from Sligo and Derry, Judge O’Scannlain is married to the former Maura Nolan and has eight children: Sean, Jane, Brendan, Kevin, Megan, Christopher, Anne, and Kate, and nineteen grandchildren. His chambers are in the Pioneer Courthouse in Portland, Oregon.
Director of the Program in Human Rights, Catholic University of America
William L. Saunders is Chair Emeritus of the Religious Liberties Practice Group of the Federalist Society. He is also a religious liberty and human rights scholar as well as director of the Center for Human rights at The Catholic University of America. He is Law Fellow with the Institute for Human Ecology, Professor and Director of the Program in Human Rights in the School of Arts & Sciences and Co-director of the Center for Religious Liberty at the Columbus School of Law. Before joining The Catholic University of America, Mr. Saunders served as Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel with Americans United for Life for ten years. From 1999 to 2009, he was Senior Fellow in Bioethics and Human Rights Counsel at the Family Research Council.
Mr. Saunders attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a Morehead scholarship. He obtained his degree in law from the Harvard Law School.
Mr. Saunders was featured in Harvard’s first Guide to Conservative Public Interest Law in 2003 and again in the 2008 edition. He served on Harvard’s Advisory Committee for its 2008 celebration of public interest law. A member of the Supreme Court bar, he has authored numerous legal briefs in state, federal, foreign, and international courts.
Mr. Saunders’ book, Unborn Human Life and Fundamental Rights: Leading Constitutional Cases Under Scrutiny, was published in 2019. His articles and book chapters have been published by the university presses of Harvard, Villanova, Brigham Young, Fordham, Georgetown, Houston, Scranton, and the Catholic University of America, as well as by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Freedom House, Greenhaven Press, Rowan & Littlefield, Praeger, St. Augustine’s, and Intervarsity press. He has given lectures and participated in debates at many colleges, universities, and law schools, including Princeton, Harvard, Georgetown, and Notre Dame. He delivered the annual J. Michael Miller Lecture at the University of St. Thomas (on international law) in February 2007, the annual R. Wayne Kraft Memorial Lecture (on bioethics) at DeSales University in February 2004 and the annual James Moore Lecture (on human rights violations in Sudan) at Millikin University in 1999. He has also lectured, and/or has been published, in many foreign countries, including Italy, Germany, Poland, Austria, Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Mexico, Qatar, Malaysia, Romania, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom.
In addition to speaking and writing frequently on bioethics topics, Mr. Saunders has submitted testimony to the President’s Council on Bioethics, as well as to UNESCO’s Committee on Bioethics, and has briefed Congressional staff and state legislatures. He is a regular columnist for the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly.
Mr. Saunders has appeared often in the media, including BBC World News, CNN, Fox News, Vatican Radio, and National Public Radio. His articles on issues have appeared in a variety of journals, such as First Things, Human Events, Human Life Review, The Legal Times, Communio, The Family in America: A Journal of Public Policy, Ethics & Medics, and Touchstone.
Mr. Saunders served on the official United States delegation to the UN Special Session on Children in 2001/02. In 2011, he was a speaker at an official briefing at the UN, addressing the topic, why euthanasia is not a human right.
In 2004, he served on the NGO Working Committee in connection with the Doha Intergovernmental Conference for the Family.
Mr. Saunders is Senior Fellow with the Religious Freedom Institute, and Affiliated Scholar with the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Ethics at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He is President of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars and a member of the boards of the International Association of Catholic Bioethicists, the International Right to Life Federation, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, and the Society of Catholic Social Scientists.
In 1999, Mr. Saunders founded Sudan Relief and Rescue, Inc., to aid the persecuted church in Sudan. He has worked for and written on behalf of the persecuted church for many years.
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.
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