Professor, Associate Dean for Faculty Research, Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law
José Joel Alicea is the inaugural St. Robert Bellarmine Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Faculty Research, and Director of the Law School’s Center for the Constitution and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at Duke Law School and Notre Dame Law School. Prior to joining the Catholic Law faculty, Professor Alicea practiced law for several years at the law firm of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, where he specialized in constitutional litigation. He previously served as a law clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., on the United States Supreme Court and for Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Professor Alicea’s scholarship has focused on constitutional theory. His scholarship has appeared, or is forthcoming, in the Yale Law Journal, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and the Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He has also been active in public debates about constitutional law, testifying before Congress and publishing essays in places like The New York Times, City Journal, and National Affairs.
Professor Alicea is a Fellow at the Columbus School of Law's Center for Religious Liberty and a Nonresident Fellow at The American Enterprise Institute. He is the recipient of several research and teaching awards, including the student-selected Professor of the Year teaching award.
David Lurton Massee, Jr., Professor of Law, Director, Immigration, Migration and Human Rights Program, The University of Virginia School of Law
Amanda Frost is the David Lurton Massee, Jr., Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Immigration, Migration and Human Rights Program at the University of Virginia School of Law. Professor Frost specializes in immigration and citizenship law, federal courts and jurisdiction, and judicial ethics. Professor Frost is the author of the book You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott and the Dreamers, which was shortlisted for the Mark Lynton History Prize and was named a "New & Noteworthy" book by the NY Times Book Review. Her scholarship has been cited by state and federal courts, and she has been invited to testify before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. She has published essays and op-eds in the New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Slate, USA Today, and The American Prospect.
E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Chair in Law, University of Richmond School of Law
Professor Kurt Lash teaches and writes about constitutional law. Founder and director of the Richmond Program on the American Constitution, Professor Lash has published widely on the subjects of constitutional law and constitutional history, including The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges or Immunities of American Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2014), The Lost History of the Ninth Amendment (Oxford University Press, 2009), and The American First Amendment in the Twenty-first Century: Cases and Materials(with William W. Van Alstyne) (5th ed., Foundation Press, 2014). An elected member of the American Law Institute, Professor Lash’s work has appeared in numerous legal journals including the Stanford Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Virginia Law Review, andNotre Dame Law Review. He has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University School of Law and is the former director of the University of Illinois College of Law Program in Constitutional Theory, History, and Law.
David Boies Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Professor, University of Minnesota Law School
Ilan Wurman is the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He previously taught at Arizona State University. He writes primarily on the Fourteenth Amendment, administrative law, separation of powers, and constitutionalism. His academic writing has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Minnesota Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Texas Law Review among other journals.
Professor Wurman is the author of the new book The Constitution of 1789: A New Introduction (Cambridge 2026). His previous books include A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017), and The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment (Cambridge 2020). He is also the author of the casebook, Administrative Law Theory and Fundamentals: An Integrated Approach (Foundation Press 3d ed. 2025).
Professor Wurman practices law with the firm Tully Bailey. He has litigated a variety of administrative law and constitutional law cases, including cases involving COVID-19 restrictions, transmission lines, and Appointments Clause challenges. He also devised winning public nuisance theories to force city governments to address the increasingly challenging public camping crises throughout the country.
Senior Fellow, Stand Together Trust
Vikrant Reddy is a senior fellow at Stand Together Trust, specializing in the area of criminal justice reform. Reddy previously served as a senior policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), where he managed the launch of TPPF’s national Right on Crime initiative in 2010. He has worked as a research assistant at the Cato Institute, as a judicial clerk to the Hon. Gina M. Benavides in Texas, and as an attorney in private practice. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, and he serves on the Executive Committee of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society. He is also an appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Texas State Advisory Committee.
Reddy’s research and scholarly opinions have appeared in a range of national media outlets, including USA Today, National Review, The Federalist, and others.
Reddy earned his law degree from the Southern Methodist University School of Law. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
Legal Director & General Counsel, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
Kent S. Scheidegger has been the Legal Director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation since December 1986. He also served as Chairman of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society 2003 to 2005. His articles on criminal and constitutional law have been published in law reviews, national legal publications, and congressional reports. Legal arguments authored by Mr. Scheidegger have been cited and incorporated in several precedent-setting United States Supreme Court decisions.
After receiving a degree in physics with honors from New Mexico State University in 1976, Mr. Scheidegger served for six years in the United States Air Force as a Nuclear Research Officer. He took his law degree with distinction from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1982 and practiced civil law in Northern California. He was general counsel of California Cooler, Inc. from 1984 until 1986, when he joined the Foundation.
Panel: Originalism, Birthright Citizenship and the 14th Amendment
J. Joel Alicea, Amanda Frost, Kurt T. Lash, Keith E. Whittington, Ilan Wurman
Prof. Amanda Frost, David Lurton Massee, Jr., Professor of Law, Director, Immigration, Migration and Human Rights...
Topics
The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA): A Proposal for Section 101 Reform
Patents currently operate under a two-tiered system. Some novel inventions are allowed the benefits of...
Two Views on Criminal Justice Reform: The Author and a Critic on Locked In
Vikrant P. Reddy, Kent Scheidegger
A Debate About: Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration—and How to Achieve Real...