Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm's Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Senior Fellow-in-Residence, Milken Institute
Ed DeMarco is a Senior Fellow in Residence at the Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets and a Visiting Professor in the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. He is a member of the Comptroller General’s Advisory Board for the U.S. Government Accountability Office and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
From September 2009 to January 2014 DeMarco served as Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and regulator of those companies and the Federal Home Loan Banks. DeMarco was the Chief Operating Officer and Senior Deputy Director of FHFA and its predecessor from 2006 to 2009. From 2003 to 2006 he was an executive at the Social Security Administration (SSA), where he was Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Policy.
Before joining SSA, DeMarco was Director of the Office of Financial Institutions Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he oversaw analyses of policy issues involving banks, government sponsored enterprises and other financial institutions. He worked at the U.S. General Accounting Office from 1986 to 1994.
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Paul H. Kupiec is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies systemic risk and the management and regulations of banks and financial markets. He also follows the work of financial regulators such as the Federal Reserve and examines the impact of financial regulations on the US economy.
Before joining AEI, Kupiec was an associate director of the Division of Insurance and Research within the Center for Financial Research at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), where he oversaw research on bank risk measurement and the development of regulatory policies such as Basel III. Kupiec was also director of the Center for Financial Research at the FDIC and chairman of the Research Task Force of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. He has previously worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Freddie Mac, J.P. Morgan, and for the Division of Research and Statistics at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Kupiec has edited many professional journals, including the Journal of Financial Services Research, Journal of Risk, and Journal of Investment Management.
He has a bachelor of science degree in economics from George Washington University and a doctorate in economics — with a specialization in finance, theory, and econometrics — from the University of Pennsylvania.
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm's Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Senior Fellow-in-Residence, Milken Institute
Ed DeMarco is a Senior Fellow in Residence at the Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets and a Visiting Professor in the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. He is a member of the Comptroller General’s Advisory Board for the U.S. Government Accountability Office and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
From September 2009 to January 2014 DeMarco served as Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and regulator of those companies and the Federal Home Loan Banks. DeMarco was the Chief Operating Officer and Senior Deputy Director of FHFA and its predecessor from 2006 to 2009. From 2003 to 2006 he was an executive at the Social Security Administration (SSA), where he was Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Policy.
Before joining SSA, DeMarco was Director of the Office of Financial Institutions Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he oversaw analyses of policy issues involving banks, government sponsored enterprises and other financial institutions. He worked at the U.S. General Accounting Office from 1986 to 1994.
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Paul H. Kupiec is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies systemic risk and the management and regulations of banks and financial markets. He also follows the work of financial regulators such as the Federal Reserve and examines the impact of financial regulations on the US economy.
Before joining AEI, Kupiec was an associate director of the Division of Insurance and Research within the Center for Financial Research at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), where he oversaw research on bank risk measurement and the development of regulatory policies such as Basel III. Kupiec was also director of the Center for Financial Research at the FDIC and chairman of the Research Task Force of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. He has previously worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Freddie Mac, J.P. Morgan, and for the Division of Research and Statistics at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Kupiec has edited many professional journals, including the Journal of Financial Services Research, Journal of Risk, and Journal of Investment Management.
He has a bachelor of science degree in economics from George Washington University and a doctorate in economics — with a specialization in finance, theory, and econometrics — from the University of Pennsylvania.
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office for Civil Rights, United States Department of Education
Seth Galanter serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the Department of Education.
Seth started his career at the Department of Justice, where he worked in the Civil Rights Division. During his 8 years there, he argued over 40 cases in the courts of appeals on a range of topics, including sexual harassment under Title IX.
Seth later moved into private practice at Morrison and Foerster, where he was in the Appellate Practice Group. During his time there, Seth argued two cases in the Supreme Court. Seth was also named Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year during this time by the Washington DC Bar for his work regarding people with disabilities.
Seth joined the Department of Education in 2011.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law (Retired)
Gail Heriot is a recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego. She also served as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2007 to 2025. She is also the chairman of the board of the American Civil Rights Project and the chair emerita of the Civil Rights practice group at the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy.
Professor Heriot is a prolific writer in the area of civil rights. She is the author of many law review articles. She is also the editor (along with Maimon Schwarzschild) of the 2021 anthology, A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education. Her upcoming book is entitled, Why We Walk on Eggshell: How Our Civil Rights Laws Helped Bring About the Woke Era—And the Trump Era, Too.
Her writings for a general audience have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the National Review and many other newspapers and magazines.
In 1996, she co-chaired the successful “Yes on Proposition 209” campaign, which amended the California Constitution to prohibit state-sponsored discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. In 2020, she co-chaired the “No on Proposition 16” campaign, which successfully prevented Proposition 209’s repeal.
Senior Counsel & Director of Education Policy for At-Risk Studen, National Women's Law Center
Lara S. Kaufmann is Senior Counsel and Director for Education Policy for At-Risk Students. She works on the advancement of women and girls at school and in the workplace. Lara engages in litigation, advocacy, and public education, with a particular focus on improving educational outcomes for at-risk girls, including pregnant and parenting students. Lara co-authored the Center’s 2012 report, A Pregnancy Test for Schools: The Impact of Education Laws on Pregnant and Parenting Students, as well as its 2009 report, Listening to Latinas: Barriers to High School Graduation. Before joining the Center, Lara was a Staff Attorney with the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, and prior to that she was an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago. Lara also worked with the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery, and was law clerk to then-Chief Judge Marvin Aspen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Lara is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Northwestern University School of Law.
President and CEO, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)
Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, New York Times best-selling author, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, and FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus. Most recently, he co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure with Jonathan Haidt. This New York Times best-seller expands on their September 2015 Atlantic cover story of the same name. Greg is also an Executive Producer of Can We Take a Joke? (2015), a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture, both on and off campus, and of Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story (2020), a feature-length film about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser.
Greg has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and numerous other publications. He frequently appears on TV shows and radio programs, including the CBS Evening News, The Today Show, and NPR’s Morning Edition. In 2008, he became the first-ever recipient of the Playboy Foundation’s Freedom of Expression Award, and he has testified before both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives about free speech issues on America’s college campuses.
Thomas W. Smith Fellow; Contributing Editor, City Journal, Manhattan Institute
Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a New York Times bestselling author. She is a recipient of the 2005 Bradley Prize. Mac Donald’s work at City Journal has covered a range of topics, including higher education, immigration, policing, homelessness and homeless advocacy, criminal-justice reform, and race relations. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, and The New Criterion. Mac Donald's newest book, The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture (2018), argues that toxic ideas first spread by higher education have undermined humanistic values, fueled intolerance, and widened divisions in our larger culture.
Mac Donald’s The War on Cops (2016), a New York Times bestseller, warns that raced-based attacks on the criminal-justice system, from the White House on down, are eroding the authority of law and putting lives at risk. Other previous works include The Burden of Bad Ideas (2001), a collection of Mac Donald’s City Journal essays, details the effects of the 1960s counterculture’s destructive march through America’s institutions. In The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan than Today’s (2007), coauthored with Victor Davis Hanson and Steven Malanga, she chronicles the effects of broken immigration laws and proposes a practical solution to securing the country’s porous borders. In Are Cops Racist? (2010), another City Journal anthology, Mac Donald investigates the workings of the police, the controversy over so-called racial profiling, and the anti-profiling lobby’s harmful effects on black Americans.
A nonpracticing lawyer, Mac Donald clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and was an attorney-advisor in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a volunteer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. She has frequently testified before U.S. House and Senate Committees. In 1998, Mac Donald was appointed to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s task force on the City University of New York. She has received numerous awards for her writing:
A frequent guest on Fox News and other TV and radio programs, Mac Donald holds a B.A. in English from Yale University, graduating with a Mellon Fellowship to Cambridge University, where she earned an M.A. in English and studied in Italy through a Clare College study grant. She holds a J.D. from Stanford University Law School.
At the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation's 2018 annual meeting in downtown Los Angeles, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions called Mac Donald, “the greatest thinker on criminal justice in America today.”
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Judge Sykes was nominated to the Seventh Circuit by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2004. Prior to her appointment to the federal bench, Judge Sykes served as a justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Governor Tommy G. Thompson appointed her in September 1999 to fill a mid-term vacancy on the state supreme court, and she was elected to a full ten-year term in April 2000. From 1992-1999, Judge Sykes served on the state trial bench in Milwaukee County (elected in 1992 and re-elected in 1998). From 1985-1992, Judge Sykes practiced law with the Milwaukee firm of Whyte & Hirschboeck, S.C., and from 1984-1985, was a law clerk to Federal Judge Terence T. Evans.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee area, Judge Sykes earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1980 and a law degree from Marquette University Law School in 1984. Between college and law school, Judge Sykes worked as a reporter for The Milwaukee Journal.
Judge Sykes has two sons.
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office for Civil Rights, United States Department of Education
Seth Galanter serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the Department of Education.
Seth started his career at the Department of Justice, where he worked in the Civil Rights Division. During his 8 years there, he argued over 40 cases in the courts of appeals on a range of topics, including sexual harassment under Title IX.
Seth later moved into private practice at Morrison and Foerster, where he was in the Appellate Practice Group. During his time there, Seth argued two cases in the Supreme Court. Seth was also named Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year during this time by the Washington DC Bar for his work regarding people with disabilities.
Seth joined the Department of Education in 2011.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law (Retired)
Gail Heriot is a recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego. She also served as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2007 to 2025. She is also the chairman of the board of the American Civil Rights Project and the chair emerita of the Civil Rights practice group at the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy.
Professor Heriot is a prolific writer in the area of civil rights. She is the author of many law review articles. She is also the editor (along with Maimon Schwarzschild) of the 2021 anthology, A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education. Her upcoming book is entitled, Why We Walk on Eggshell: How Our Civil Rights Laws Helped Bring About the Woke Era—And the Trump Era, Too.
Her writings for a general audience have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the National Review and many other newspapers and magazines.
In 1996, she co-chaired the successful “Yes on Proposition 209” campaign, which amended the California Constitution to prohibit state-sponsored discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. In 2020, she co-chaired the “No on Proposition 16” campaign, which successfully prevented Proposition 209’s repeal.
Senior Counsel & Director of Education Policy for At-Risk Studen, National Women's Law Center
Lara S. Kaufmann is Senior Counsel and Director for Education Policy for At-Risk Students. She works on the advancement of women and girls at school and in the workplace. Lara engages in litigation, advocacy, and public education, with a particular focus on improving educational outcomes for at-risk girls, including pregnant and parenting students. Lara co-authored the Center’s 2012 report, A Pregnancy Test for Schools: The Impact of Education Laws on Pregnant and Parenting Students, as well as its 2009 report, Listening to Latinas: Barriers to High School Graduation. Before joining the Center, Lara was a Staff Attorney with the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, and prior to that she was an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago. Lara also worked with the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery, and was law clerk to then-Chief Judge Marvin Aspen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Lara is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Northwestern University School of Law.
President and CEO, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)
Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, New York Times best-selling author, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, and FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus. Most recently, he co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure with Jonathan Haidt. This New York Times best-seller expands on their September 2015 Atlantic cover story of the same name. Greg is also an Executive Producer of Can We Take a Joke? (2015), a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture, both on and off campus, and of Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story (2020), a feature-length film about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser.
Greg has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and numerous other publications. He frequently appears on TV shows and radio programs, including the CBS Evening News, The Today Show, and NPR’s Morning Edition. In 2008, he became the first-ever recipient of the Playboy Foundation’s Freedom of Expression Award, and he has testified before both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives about free speech issues on America’s college campuses.
Thomas W. Smith Fellow; Contributing Editor, City Journal, Manhattan Institute
Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a New York Times bestselling author. She is a recipient of the 2005 Bradley Prize. Mac Donald’s work at City Journal has covered a range of topics, including higher education, immigration, policing, homelessness and homeless advocacy, criminal-justice reform, and race relations. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, and The New Criterion. Mac Donald's newest book, The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture (2018), argues that toxic ideas first spread by higher education have undermined humanistic values, fueled intolerance, and widened divisions in our larger culture.
Mac Donald’s The War on Cops (2016), a New York Times bestseller, warns that raced-based attacks on the criminal-justice system, from the White House on down, are eroding the authority of law and putting lives at risk. Other previous works include The Burden of Bad Ideas (2001), a collection of Mac Donald’s City Journal essays, details the effects of the 1960s counterculture’s destructive march through America’s institutions. In The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan than Today’s (2007), coauthored with Victor Davis Hanson and Steven Malanga, she chronicles the effects of broken immigration laws and proposes a practical solution to securing the country’s porous borders. In Are Cops Racist? (2010), another City Journal anthology, Mac Donald investigates the workings of the police, the controversy over so-called racial profiling, and the anti-profiling lobby’s harmful effects on black Americans.
A nonpracticing lawyer, Mac Donald clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and was an attorney-advisor in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a volunteer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. She has frequently testified before U.S. House and Senate Committees. In 1998, Mac Donald was appointed to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s task force on the City University of New York. She has received numerous awards for her writing:
A frequent guest on Fox News and other TV and radio programs, Mac Donald holds a B.A. in English from Yale University, graduating with a Mellon Fellowship to Cambridge University, where she earned an M.A. in English and studied in Italy through a Clare College study grant. She holds a J.D. from Stanford University Law School.
At the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation's 2018 annual meeting in downtown Los Angeles, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions called Mac Donald, “the greatest thinker on criminal justice in America today.”
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Judge Sykes was nominated to the Seventh Circuit by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2004. Prior to her appointment to the federal bench, Judge Sykes served as a justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Governor Tommy G. Thompson appointed her in September 1999 to fill a mid-term vacancy on the state supreme court, and she was elected to a full ten-year term in April 2000. From 1992-1999, Judge Sykes served on the state trial bench in Milwaukee County (elected in 1992 and re-elected in 1998). From 1985-1992, Judge Sykes practiced law with the Milwaukee firm of Whyte & Hirschboeck, S.C., and from 1984-1985, was a law clerk to Federal Judge Terence T. Evans.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee area, Judge Sykes earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1980 and a law degree from Marquette University Law School in 1984. Between college and law school, Judge Sykes worked as a reporter for The Milwaukee Journal.
Judge Sykes has two sons.
Distinguished Fellow, Hudson Institute
Christopher DeMuth is a distinguished fellow at Hudson Institute. He was president of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) from 1986 to 2008 and was the D.C. Searle Senior Fellow at AEI from 2008 to 2011.
Mr. DeMuth was raised in Kenilworth, Illinois, and attended the Lawrenceville School (1964), Harvard College (A.B. 1968), and the University of Chicago Law School (J.D. 1973). He served as staff assistant to President Richard M. Nixon from 1969 to 1970, working first for Daniel P. Moynihan (then assistant to the President for Urban Affairs) on urban policy matters and then as chairman of the White House Task Force on Environmental Policy. Following law school, he practiced regulatory, antitrust, and general corporate law with Sidley & Austin in Chicago (1973-1976) and was associate general counsel of the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) in Philadelphia (1976-1977).
From 1977 to 1981, Mr. DeMuth was lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and director of the Harvard Faculty Project on Regulation. There he taught courses on law, economics, and regulatory policy and conducted and sponsored research on health, safety, environmental, and economic regulation.
Returning to Washington in 1981, Mr. DeMuth served as administrator for information and regulatory affairs in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and as executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief during President Ronald Reagan’s first term of office. From 1984 to 1986, he was managing director of Lexecon Inc., a law-and-economics consulting firm; in 1986, he was also publisher and editor-in-chief of Regulation magazine. He was elected president of the American Enterprise Institute in December 1986.
Many of Mr. DeMuth’s articles, lectures, and occasional talks are posted on his website (https://www.ccdemuth.com).
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
Walter J. Blum Professor of Law and Senior Fellow, the Computation Institute of the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory
David Weisbach received his BS in Mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1985; a Masters in Advance Study (Mathematics) from Wolfson College, Cambridge in 1986; and a JD from Harvard Law School in 1989. After graduating from law school, Weisbach clerked for Judge Joel M. Flaum of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and worked as an associate in the law firm of Miller & Chevalier. In 1992, Weisbach joined the Department of Treasury where he worked as an attorney-advisor in the Office of the Tax Legislative Counsel and, subsequently, as associate tax legislative counsel. In 1996, Weisbach was appointed Associate Professor of Law at Georgetown Law Center and joined the Chicago faculty in 1998. He is also a Senior Fellow at the University of Chicago Computation Institute and Argonne National Laboratories and an International Research Fellow at the Said School of Business, Oxford University. Weisbach is primarily interested in issues relating to federal taxation and to climate change.
Distinguished Fellow, Hudson Institute
Christopher DeMuth is a distinguished fellow at Hudson Institute. He was president of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) from 1986 to 2008 and was the D.C. Searle Senior Fellow at AEI from 2008 to 2011.
Mr. DeMuth was raised in Kenilworth, Illinois, and attended the Lawrenceville School (1964), Harvard College (A.B. 1968), and the University of Chicago Law School (J.D. 1973). He served as staff assistant to President Richard M. Nixon from 1969 to 1970, working first for Daniel P. Moynihan (then assistant to the President for Urban Affairs) on urban policy matters and then as chairman of the White House Task Force on Environmental Policy. Following law school, he practiced regulatory, antitrust, and general corporate law with Sidley & Austin in Chicago (1973-1976) and was associate general counsel of the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) in Philadelphia (1976-1977).
From 1977 to 1981, Mr. DeMuth was lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and director of the Harvard Faculty Project on Regulation. There he taught courses on law, economics, and regulatory policy and conducted and sponsored research on health, safety, environmental, and economic regulation.
Returning to Washington in 1981, Mr. DeMuth served as administrator for information and regulatory affairs in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and as executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief during President Ronald Reagan’s first term of office. From 1984 to 1986, he was managing director of Lexecon Inc., a law-and-economics consulting firm; in 1986, he was also publisher and editor-in-chief of Regulation magazine. He was elected president of the American Enterprise Institute in December 1986.
Many of Mr. DeMuth’s articles, lectures, and occasional talks are posted on his website (https://www.ccdemuth.com).
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
Walter J. Blum Professor of Law and Senior Fellow, the Computation Institute of the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory
David Weisbach received his BS in Mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1985; a Masters in Advance Study (Mathematics) from Wolfson College, Cambridge in 1986; and a JD from Harvard Law School in 1989. After graduating from law school, Weisbach clerked for Judge Joel M. Flaum of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and worked as an associate in the law firm of Miller & Chevalier. In 1992, Weisbach joined the Department of Treasury where he worked as an attorney-advisor in the Office of the Tax Legislative Counsel and, subsequently, as associate tax legislative counsel. In 1996, Weisbach was appointed Associate Professor of Law at Georgetown Law Center and joined the Chicago faculty in 1998. He is also a Senior Fellow at the University of Chicago Computation Institute and Argonne National Laboratories and an International Research Fellow at the Said School of Business, Oxford University. Weisbach is primarily interested in issues relating to federal taxation and to climate change.
Founding Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, “one of the Nation’s leading litigation boutiques” (Above The Law 2017). The National Law Journal recently wrote that Mr. Cooper’s “brilliant legal career has so far spanned five decades and thrust Cooper into the spotlight in some of the most historic moments of the country’s modern history.” He has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Named by the National Law Journal as one of the 10 best litigators in Washington D.C., Mr. Cooper’s work has been reported in numerous press accounts, and he has been called a “powerhouse attorney” (Fortune 2015), “a hard-nosed litigator” (Washington Post 2017), and “one of the country’s most in-demand civil litigators and a Washington legal institution unto himself” (The American Spectator 2014).
After graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977, where he ranked first in his class and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review, Mr. Cooper began his career as a law clerk to Judge Paul Roney on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1978–79. He then practiced law in Atlanta for two years before joining the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of, among other things, appellate matters. In 1985 President Reagan appointed him to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office responsible for providing legal opinions and advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and Executive Branch departments and agencies on issues covering the full spectrum of federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
In 1988 he returned to private practice as a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of McGuireWoods. From 1990 until the founding of Cooper & Kirk in 1996, he was a partner at Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.
Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Much of Mr. Cooper’s practice has involved representing high-profile clients in nationally prominent matters, including: the State of Florida in a First Amendment suit brought by the Disney Company concerning its autonomous regulatory authority over its Disney World property; the Commonwealth of Virginia in a suit seeking to enjoin the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls; 38 members of the Duke Lacrosse team falsely accused of rape by officials of Duke University and the City of Durham; Harper Lee in a copyright dispute with the heirs of Gregory Peck; high-ranking former government officials such as former Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr, and Ambassador John Bolton; several Governors and United States Senators; over 100 Members of Congress; and many state, territorial, and local government bodies and officials. He has also represented and advised government officials and public figures in connection with sensitive private issues that needed to be, and were, resolved discreetly without becoming matters of public record.
In 1998 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Mr. Cooper to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, where he served for three terms. He also served as a Public Member, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal. He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Law Institute (since 1993) and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (since 1996). He is also an active member of the Federalist Society and the Republican National Lawyers Association, which in 2010 named him Republican Lawyer of the Year and in 2016 honored him with its Edwin Meese III Award.
Mr. Cooper has published scores of articles and spoken extensively on constitutional and legal policy topics. He has appeared before congressional committees on 26 occasions, testifying as an expert on a wide variety of legal issues, including the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to administrative agencies, the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of federal courts, statehood bills for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and the impeachment of President Clinton.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
James Harvie Wilkinson III is an Article III federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He joined the Court in 1984 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
Born in New York City, New York, Wilkinson graduated from Yale University with his Bachelor's degree in 1967. Wilkinson served in the United States Army from 1968 to 1969 and received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1972.
On the recommendation of Virginia U.S. Senator John Warner, Wilkinson was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit by President Ronald Reagan on January 30, 1984 to a seat vacated by John Butzner, Jr.,. Wilkinson was confirmed by the Senate on August 9, 1984 on a Senate vote and received commission on August 13, 1984. Wilkinson served as the Chief Judge of the Court from 1996 to 2003.
Founding Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, “one of the Nation’s leading litigation boutiques” (Above The Law 2017). The National Law Journal recently wrote that Mr. Cooper’s “brilliant legal career has so far spanned five decades and thrust Cooper into the spotlight in some of the most historic moments of the country’s modern history.” He has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Named by the National Law Journal as one of the 10 best litigators in Washington D.C., Mr. Cooper’s work has been reported in numerous press accounts, and he has been called a “powerhouse attorney” (Fortune 2015), “a hard-nosed litigator” (Washington Post 2017), and “one of the country’s most in-demand civil litigators and a Washington legal institution unto himself” (The American Spectator 2014).
After graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977, where he ranked first in his class and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review, Mr. Cooper began his career as a law clerk to Judge Paul Roney on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1978–79. He then practiced law in Atlanta for two years before joining the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of, among other things, appellate matters. In 1985 President Reagan appointed him to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office responsible for providing legal opinions and advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and Executive Branch departments and agencies on issues covering the full spectrum of federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
In 1988 he returned to private practice as a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of McGuireWoods. From 1990 until the founding of Cooper & Kirk in 1996, he was a partner at Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.
Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Much of Mr. Cooper’s practice has involved representing high-profile clients in nationally prominent matters, including: the State of Florida in a First Amendment suit brought by the Disney Company concerning its autonomous regulatory authority over its Disney World property; the Commonwealth of Virginia in a suit seeking to enjoin the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls; 38 members of the Duke Lacrosse team falsely accused of rape by officials of Duke University and the City of Durham; Harper Lee in a copyright dispute with the heirs of Gregory Peck; high-ranking former government officials such as former Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr, and Ambassador John Bolton; several Governors and United States Senators; over 100 Members of Congress; and many state, territorial, and local government bodies and officials. He has also represented and advised government officials and public figures in connection with sensitive private issues that needed to be, and were, resolved discreetly without becoming matters of public record.
In 1998 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Mr. Cooper to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, where he served for three terms. He also served as a Public Member, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal. He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Law Institute (since 1993) and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (since 1996). He is also an active member of the Federalist Society and the Republican National Lawyers Association, which in 2010 named him Republican Lawyer of the Year and in 2016 honored him with its Edwin Meese III Award.
Mr. Cooper has published scores of articles and spoken extensively on constitutional and legal policy topics. He has appeared before congressional committees on 26 occasions, testifying as an expert on a wide variety of legal issues, including the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to administrative agencies, the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of federal courts, statehood bills for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and the impeachment of President Clinton.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
James Harvie Wilkinson III is an Article III federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He joined the Court in 1984 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
Born in New York City, New York, Wilkinson graduated from Yale University with his Bachelor's degree in 1967. Wilkinson served in the United States Army from 1968 to 1969 and received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1972.
On the recommendation of Virginia U.S. Senator John Warner, Wilkinson was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit by President Ronald Reagan on January 30, 1984 to a seat vacated by John Butzner, Jr.,. Wilkinson was confirmed by the Senate on August 9, 1984 on a Senate vote and received commission on August 13, 1984. Wilkinson served as the Chief Judge of the Court from 1996 to 2003.
Senior Fellow and Research Coordinator, American Enterprise Institute
Karlyn Bowman compiles and analyzes American public opinion using available polling data on a variety of subjects, including the economy, taxes, the state of workers in America, environment and global warming, attitudes about homosexuality and gay marriage, NAFTA and free trade, the war in Iraq, and women’s attitudes. In addition, Ms. Bowman has studied and spoken about the evolution of American politics because of key demographic and geographic changes. She has often lectured on the role of think tanks in the United States and writes a weekly column for Forbes.com.
B.A., University of Wisconsin
Executive Vice President of Global Governance, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, Walmart Inc.
Rachel Brand is Walmart’s executive vice president of global governance, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary. She oversees the company’s global legal, compliance, ethics, corporate governance, digital citizenship, aviation, investigative, and corporate security functions, including Walmart’s Emergency Operations Center.
Immediately before joining Walmart, Rachel served as the United States Associate Attorney General and holds the distinction of being the first woman to serve in this role. She had previously served in the U.S. Department of Justice as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy during President George W. Bush’s administration. Her other government service includes an appointment by President Obama to serve as a Member of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, service as an Associate Counsel to the President at the White House, and judicial clerkships with Justice Charles Fried of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and Justice Anthony Kennedy at the Supreme Court of the United States. In the private sector, Rachel was a lawyer in private practice at two law firms in Washington, D.C. and served as the Vice President and Chief Counsel for Regulatory Litigation at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Litigation Center.
Rachel serves on the board of directors for the Walmart Foundation and is the executive sponsor for Walmart’s Tribal Voices Associate Resource Group. Outside of Walmart, she serves on the board of directors for the International Justice Mission and is a member of The American Law Institute.
Rachel earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota-Morris and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Lanny J. Davis & Associates, LLC
Lanny J. Davis counsels individuals, corporations and government contractors, and those under congressional scrutiny, on crisis management and legal issues by developing legal, media and legislative strategies that are designed to best produce a successful result for the client. He has experience in securities fraud and SEC investigations as well, and has found that utilizing such an integrated legal/media/lobbying approach can lead to quicker and less expensive settlements or even successfully litigated outcomes. Senior officials of public companies have also hired Lanny and his crisis group to defend themselves successfully against "short and distort" attacks and other market manipulations. For 25 years prior to 1996, before his tenure as special counsel to President Clinton, Lanny was a commercial, antitrust, government contracts and False Claims Act litigator (both in defense as well as plaintiff). He has argued numerous appellate cases in the U.S. courts of appeals.
In June 2005, President Bush appointed Lanny to serve on the five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, created by the U.S. Congress as part of the 2005 Intelligence Reform Act. In that capacity, he received the highest level security clearances so that he could be fully briefed and "read in" to the various anti-terrorist surveillance and financial tracking programs at the highest classified level. From 1996 to 1998, Lanny served as special counsel to the president in the White House and was a spokesperson for the president and the White House on matters concerning campaign finance investigations and other legal issues. Lanny has participated in national, state and local politics for almost 30 years. He has served three terms (1980 to 1992) on the Democratic National Committee representing the state of Maryland, and during that period he served on the DNC Executive Committee and as chairman of the Eastern Region Caucus. In Montgomery County, Maryland, he served as chairman of the Washington Suburban Transit Commission.
Lanny has authored several books and lectured throughout the United States and Europe on various political issues. Between 1990 and 1996, Lanny was a bimonthly commentator on Maryland politics for WAMU-88.5/FM, a Washington, D.C. local affiliate of National Public Radio. He has been a regular television commentator and has been a political and legal analyst for MSNBC, CNN, Fox Cable, CNBC and network TV news programs. He has published numerous op-ed/analysis pieces in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and other national publications.
Lanny graduated from Yale Law School, where he won the prestigious Thurman Arnold Moot Court prize and served on the Yale Law Journal. A graduate of Yale University, Lanny served as chairman of the Yale Daily News.
Lanny is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and Connecticut and before the Supreme Court of the United States and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Partner, Millbank LLP
Mr. Katyal, the former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, focuses on appellate and complex litigation. He has argued 54 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
He has extensive experience in matters of antitrust, corporate, constitutional, securities, technology, criminal, patent, copyright, trademark, ERISA, products liability, labor, employment and tribal law. In the 2022-23 Supreme Court term, he argued five separate cases (nearly 10% of the docket), including winning the landmark voting case Moore v. Harper, which Judge Michael Luttig described as “the most important case for American democracy in the almost two and a half centuries since America’s founding.” Judge Luttig also said Mr. Katyal’s argument “was the single best oral argument I have ever heard made in the Supreme Court of the United States.” His cases include successfully striking down the Guantanamo military tribunals, successfully defending the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act and successfully defending the Peace Cross in Maryland. His 2017 win in Bristol Myers Squibb v. Superior Court was a landmark victory for personal jurisdiction law and his 2006 win in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was described by former Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger as “simply the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law ever. Ever.”
From 2010 to 2011, Mr. Katyal served as Acting Solicitor General of the United States, where he argued several major Supreme Court cases involving a variety of issues, such as his successful defense of the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, his victorious defense of former Attorney General John Ashcroft for alleged abuses in the war on terror, his unanimous victory against eight states who sued the nation's leading power plants for contributing to global warming, and a variety of other matters. As Acting Solicitor General, he was responsible for representing the federal government of the United States in all appellate matters before the US Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals throughout the nation. He served as Counsel of Record hundreds of times in the US Supreme Court. He was also the only head of the Solicitor General's office to argue a case in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, on the important question of whether certain aspects of the human genome were patentable.
After graduating from Yale Law School, Mr. Katyal clerked for The Honorable Guido Calabresi of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as well as for The Honorable Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the US Supreme Court. He also served in the Deputy Attorney General's Office at the Justice Department as National Security Advisor and as Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General during 1998-1999.
Mr. Katyal is a best-selling New York Times author and has published dozens of scholarly articles in law journals (including several in the Harvard Law Review and Yale Law Journal), as well as many op-ed articles in publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. He has testified numerous times before various committees of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.
W. H. Brady Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Charles Murray is a political scientist, author, and libertarian. He first came to national attention in 1984 with the publication of Losing Ground, which has been credited as the intellectual foundation for the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. His 1994 New York Times bestseller, The Bell Curve (Free Press, 1994), coauthored with the late Richard J. Herrnstein, sparked heated controversy for its analysis of the role of IQ in shaping America’s class structure. Murray's other books include What It Means to Be a Libertarian (1997), Human Accomplishment (2003), In Our Hands (2006), and Real Education (2008). His most recent book, Coming Apart (Crown Forum, 2012), describes an unprecedented divergence in American classes over the last half century.
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.
Former United States Attorney General
Michael B. Mukasey is the former Attorney General of the United States, the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. As Attorney General from November 2007 to January 2009, he oversaw the U.S. Department of Justice and advised on critical issues of domestic and international law.
From 1988 to 2006, Judge Mukasey served as a district judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, becoming Chief Judge in 2000.
From 1972 to 1976, Judge Mukasey served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and as Chief of the Official Corruption Unit from 1975 to 1976. His practice consisted of criminal litigation on behalf of the government, including investigation and prosecution of narcotics, bank robbery, interstate theft, securities fraud, fraud on the government and bribery. From 1976 to 1987 and from 2006 to 2007 he was in private practice.
Judge Mukasey has received numerous honors, including the Federal Bar Council’s Learned Hand Medal for Excellence in Federal Jurisprudence. He served as Chairman of the Committee on Public Access to Information and Proceedings of the New York Bar Association from 1984 to 1987. He served on the Federal Courts Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York from 1979 to 1982 and its Communications Law Committee from 1983 to 1986. Judge Mukasey was also a part-time lecturer at Columbia School of Law from January 1993 to May 2007, teaching trial advocacy.
He received his LL.B. from Yale Law School in 1967 and his B.A. from Columbia College in 1963.
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz teaches constitutional law and federal jurisdiction, and he writes articles for the Harvard Law Review and the Stanford Law Review.
He is currently developing a new theory of constitutional interpretation and judicial review. The first installment, entitledThe Subjects of the Constitution, was published in the Stanford Law Review in May of 2010, and it is among the most downloaded articles about constitutional interpretation, judicial review, and/or federal courts in the history of SSRN. The second installment, The Objects of the Constitution, was published in May of 2011, also in the Stanford Law Review. And the comprehensive version is forthcoming as a book by Oxford University Press.
Rosenkranz has served and advised the federal government in a variety of capacities. He clerked for Judge Frank H. Easterbrook on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (1999-2000) and for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the U.S. Supreme Court (October Term 2001). He served as an Attorney-Advisor at the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice (November 2002 - July 2004). He often testifies before Congress as a constitutional expert—most recently before the House Financial Services Oversight Subcommittee, regarding the Obama Administration's use of bank settlement agreements to circumvent the Appropriations Clause. He has also filed briefs and presented oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court. His most recent Supreme Court brief, in Los Angeles v. Patel, was cited by Justice Alito in dissent.
Rosenkranz is a member of the New York Bar and the U.S. Supreme Court Bar. He is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He is a founding member of Heterodox Academy and a member of its Executive Committee. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Federalist Society and as the faculty advisor to the Georgetown chapter.
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; Former President, American Civil Liberties Union
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023. Her books about free speech include: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (Oxford University Press 2023); HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press 2018); and Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (Scribner 1995), which was republished with a new Preface in 2024 as part of the NYU Classics Series. Her many honors and awards include the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. She serves on the Advisory Boards of several organizations that do free speech work, including: ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin.
Credit to Cronies: Government’s Heavy—IF Hidden—Hand
Wayne A. Abernathy, Paul S. Atkins, Edward J. DeMarco, Bert Ely, Paul H. Kupiec
Key to a vibrant and increasingly productive economy is an efficient credit allocation process --...
Credit to Cronies: Government’s Heavy—IF Hidden—Hand
Wayne A. Abernathy, Paul S. Atkins, Edward J. DeMarco, Bert Ely, Paul H. Kupiec
Key to a vibrant and increasingly productive economy is an efficient credit allocation process --...
Showcase Panel IV: ROUNDTABLE: Is the Future of the American Dream Bright?
2014 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DCSexual Assault on Campus
Seth Galanter, Gail L. Heriot, Lara S. Kaufmann, Greg Lukianoff, Heather Mac Donald, Diane S. Sykes
Sexual assault on campus is a serious issue—so serious that it is difficult for some...
Sexual Assault on Campus
Seth Galanter, Gail L. Heriot, Lara S. Kaufmann, Greg Lukianoff, Heather Mac Donald, Diane S. Sykes
Sexual assault on campus is a serious issue—so serious that it is difficult for some...
Showcase Panel II: Intergenerational Equity and Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, and Pensions
Christopher C. DeMuth, Frank H. Easterbrook, John O. McGinnis, David A. Weisbach
Several major federal programs directly tax the young to provide benefits to the elderly. This...
Showcase Panel II: Intergenerational Equity and Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, and Pensions
Christopher C. DeMuth, Frank H. Easterbrook, John O. McGinnis, David A. Weisbach
Several major federal programs directly tax the young to provide benefits to the elderly. This...
Diversity Jurisdiction from Strawbridge to CAFA
Charles J. Cooper, Edith H. Jones, Dean Reuter, J. Harvie Wilkinson
In a recent article, constitutional lawyer Charles Cooper argued that federal courts have erred by...
Diversity Jurisdiction from Strawbridge to CAFA
Charles J. Cooper, Edith H. Jones, Dean Reuter, J. Harvie Wilkinson
In a recent article, constitutional lawyer Charles Cooper argued that federal courts have erred by...
Seventh Annual Rosenkranz Debate
2014 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DC