Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
University Professor, Columbia Law School
Kent Greenawalt, an authority on constitutional law and legal philosophy, is a graduate of Columbia's School of Law, where he was a Kent Scholar and Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. After graduation he clerked for Supreme Court Justice John M. Harlan and was an attorney for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in Jackson, Miss., before joining the Columbia faculty in 1965. From 1966 to 1969, he served on the New York City Bar Association's civil rights committee. He was Deputy Solicity General in the Department of Justice in 1971-72 and served as chief reporter for the Revision of the Commentary of the Model Penal Code in the 1970s. In 1991 he was named University Professor, Columbia's highest academic honor and faculty rank, allowing him to cross departmental boundaries and teach in both the law school and department of philosophy. He was President of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy from 1991-93. He is the author of 13 books on jurisprudence as it relates to church and state, legal interpretation, discrimination, and freedom of speech.
He has been a visiting professor at Princeton University and has been a fellow several times at Clare Hall, Cambridge; All Souls College, University of Oxford; and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dwight D. Opperman Professor of Law; Director, Center for Labor, New York University School of Law
Samuel Estreicher is a nationally preeminent scholar in US and international-comparative labor and employment law and arbitration law. He has authored more than a dozen books, including Beyond Elite Law: Access to Civil Justice in America (with Joy Radice, Cambridge Univ. 2016); leading casebooks on legislation and regulatory state, labor law and employment discrimination and employment law; and published more than 200 articles in professional and academic journals. He served as Chief Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement of Employment Law (2015). After clerking for Judge Harold Leventhal of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, practicing in a labor law firm, and clerking for Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. of the US Supreme Court, Prof. Estreicher joined the NYU School of Law faculty in 1978. In addition to serving as counsel to major law firms, he is the former secretary of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the American Bar Association, a former chair of the Committee on Labor and Employment Law of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.15). He maintains an active appellate and ADR practice. The Labor and Employment Research Association awarded him its 2010 Susan C. Eaton Award for Outstanding Scholar-Practitioner. In recent years, Estreicher also has published work in public international law and authored several briefs in the Supreme Court and US courts of appeals on employment and US foreign relations law issues. Prof. Estreicher received his BA from Columbia College, his MS in industrial relations from Cornell University, and his JD from Columbia Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review. He is a member of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and was appointed in 2016 by the UN Secretary General as a member of the UN’s Internal Justice Commission.
University Professor, Columbia Law School
Kent Greenawalt, an authority on constitutional law and legal philosophy, is a graduate of Columbia's School of Law, where he was a Kent Scholar and Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. After graduation he clerked for Supreme Court Justice John M. Harlan and was an attorney for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in Jackson, Miss., before joining the Columbia faculty in 1965. From 1966 to 1969, he served on the New York City Bar Association's civil rights committee. He was Deputy Solicity General in the Department of Justice in 1971-72 and served as chief reporter for the Revision of the Commentary of the Model Penal Code in the 1970s. In 1991 he was named University Professor, Columbia's highest academic honor and faculty rank, allowing him to cross departmental boundaries and teach in both the law school and department of philosophy. He was President of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy from 1991-93. He is the author of 13 books on jurisprudence as it relates to church and state, legal interpretation, discrimination, and freedom of speech.
He has been a visiting professor at Princeton University and has been a fellow several times at Clare Hall, Cambridge; All Souls College, University of Oxford; and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Robert B. McKay Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Stephen Schulhofer is one of the nation’s most distinguished scholars of criminal justice. He has written more than 50 scholarly articles and seven books, including the leading casebook in the field, and highly regarded, widely cited work on a range of criminal justice and national security topics. His most recent book More Essential Than Ever: The Fourth Amendment in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford University Press, 2012) is a comprehensive review and analysis of Fourth Amendment history, the Supreme Court’s constitutional methodology, current Fourth Amendment doctrine, and a wide range of contemporary problems concerning searches and seizures, electronic surveillance, and the intersection between national security needs and the right to privacy. Schulhofer’s scholarship has been distinguished by his simultaneous engagement with doctrinal analysis, criminal justice policy, and his own original empirical work. He has written on counterterrorism, police interrogation, rape law, administrative searches, drug enforcement, indigent defense, sentencing reform, plea bargaining, battered spouse syndrome, and many other criminal justice matters. His current projects include analyses of national security secrecy, the right to privacy in electronic communications, and an empirical study of the impact of counterterrorism policing on immigrant communities in New York and London. In addition, he currently serves as the reporter for the American Law Institute’s project to revise the sexual offense provisions of the Model Penal Code. Previously, Schulhofer was the Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice at the University of Chicago Law School, and was the Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He completed his BA at Princeton University and his JD at Harvard Law School, both summa cum laude. He then clerked for two years for US Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and practiced law for three years before beginning his academic career
University Professor, Columbia Law School
Kent Greenawalt, an authority on constitutional law and legal philosophy, is a graduate of Columbia's School of Law, where he was a Kent Scholar and Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. After graduation he clerked for Supreme Court Justice John M. Harlan and was an attorney for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in Jackson, Miss., before joining the Columbia faculty in 1965. From 1966 to 1969, he served on the New York City Bar Association's civil rights committee. He was Deputy Solicity General in the Department of Justice in 1971-72 and served as chief reporter for the Revision of the Commentary of the Model Penal Code in the 1970s. In 1991 he was named University Professor, Columbia's highest academic honor and faculty rank, allowing him to cross departmental boundaries and teach in both the law school and department of philosophy. He was President of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy from 1991-93. He is the author of 13 books on jurisprudence as it relates to church and state, legal interpretation, discrimination, and freedom of speech.
He has been a visiting professor at Princeton University and has been a fellow several times at Clare Hall, Cambridge; All Souls College, University of Oxford; and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
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.
Legal Fellow, Center for the Separation of Powers, Pacific Legal Foundation
Alison Somin joined Pacific Legal Foundation in May 2020 as a legal fellow in the Center for the Separation of Powers and part of the equality before the law practice group.
Before joining the Pacific Legal Foundation team, Alison was a special assistant and counsel for over a decade to Gail Heriot, a member of the bipartisan United States Commission on Civil Rights. She also has deep roots in the liberty movement. Alison was a Koch Associate at the National Federation for Independent Business Legal Foundation and, during law school, completed summer clerkships at the Institute for Justice and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. She holds a J.D. from Emory University School of Law and an A.B. in history from Dartmouth College.
Her work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Daily Journal, Texas Journal of Law and Politics, and The Federalist Society’s Engage magazine and blog.
She lives in northern Virginia with her husband Ilya; two children; and golden retriever Willow. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, baking and cooking, children’s art projects, and training and exercising Willow.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
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.
University Professor, Columbia Law School
Kent Greenawalt, an authority on constitutional law and legal philosophy, is a graduate of Columbia's School of Law, where he was a Kent Scholar and Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. After graduation he clerked for Supreme Court Justice John M. Harlan and was an attorney for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in Jackson, Miss., before joining the Columbia faculty in 1965. From 1966 to 1969, he served on the New York City Bar Association's civil rights committee. He was Deputy Solicity General in the Department of Justice in 1971-72 and served as chief reporter for the Revision of the Commentary of the Model Penal Code in the 1970s. In 1991 he was named University Professor, Columbia's highest academic honor and faculty rank, allowing him to cross departmental boundaries and teach in both the law school and department of philosophy. He was President of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy from 1991-93. He is the author of 13 books on jurisprudence as it relates to church and state, legal interpretation, discrimination, and freedom of speech.
He has been a visiting professor at Princeton University and has been a fellow several times at Clare Hall, Cambridge; All Souls College, University of Oxford; and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The Rise of Populism
Columbia Student Chapter
New York, NYA Lady or a Tiger?: Thoughts on Fisher v. University of Texas and the Future of Race Preferences in America
Alison E. Somin
Note from the Editor: This article is about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Fisher...
Racial Profiling Considered: A Panel Discussion About the Stop-and-Frisk Decision
NYU Student Chapter
New York, NYThe Role of Religion in Public Debate
Robert Audi, Michael W. McConnell, James W. Skillen, Diane S. Sykes, R. Kent Greenawalt
The Federalist Society's Religious Liberties Practice Group presented this panel discussion at the 2007 Annual...
The Role of Religion in Public Debate
2007 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DC2002 National Lawyers Convention
The Constitution, National Security, and Foreign Affairs
Washington, DC