Senior Fellow, Independent Women's Forum; Clinical Associate Professor, NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine
Dr. Ahmed is a physician, non-fiction author and broadcast media commentator. Her work has been published in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The Spectator, Al Jazeera, The Independent, USA Today, The Daily Beast, the World Policy Journal, Fox News, CNN, and many others.
Dr. Ahmed is the first physician, and first Muslim woman, to be awarded the Templeton-Cambridge Fellowship in Journalism at the University of Cambridge, England.
In 2012, she testified to Congress on Radical Islam in the United States. She subsequently has provided Congressional Briefings at the invitation of Congressional Staff on the issues of Palestinian child radicalization in the Disputed Territories. In 2016, she was nominated to Life Membership at the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States in recognition of her journalistic work focusing on Islamism.
A graduate of the University of Nottingham, Dr. Ahmed has practiced subspecialty medicine in the United Kingdom, the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Currently, a triple board-certified pulmonologist and sleep disorders specialist, Dr. Ahmed is currently appointed Clinical Associate Professor at NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine, an Honorary Professor at the School of Health and Life Sciences at Glasgow Caledonian University and an Honorary Fellow at the Technion-Israel Institute of Science and Technology. She is a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a Fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
In December 2015 Dr. Ahmed was naturalized as an American citizen. Today, she maintains dual British and U.S. citizenship and lives in New York where she continues to write and practice medicine.
Founder, Libertas-West Project
Karen Lugo is a constitutional law consultant and national security analyst. She was Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment at Texas Public Policy Foundation from 2013 to 2015. When living in California, she was Co-Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence Center. From 2005 – 2012, she was a clinical visiting and adjunct professor at Chapman University School of Law where she co-taught the advanced Constitutional Law Clinic. Karen has co-authored and written circuit-level and Supreme Court amicus briefs on such issues as FISA Surveillance, Healthcare Reform, Arizona’s Border Security, Gay Marriage, The Ten Commandments, Eminent Domain, Christian Clubs on University Campuses, and Material Support for Terrorists.
Karen is the founder of the Libertas-West Project, a center for study Islamic integration and radicalization issues. In this capacity, she consulted with the Center for Security Policy to write a book on local over-watch of mosque construction and community engagement called: Mosques in America: A Guide to Accountable Permit Hearings and Continuing Citizen Oversight.
Karen writes and speaks for European and American groups on the importance of basing assimilation efforts on principles of Western exceptionalism. She presented a policy brief to the French Conseil d’Etat analyzing the legal implications of banning the burqa. Ms. Lugo has written one of the most comprehensive overviews of sharia law in American courts, American Family Law and Sharia-Compliant Marriages, for the Federalist Society law journal, Engage. She has written several white papers on the American Law for American Courts legislation and sharia tribunals in America.
Ms. Lugo was an appointee to the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She also taught a Human Rights law course on the contrast between French and English Enlightenment theories in Strasbourg, France.
Until moving from California, Ms. Lugo was a member of the David Horowitz Freedom Center Board of Directors. She was also a regular guest on the Orange County PBS local issues debate program, Inside OC, and she is a contributor to Pajamas Media, National Review Online, City Journal, American Spectator, American Greatness, Townhall.com, American Thinker, Daily Caller, and Family Security Matters. She has been interviewed by dozens of radio hosts and has spoken for civic groups on constitutional and cultural concerns.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Senior Fellow, Independent Women's Forum; Clinical Associate Professor, NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine
Dr. Ahmed is a physician, non-fiction author and broadcast media commentator. Her work has been published in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The Spectator, Al Jazeera, The Independent, USA Today, The Daily Beast, the World Policy Journal, Fox News, CNN, and many others.
Dr. Ahmed is the first physician, and first Muslim woman, to be awarded the Templeton-Cambridge Fellowship in Journalism at the University of Cambridge, England.
In 2012, she testified to Congress on Radical Islam in the United States. She subsequently has provided Congressional Briefings at the invitation of Congressional Staff on the issues of Palestinian child radicalization in the Disputed Territories. In 2016, she was nominated to Life Membership at the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States in recognition of her journalistic work focusing on Islamism.
A graduate of the University of Nottingham, Dr. Ahmed has practiced subspecialty medicine in the United Kingdom, the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Currently, a triple board-certified pulmonologist and sleep disorders specialist, Dr. Ahmed is currently appointed Clinical Associate Professor at NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine, an Honorary Professor at the School of Health and Life Sciences at Glasgow Caledonian University and an Honorary Fellow at the Technion-Israel Institute of Science and Technology. She is a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a Fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
In December 2015 Dr. Ahmed was naturalized as an American citizen. Today, she maintains dual British and U.S. citizenship and lives in New York where she continues to write and practice medicine.
Founder, Libertas-West Project
Karen Lugo is a constitutional law consultant and national security analyst. She was Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment at Texas Public Policy Foundation from 2013 to 2015. When living in California, she was Co-Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence Center. From 2005 – 2012, she was a clinical visiting and adjunct professor at Chapman University School of Law where she co-taught the advanced Constitutional Law Clinic. Karen has co-authored and written circuit-level and Supreme Court amicus briefs on such issues as FISA Surveillance, Healthcare Reform, Arizona’s Border Security, Gay Marriage, The Ten Commandments, Eminent Domain, Christian Clubs on University Campuses, and Material Support for Terrorists.
Karen is the founder of the Libertas-West Project, a center for study Islamic integration and radicalization issues. In this capacity, she consulted with the Center for Security Policy to write a book on local over-watch of mosque construction and community engagement called: Mosques in America: A Guide to Accountable Permit Hearings and Continuing Citizen Oversight.
Karen writes and speaks for European and American groups on the importance of basing assimilation efforts on principles of Western exceptionalism. She presented a policy brief to the French Conseil d’Etat analyzing the legal implications of banning the burqa. Ms. Lugo has written one of the most comprehensive overviews of sharia law in American courts, American Family Law and Sharia-Compliant Marriages, for the Federalist Society law journal, Engage. She has written several white papers on the American Law for American Courts legislation and sharia tribunals in America.
Ms. Lugo was an appointee to the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She also taught a Human Rights law course on the contrast between French and English Enlightenment theories in Strasbourg, France.
Until moving from California, Ms. Lugo was a member of the David Horowitz Freedom Center Board of Directors. She was also a regular guest on the Orange County PBS local issues debate program, Inside OC, and she is a contributor to Pajamas Media, National Review Online, City Journal, American Spectator, American Greatness, Townhall.com, American Thinker, Daily Caller, and Family Security Matters. She has been interviewed by dozens of radio hosts and has spoken for civic groups on constitutional and cultural concerns.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Of Counsel, Wimberly, Lawson, Steckel, Schneider & Stine P.C.
Elizabeth K. (Betsy) Dorminey is of counsel with the firm. She received a B.A. magna cum laude from the University of Georgia in 1976, a license ès lettres from the Sorbonne in 1978, a J.D. from UGA’s Law School in 1981, and an LL.M. from Columbia in 1984. She clerked for the Hon. Ed Carnes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and worked for the U.S. Departments of Justice and Commerce prior to joining the firm. Ms. Dorminey is a member of the State Bars of Georgia, Connecticut, and New York, and is admitted to practice in Federal District and Appellate Courts throughout the Southeast. With Larry Stine and Mark Waschak, she is co-author of “Occupational Safety & Health Law: Compliance and Practice” (Thomson/West 2008). Her practice concentrates in all aspects of employer defense, including but not limited to litigation the Fair Labor Standards Act, Title VII employment discrimination, and occupational safety and health. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Labor & Employment Practice Group of the Federalist Society, and serves on the Board of the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art.
Senior Fellow, National Review
Bestselling author Andrew C. McCarthy is a contributing editor at National Review, a senior fellow at National Review Institute, and a Fox News contributor. He is a former Chief Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York and led the terrorism prosecution against the “Blind Sheikh” (Omar Abdel Rahman) and eleven other jihadists for conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. During is 20-year career as a prosecutor, he received numerous honors, including the Justice Department’s highest awards. Andy speaks and writes widely on law and national security, radical Islam, politics, and culture. He has testified before Congress as an expert on issues of constitutional law, counterterrorism, and law-enforcement. He is a columnist for The Hill, and his essays and book reviews appear frequently at The New Criterion. His most recent New York Times bestselling book is Ball of Collusion (Encounter Books, 2019), about the Russiagate controversy (an updated version was published in 2020). His other books include Willful Blindness (2008), The Grand Jihad (2010), Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (2012), and Faithless Execution (2014). He has also written several pamphlets in the Broadside series published by Encounter Books, most recently Islam and Free Speech (2015).
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.
Senior Fellow, Independent Women's Forum; Clinical Associate Professor, NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine
Dr. Ahmed is a physician, non-fiction author and broadcast media commentator. Her work has been published in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The Spectator, Al Jazeera, The Independent, USA Today, The Daily Beast, the World Policy Journal, Fox News, CNN, and many others.
Dr. Ahmed is the first physician, and first Muslim woman, to be awarded the Templeton-Cambridge Fellowship in Journalism at the University of Cambridge, England.
In 2012, she testified to Congress on Radical Islam in the United States. She subsequently has provided Congressional Briefings at the invitation of Congressional Staff on the issues of Palestinian child radicalization in the Disputed Territories. In 2016, she was nominated to Life Membership at the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States in recognition of her journalistic work focusing on Islamism.
A graduate of the University of Nottingham, Dr. Ahmed has practiced subspecialty medicine in the United Kingdom, the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Currently, a triple board-certified pulmonologist and sleep disorders specialist, Dr. Ahmed is currently appointed Clinical Associate Professor at NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine, an Honorary Professor at the School of Health and Life Sciences at Glasgow Caledonian University and an Honorary Fellow at the Technion-Israel Institute of Science and Technology. She is a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a Fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
In December 2015 Dr. Ahmed was naturalized as an American citizen. Today, she maintains dual British and U.S. citizenship and lives in New York where she continues to write and practice medicine.
Founder, Libertas-West Project
Karen Lugo is a constitutional law consultant and national security analyst. She was Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment at Texas Public Policy Foundation from 2013 to 2015. When living in California, she was Co-Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence Center. From 2005 – 2012, she was a clinical visiting and adjunct professor at Chapman University School of Law where she co-taught the advanced Constitutional Law Clinic. Karen has co-authored and written circuit-level and Supreme Court amicus briefs on such issues as FISA Surveillance, Healthcare Reform, Arizona’s Border Security, Gay Marriage, The Ten Commandments, Eminent Domain, Christian Clubs on University Campuses, and Material Support for Terrorists.
Karen is the founder of the Libertas-West Project, a center for study Islamic integration and radicalization issues. In this capacity, she consulted with the Center for Security Policy to write a book on local over-watch of mosque construction and community engagement called: Mosques in America: A Guide to Accountable Permit Hearings and Continuing Citizen Oversight.
Karen writes and speaks for European and American groups on the importance of basing assimilation efforts on principles of Western exceptionalism. She presented a policy brief to the French Conseil d’Etat analyzing the legal implications of banning the burqa. Ms. Lugo has written one of the most comprehensive overviews of sharia law in American courts, American Family Law and Sharia-Compliant Marriages, for the Federalist Society law journal, Engage. She has written several white papers on the American Law for American Courts legislation and sharia tribunals in America.
Ms. Lugo was an appointee to the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She also taught a Human Rights law course on the contrast between French and English Enlightenment theories in Strasbourg, France.
Until moving from California, Ms. Lugo was a member of the David Horowitz Freedom Center Board of Directors. She was also a regular guest on the Orange County PBS local issues debate program, Inside OC, and she is a contributor to Pajamas Media, National Review Online, City Journal, American Spectator, American Greatness, Townhall.com, American Thinker, Daily Caller, and Family Security Matters. She has been interviewed by dozens of radio hosts and has spoken for civic groups on constitutional and cultural concerns.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Author, Sharia-ism Is Here: The Battle to Control Women and Everyone Else
Joy Brighton is a former Wall Street trader who today is part of an international team of experts concerned about the non-transparent risks of the Shariah-compliant Islamic finance investment market. She speaks with legal, policy, grassroots, and legislative leaders who are concerned about the challenge to America's national security, civil and women's rights, First Amendment freedoms, and free capital financial markets posed by Shariaism, the political movement of radical Islam. She is the author of Shariaism is Here: The Battle for Control of Women and Everyone Else, released January 2014.
Ms. Brighton is a graduate of Columbia Business School and has been a fixed-income salesperson and trader for Lehman Brothers, a mortgage pipeline hedge trader for Chase Home Mortgage, and an adjunct Professor of Securities and Investments at Fairleigh Dickinson University and Ramapo College. Later, as a graduate of Fordham University with a Master's in Psychological Counseling, Ms. Brighton worked as an executive coach catering to investment professionals and a college mental health counselor.
District Judge, United States District Court, Northern District of Texas
Matthew J. Kacsmaryk serves as United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas.
He previously served in the (1) private, (2) government, and (3) nonprofit sectors:
Judge Kacsmaryk is an Honors graduate of the University of Texas Law School, where he joined the Federalist Society and served as an Executive Editor of the Texas Review of Law & Politics. Judge Kacsmaryk co-founded the Fort Worth Lawyers Chapter in 2012, coordinated the 2018 Texas Chapters Conference hosted by the Fort Worth Lawyers Chapter, and presently serves on its Advisory Board.
Author, Sharia-ism Is Here: The Battle to Control Women and Everyone Else
Joy Brighton is a former Wall Street trader who today is part of an international team of experts concerned about the non-transparent risks of the Shariah-compliant Islamic finance investment market. She speaks with legal, policy, grassroots, and legislative leaders who are concerned about the challenge to America's national security, civil and women's rights, First Amendment freedoms, and free capital financial markets posed by Shariaism, the political movement of radical Islam. She is the author of Shariaism is Here: The Battle for Control of Women and Everyone Else, released January 2014.
Ms. Brighton is a graduate of Columbia Business School and has been a fixed-income salesperson and trader for Lehman Brothers, a mortgage pipeline hedge trader for Chase Home Mortgage, and an adjunct Professor of Securities and Investments at Fairleigh Dickinson University and Ramapo College. Later, as a graduate of Fordham University with a Master's in Psychological Counseling, Ms. Brighton worked as an executive coach catering to investment professionals and a college mental health counselor.
Senior Fellow, National Review
Bestselling author Andrew C. McCarthy is a contributing editor at National Review, a senior fellow at National Review Institute, and a Fox News contributor. He is a former Chief Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York and led the terrorism prosecution against the “Blind Sheikh” (Omar Abdel Rahman) and eleven other jihadists for conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. During is 20-year career as a prosecutor, he received numerous honors, including the Justice Department’s highest awards. Andy speaks and writes widely on law and national security, radical Islam, politics, and culture. He has testified before Congress as an expert on issues of constitutional law, counterterrorism, and law-enforcement. He is a columnist for The Hill, and his essays and book reviews appear frequently at The New Criterion. His most recent New York Times bestselling book is Ball of Collusion (Encounter Books, 2019), about the Russiagate controversy (an updated version was published in 2020). His other books include Willful Blindness (2008), The Grand Jihad (2010), Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (2012), and Faithless Execution (2014). He has also written several pamphlets in the Broadside series published by Encounter Books, most recently Islam and Free Speech (2015).
Religious Arbitration, Family Law, and Constitutional Limits in Texas
Qanta A. Ahmed, Karen J. Lugo, Eugene Volokh
In recent months, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a ban on “Sharia law and Sharia...
Religious Arbitration, Family Law, and Constitutional Limits in Texas
Qanta A. Ahmed, Karen J. Lugo, Eugene Volokh
In recent months, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a ban on “Sharia law and Sharia...
Religious Arbitration, Family Law, and Constitutional Limits in Texas
Sharia Law in the U.S.
Creeping Sharia-ism or Free Exercise of Religion: Islamic Law in America
Irvine, CaliforniaSharia Law in the United States
TeleforumVeiled Meaning: Tolerance and Prohibition of the Hijab in the U.S. and France
Elizabeth K. Dorminey
Introduction France and the U.S. have much in common. Both nations share a commitment to...
2011 James Madison Award Presentation - Prepared Remarks
Andrew McCarthy, Michael B. Mukasey
On April 25, 2011, the New York City Lawyers Chapter hosted its 25th Anniversary Dinner...
Constitution and Culture: Koran-Burning, Ground Zero Mosque, and No Sharia Law in Oklahoma?
Irvine, California