Co-Founder and President, Defense of Freedom Institute
Bob is a co-founder and President of DFI. He previously served as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Education from 2017 through 2020 and Deputy General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Education from 2005 until 2009.
During his most recent tenure at the Department, Bob served on the Secretary’s Leadership Team as a strategic and legal adviser on higher education, civil rights, and congressional oversight matters. As the Department’s Regulatory Reform Officer, he also supervised the implementation of the Secretary’s regulatory agenda and was an architect of the Secretary’s reforms concerning Title IX and the Higher Education Act. As Deputy General Counsel, Bob advised on a wide variety of regulatory, legislative, and oversight matters.
Prior to joining the Department in 2017, Bob was vice president for regulatory compliance matters for several postsecondary institutions and practiced education and employment law in Washington, D.C. Before coming to the Department in 2005, he practiced law in New Orleans, litigating commercial, employment, and bankruptcy cases in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi.
Bob earned his A.B. in History from Georgetown University, studied British government and international politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and received his law degree from Tulane University Law School. His articles have been published by National Review, Real Clear Education, Washington Examiner, and other media outlets. Fox News has featured his work.
Bob is a member of the District of Columbia and Louisiana Bars and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Principal, Helwink Legal Group, PLLC
Jonathan served as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Education during the first Trump administration and is currently principal at Helwink Legal Group, PLLC.
Visiting Lecturer in Formal Organizations, Trinity College
Vice President & Senior Legal Fellow, Defending Education
Sarah Parshall Perry is vice president and senior legal fellow at Defending Education.
Before coming to Defending Education, Sarah served as a Senior Legal Fellow for the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, part of the Institute for Constitutional Government at Heritage, where her work centered on civil rights and the proper role of the courts.
Sarah joined Heritage after serving as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education where she focused on policy reform, technical guidance, and the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) annual report to Congress. While at OCR, she was appointed by the Acting Assistant Secretary to co-chair the Employment Engagement, Diversity, & Inclusion Council and, in coordination with the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement oversee the hiring of dozens of attorneys for OCR’s 12 regional offices nationwide. Prior to her tenure at the Department of Education, she spent six years at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. where she was Senior Fellow for Education Reform and later, became the regular substitute host for the “Washington Watch” radio show. Her work at the Family Research Council also included the building and oversight of multiple policy coalitions geared toward the fight against antisemitism in academia, curbing tech censorship, and protecting religious liberty.
Before joining FRC, Sarah was in-house counsel and director of development for a Baltimore advertising agency, providing management of all new business transactions from pitch to contract execution for the multi-million-dollar enterprise. She began her practice at the litigation firm of Simms Showers, LLP where her work included Title VII employment discrimination, maritime/admiralty, and False Claims Act (“Qui Tam”) law. Sarah has a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was an editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law, a recipient of the American Jurisprudence award, a Phi Delta Phi honor society member, and a student practitioner in the appellate litigation clinic where she argued before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds a B.S. in Journalism with honors from Liberty University.
Her commentary and analysis have appeared in media outlets across the country, including the AP, BBC, Fox News, NPR, The Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, and the New York Times. She is the mother of three children, and the author of just as many books on the trials and triumphs of parenting children on the autism spectrum. Sarah is a member of the Kirkpatrick Society at the American Enterprise Institute, and makes her home north of Baltimore, Maryland.
Professor of Law, Trinity College Dublin
Catherine Donnelly undertook her LL.B. in Trinity College Dublin and is a former scholar of the College. She then completed a B.C.L. in Oxford, at Magdalen College, followed by an LL.M. and Fellowship in Harvard. She practised as a litigation attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York from 1999-2001 and was admitted to both the New York State and Federal Bars (Eastern and Southern Districts). During this time, she also taught an asylum law workshop at Columbia Law School and worked on pro bono projects for the Yale Law Clinic and Human Rights Watch.
From 2001-2004, she completed a D.Phil. in Oxford, again at Magdalen College, during part of which time she held a college lectureship shared between Corpus Christi College and St John's College, Oxford.
She joined the Law Faculty of the University of Oxford in 2005 as a University Lecturer and Fellow in Law at Wadham College, teaching Administrative, Constitutional and European Community Law. She joined the Law School in Trinity College in January 2007. She was elected to Fellowship of the College in 2011 and is an Associate Professor.
She has published and presented conference papers in the areas of human rights law, European Union law, administrative law, election law, constitutional law, comparative law, procurement law and public-private partnerships and is an author of De Smiths’ Judicial Review.
Catherine combines her academic work with practice as a barrister. She was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2003 (Gray's Inn) and from 2004-2005, she undertook pupillage at Blackstone Chambers, and became a member of Blackstone Chambers in 2008.
She began practice at the Bar of Ireland in 2008, and was called to the Inner Bar and became a Senior Counsel in 2021. She has appeared in cases before the Court of Justice and General Court of the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights, and the national courts, including acting for the Data Protection Commissioner in the Schrems II litigation on EU-US data transfers and for Ireland in the Apple State Aid appeal. She practises in the areas of EU, Constitutional, Administrative and Commercial Law.
Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Co-Director, Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
Mr. White practiced constitutional and administrative law, particularly in the regulation of energy and financial markets. He started his legal career as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Mr. White has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Affairs, Commentary, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He is a regular contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice and Comment blog, and for many years, he was one of the Weekly Standard’s lead writers on constitutional law and the Supreme Court.
Mr. White has testified often before Congress, including before the Senate’s Committees on the Judiciary; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and before the House’s Judiciary and Financial Services Committees. In 2018, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary called him to testify in Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings to advise senators on Kavanaugh’s approach to administrative law.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court. In 2017, he was appointed to serve on the Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves on the leadership council for the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, which he will chair in 2023–24. Before joining AEI, he was a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Mr. White has a JD from Harvard Law School and a bachelor of business administration from the College of Business at the University of Iowa.
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties. He worked as special assistant to President Reagan and editor of the political magazine Inquiry. He writes regularly for leading publications such as Fortune magazine, National Interest, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Times. Bandow speaks frequently at academic conferences, on college campuses, and to business groups. Bandow has been a regular commentator on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. He holds a J.D. from Stanford University.
Trinity College Dublin School of Law
Neville Cox LL.B., Ph.D. is a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and a practising barrister. He is the author of Blasphemy and the Law (2000) and co-author of Sport and the Law (2004). He is also published on a wide variety of topics in law journals and books. He lectures in the areas of tort law, comparative law and sport and the law. He has been a visting professor in the University of San Francisco and in Autumn of 2006 he will be a scholar-in-residence in Washington & Lee University in Virginia. In 2005 he was awarded a Provost's teaching award.
Harry T. Ice Professor of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Professor Cripps, an internationally acclaimed scholar and teacher, became the first holder of the Harry T. Ice Chair of Law at Indiana University in 2000. She specializes in intellectual property law and biotechnology. Her book Controlling Technology: Genetic Engineering and the Law, published in 1980, was the first comprehensive treatment of the legal implications of biotechnology. She is also the author of other books, including The Legal Implications of Disclosure in the Public Interest, now in its second edition, and more than 40 articles on intellectual property, privacy law, and biotechnology.
In addition to her years in the faculty of law at Cambridge University, she has regularly taught as a visiting professor at the Cornell Law School and also at the University of Texas at Austin as well as in Paris. Professor Cripps is a barrister in both England and New Zealand, and has served as an advisor on intellectual property law and biotechnology to the House of Lords, on biotechnology issues to the New Zealand Government, on constitutional matters to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Justice, and as a consultant on intellectual property to various law firms and corporations. Her research on bioethics and cloning was cited in the most recent issue of the Harvard Law Review and in "Why can't you buy a kidney to save your life?" Boston Globe, July 1, 2007.
James Louis Calamaras Professor of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Professor Fidler specializes in international law. He is one of the world's leading experts on international law and global health. Professor Fidler is also an internationally recognized expert on biosecurity threats posed by biological weapons and bioterrorism, the international legal and policy implications of "non-lethal" weapons, counterinsurgency and rule of law operations, and the globalization of baseball.
In addition to his teaching and scholarly activities, Professor Fidler has served as an international legal consultant to the World Bank (on foreign investment in Palestine), the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (on global health issues), the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Science Board (on bioterrorism), the Scientists Working Group on Biological and Chemical Weapons of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, U.S. Joint Forces Command (on rule of law issues in complex operations), the Interagency Afghanistan Integrated Civilian-Military Pre-Deployment Training Course organized by the Departments of Defense, State, Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development, and various initiatives undertaken by non-governmental organizations in the areas of global health and arms control. He was also the editor for the Insights publication series of the American Society of International Law from 2007-2009.
Accreditation of Higher Education: A Primer
Covid and the Regulatory State
TeleforumThe Great Health Care Debate: Is Nationalized Health Care the Cure for America?
Indiana - Bloomington Student Chapter
Bloomington, IN