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Jun 12 2026 Podcast

How Did the Founders View the Role of Education?

Michael Bindas, Nicole Stelle Garnett, Shaka Laurence Mitchell, Mark Storslee

In this Federalist Society America 250 series, experts analyze modern legal and policy debates through...

Sponsors: Education Practice Group

Jun 12 2026

Friday 11:45 a.m. CDT

Separation of Powers in Action

Columbus Lawyer Chapter

Columbus, OH

Speakers:

T. Elliot Gaiser

Sponsors:

Columbus Lawyer Chapter

In-Person Event

Jun 11 2026

Thursday 12:00 p.m. EDT

What Was the Founders' Design for Intellectual Property?

The Founders Gave Us the Tools Series

Speakers:

John D. Love • Adam Mossoff • David S. Olson • Zvi Rosen

Topics:

Founding Era & History • Intellectual Property

Sponsors:

Intellectual Property Practice Group

Live Stream
Webinar

Jun 10 2026 Blog Post

In Memoriam: Gordon Wood

Publius

The Federalist Society mourns the loss of Gordon S. Wood, one of the great historians...

Jun 9 2026

Tuesday 12:00 p.m. EDT

No Enemies to the Right? Antisemitism and the Big Tent

Speakers:

Josh Blackman • Kenneth L. Marcus • Jesse Merriam

Topics:

Civil Rights • Free Speech

Sponsors:

Civil Rights Practice Group

Webinar

Jun 6 2026

Saturday 11:30 a.m. CDT

Debate: Birthright Citizenship: Constitutional Mandate or Historical Misreading?

2026 Texas Young Lawyers Summit

Fort Worth, TX

Speakers:

Josh Blackman • Elizabeth Kerr • Keith E. Whittington

Topics:

Fourteenth Amendment

In-Person Event

Jun 5 2026

Friday 1:00 p.m. EDT

How Did the Founders View the Role of Education?

The Founders Gave Us the Tools Series

Speakers:

Michael Bindas • Nicole Stelle Garnett • Shaka Laurence Mitchell • Mark Storslee

Sponsors:

Education Practice Group

Webinar

Jun 3 2026

Wednesday 5:00 p.m. MDT

Private Freedom Plane Exhibit Viewing: Celebrating America 250 & Colorado 150

Colorado Lawyer Chapter

Denver, CO

Sponsors:

Colorado Lawyer Chapter • The American History & Tradition Project

In-Person Event

May 27 2026

Wednesday 6:00 p.m. EDT

America 250: Reflections on American Criminal Law

Knoxville Lawyer Chapter

Knoxville, TN

Speakers:

Kyle A. Hixson

Sponsors:

Knoxville Lawyer Chapter • The American History & Tradition Project

In-Person Event

May 20 2026 Video

Dinner Discussion: Branches, Boundaries, and the Bench– A Judicious Conversation

Featuring: Hon. John Bush, U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit Hon. John Nielsen, Supreme Court of...

Sponsors: Structural Constitution Initiative

1776 I Street, NW Suite 300
Washington, DC 20006

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Fax(202) 296-8061
Emailinfo@fedsoc.org

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Contributor Information

Michael Bindas

Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice

Biography

Michael Bindas is a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice (IJ) and leads IJ’s educational choice team. In this role, he oversees a talented group of IJ attorneys who help policymakers design constitutionally defensible educational choice programs and who defend educational choice programs in courtrooms nationwide. He joined IJ in 2005.

Michael was part of IJ’s litigation team in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held the exclusion of religious options from Montana’s educational choice program unconstitutional, and he led IJ’s defense of the Choice Scholarship Program for elementary and secondary students in Douglas County, Colorado. He also successfully challenged Washington’s denial of special education services to children in religious schools, as well as the state’s exclusion of sectarian options from its state work study program. Currently, he leads IJ’s team in Carson v. Makin, challenging Maine’s exclusion of religious options from its educational choice program.

Prior to leading IJ’s educational choice team, Michael litigated extensively to secure economic liberty, property rights, and freedom of speech throughout the nation. He was counsel of record at the U.S. Supreme Court for Kimbrough Fine Wine & Spirits in Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association v. Thomas, a successful challenge to Tennessee’s durational residency requirements for retail liquor licenses. He also led successful challenges to the municipal sign codes of St. Louis, Mo. and Norfolk, Va., after those cities attempted to silence protests of their abusive eminent domain practices.

Prior to joining IJ, Michael spent three years as an attorney with Perkins Coie LLP. He is a former law clerk to Judge Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and served as an engineer officer in the United States Army and Pennsylvania Army National Guard before beginning his legal career.

Michael received his law degree cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2001, where he served as Articles Editor for the Journal of Constitutional Law and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He received his undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1995.

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Contributor Information

Nicole Stelle Garnett

John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law and Associate Dean for External Engagement, University of Notre Dame Law School

Biography

Nicole Stelle Garnett is the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, where she also serves as the Associate Dean for External Engagement and directs the Notre Dame Education Law Project. Her teaching and research focus on education law and policy, religious liberty, and topics related to property law (especially land use and urban development policies). In addition to dozens of articles on these subjects, she is the author of Lost Classroom, Lost Community: Catholic Schools' Importance in Urban America (University of Chicago Press, 2014) and Ordering the City: Land Use, Policing and the Restoration of Urban America (Yale University Press, 2009).

Garnett received her B.A. with distinction in Political Science from Stanford University and her J.D. from Yale Law School. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Morris S. Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and for Associate Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States. Before joining the law school faculty in 1999, she worked for two years as a staff attorney at the Institute for Justice, a non-profit public-interest law firm in Washington, D.C., where she helped to defend the constitutionality of the nation's first private-school-choice programs.

At Notre Dame, Garnett is a faculty fellow in the Institute for Educational Initiatives, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate, and deNicola Center for Ethics and Culture. She also is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

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Contributor Information

Shaka Laurence Mitchell

Senior Fellow, American Federation for Children

Biography

Shaka Mitchell serves as a Senior Fellow for the American Federation for Children.

He brings experience from several high-performing charter school networks, including Rocketship Education and LEAD Public schools, that serve over 2,500 students in Nashville.

Shaka began his career in education as the Associate Director of Policy and Planning at the D.C.-based Center for Education Reform. He then led outreach efforts at the Institute for Justice, a constitutional law firm based in Arlington, VA.

He is an alumnus of Belmont University where he teaches American Government and Constitutional Law as an adjunct faculty member. He earned his Juris Doctorate from the Wake Forest University School of Law where he sits on the Board of Advisors for the Journal of Law and Policy. Shaka is a co-founder of MoreMarrowDonors.org, a non-profit committed to providing scholarships to bone marrow donors who are matches for patients with various blood diseases. Shaka is the Chair of the Tennessee State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

He is a member of the American Enterprise Institute’s Leadership Network and Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellowship. Shaka and his wife Stephanie are members of Edgefield Church in Nashville and are active in several non-profit organizations.

Contributor Information

Mark Storslee

Associate Professor and C. Boyden Gray Distinguished Scholar, University of North Carolina School of Law

Biography

Mark Storslee joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2025 and serves as Associate Professor and C. Boyden Gray Distinguished Scholar. His teaching and research interests include constitutional law, civil procedure, administrative law, and federal courts. Among other topics, his scholarship focuses on constitutional history, religious freedom, and First Amendment law generally. Storslee’s work has appeared in publications such as the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the University of Virginia Law Review, Vanderbilt University Law Review, and the Journal of Law & Religion.

Storslee holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies (ethics) from the University of Virginia. He also holds masters degrees from Duke University and the University of Edinburgh and a B.A. from Furman University. After law school, Storslee clerked for Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and later for Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch on the United States Supreme Court. He previously taught at Penn State Law School and Emory Law School, and served as the Executive Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. He also worked as an appellate litigator at Williams & Connolly LLP.

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Speaker Information

T. Elliot Gaiser

Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice

Biography

T. Elliot Gaiser is the Office of Legal Counsel’s 27th Assistant Attorney General. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on April 29, 2025, confirmed by the United States Senate on July 30, 2025, and sworn in as AAG by Attorney General Pam Bondi on August 4, 2025.

Prior to joining the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Gaiser served as the 11th Solicitor General of Ohio. In that role, he represented his home state and its agencies before the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the Supreme Court of Ohio, and other state and federal courts. He also advised Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on significant legal and constitutional matters important to the people of Ohio.

Mr. Gaiser clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Neomi Rao of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In the private sector, Mr. Gaiser worked at the law firms Jones Day, Boyden Gray, and Gibson Dunn. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School and Hillsdale College. He is also a husband and father.

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Speaker Information

John D. Love

Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas

Biography

Judge Love was sworn in as U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of Texas on January 3, 2006. Before serving as Chief Staff Attorney to U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis in 2002, he practiced civil trial law in San Antonio. Judge Love has been a panelist in numerous federal practice and intellectual property seminars and is the co-author of Complex Patent Cases: Observations from the Bench, which appeared in the Spring 2010 edition of the Southern Methodist University Science and Technology Law Review. Judge Love graduated cum laude from Texas A&M University and St. Mary’s University School of Law.

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Speaker Information

Adam Mossoff

Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

Biography

Adam Mossoff is Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has published extensively on why patents, copyrights, and other intellectual property rights have been—and should be—legally secured to innovators and creators as property rights. His scholarship has been relied on by the United States Supreme Court, by lower federal courts, and by U.S. federal agencies. He has been invited to testify numerous times before the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives on intellectual property legislation. His writings on intellectual property policy have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Investors Business Daily, and in other media outlets. His journal articles can be downloaded here.

Professor Mossoff is a longstanding member of the Executive Committee of the Intellectual Property Practice Group of the Federalist Society, on which he served as Chairperson from 2016-2018, and he is Chair of the Intellectual Property Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project of the Federalist Society. He is a Senior Fellow and Chair of the Forum for Intellectual Property at the Hudson Institute, a Visiting Intellectual Property Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding. He is a member of the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of ANSI and he has served as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the IEEE-USA, on which he remains a member in good standing.

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Speaker Information

David S. Olson

Associate Professor, Boston College Law School

Biography

David Olson is an associate professor and the Faculty Director of the Program on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He teaches patent law, intellectual property law, antitrust law, and various seminars. His research and writing primarily focus on patents, copyrights, antitrust, and incentives for innovation and competition. Since joining BC Law in 2007, he has been recognized for his teaching excellence and contributions. In 2011, he received the Business & Law Society Faculty Award for Achievement in Business & Law. In 2012, he received the Professor Emil Slizewski Award for Faculty Excellence. For one semester in 2015, Olson served as a visiting professor at Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he conducted research and taught a course on intellectual property.

Olson has published scholarly articles on patent law, copyright law, antitrust, music licensing, and first amendment copyright issues. His writing has been cited in Supreme Court and other legal opinions. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on matters of drug patents, FDA regulation, and antitrust.

The media frequently seeks Olson’s insights and opinions. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, and Reuters, among others. He has appeared as a guest panelist on WBUR’s Radio Boston, WAMU's Kojo Namdi Show, and Public Radio Canada. His op-eds have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Washington Times, and The Hill.

Olson came to Boston College from Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, where he conducted research on patent law and litigated copyright fair use impact cases. Before entering academia, Olson practiced law as a patent litigator. He clerked for Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

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Speaker Information

Zvi Rosen

Associate Professor, UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law

Biography

Zvi S. Rosen is an Associate Professor at UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law and the Faculty Director of the Franklin Pierce Society for Intellectual Property. He has served as a Assistant Professor at the Southern Illinois University School of Law, as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, and as a Visiting Scholar and Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University School of Law.

In 2015-2016, he was the Abraham L. Kaminstein Scholar in Residence at the U.S. Copyright Office. Mr. Rosen received his J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law in 2005 and LLM in Intellectual Property in 2006 from the George Washington University Law School. He has practiced at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP as well as smaller firms and his own practice, and clerked for the Hon. Thomas B. Bennett of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama. He has written extensively on the development of modern copyright and trademark law, as well as on bankruptcy law.

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Speaker Information

Josh Blackman

Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston

Biography

Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.

Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.

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Speaker Information

Kenneth L. Marcus

Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law

Biography

Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus is an internationally recognized expert in civil and human rights, as well as a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism on and off university campuses. He is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the leading civil rights legal organization fighting against anti-Semitism. The New York Times has called him “The Man Who Helped Redefine Campus Anti-Semitism.” He been described, in that paper, as “the single most effective and respected force” to combat anti-Semitism.

During his public service career, Marcus served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights; Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.

In academia, he serves as Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University. He formerly held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College, served as Visiting Research Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva University, and was a Board of Visitors member George Mason University and Distinguished Senior Fellow at that university’s law school. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.

Marcus is also author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press) and Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (Cambridge University Press). He has published widely in academic journals as well as in more popular venues such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and Politico. He is a graduate of Williams College and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.

Earlier in his career, he was a litigation partner in two major law firms, where he conducted complex commercial and constitutional litigation. He also serves as Chairman emeritus of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Civil Rights Practice Group.

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Speaker Information

Jesse Merriam

Associate Professor of Government; Pre-Law Advisor, Patrick Henry College

Biography

Dr. Jesse Merriam has a Ph.D. in judicial politics and legal theory from Johns Hopkins University, a separate M.A. in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University, and a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School.

Dr. Merriam is an associate professor of Government at Patrick Henry College, where he is the pre-law advisor and teaches courses in constitutional law, legal theory, and logic. Before coming to Patrick Henry College, he served for six years as an assistant professor of political science and the pre-law advisor at Loyola University Maryland. He also worked as an appellate litigator at a D.C. constitutional law firm and as a research associate at the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life.

He has published over a dozen academic articles in top law-review and peer-reviewed journals, covering such diverse topics as legal conservatism, originalism, the rule of law, church-state relations, and the civil rights regime. Dr. Merriam has also published over 30 online articles, appearing in such places as Law and Liberty, The American Mind, National Review Online, The American Conservative, and Claremont Review of Books.

In 2019-2020, Dr. Merriam was selected to be the Visiting Fellow in American Political Thought at the Heritage Foundation's B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics. He is currently a research fellow at the Claremont Institute's Center for the American Way of Life.

Dr. Merriam lives in a 1750s stone farmhouse in a rural part of Frederick County, Maryland with his wife and their five children.

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Speaker Information

Josh Blackman

Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston

Biography

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Speaker Information

Elizabeth Kerr

Texas Second Court of Appeals

Biography

Justice Kerr grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, graduating from White Station High School in 1974. She became a Texan when she matriculated at Rice University in Houston, obtaining a B.A. in English and Art History in 1978, followed by a J.D. from the University of Texas in 1982. Immediately following law school, Justice Kerr spent two years as a briefing attorney for the late Honorable Lucius D. Bunton, III, Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, Midland Division.

From there, Justice Kerr began her private practice in Fort Worth in 1984, first with the firm of Law, Snakard & Gambill. During the 1990s, in addition to maintaining her legal practice Justice Kerr worked on numerous projects with lexicographer and author Bryan A. Garner, including as a contributing editor of the seventh edition of Black’s Law Dictionary. Starting in 1995, Justice Kerr taught legal writing and research off and on for a number of years at what began as the DFW School of Law and then became Texas Wesleyan (now Texas A&M) School of Law.

Most recently, she joined Friedman, Suder & Cooke in 2006, where she was of counsel until her election to the appellate bench in 2016. While at Friedman, Suder & Cooke, Justice Kerr was a member of the planning committee of the Tarrant County Bar Association’s appellate section, serving as its chair for the 2010-2011 bar year. She is a Fellow of the Tarrant County Bar Foundation and a Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation.

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Speaker Information

Keith E. Whittington

David Boies Professor of Law, Yale Law School

Biography

Keith E. Whittington is the David Boies Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is the faculty director of the Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech at Yale. Prior to joining Yale, Professor Whittington was the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University. He writes about American constitutional law, politics and history and American political thought. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas School of Law, is a member of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences, and served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Texas at Austin and completed his Ph.D. in political science at Yale University. His books include Constitutional Interpretation: Textual Meaning, Original Intent, and Judicial Review. His most recent books include You Can't Teach That! The Battle over University Classrooms and Repugnant Laws: Judicial Review of Acts of Congress from the Founding to the Present.

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Speaker Information

Michael Bindas

Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice

Biography

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Speaker Information

Nicole Stelle Garnett

John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law and Associate Dean for External Engagement, University of Notre Dame Law School

Biography

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Speaker Information

Shaka Laurence Mitchell

Senior Fellow, American Federation for Children

Biography

Shaka Mitchell serves as a Senior Fellow for the American Federation for Children.

He brings experience from several high-performing charter school networks, including Rocketship Education and LEAD Public schools, that serve over 2,500 students in Nashville.

Speaker Information

Mark Storslee

Associate Professor and C. Boyden Gray Distinguished Scholar, University of North Carolina School of Law

Biography

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Speaker Information

Kyle A. Hixson

Justice, Tennessee Supreme Court