F. Elwood and Eleanor Davis Professor Emeritus of Law, The George Washington University Law School
Professor Lupu joined the law school in 1990. After graduating from law school, where he was case editor of the Harvard Law Review, he practiced law with the Boston firm of Hill & Barlow and then joined the law faculty at Boston University, where he taught from 1973 to 1989. During that time, he also served as a visiting professor at Northeastern University and at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1989–90, he was the professor-in-residence on the Appellate Staff of the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Professor Lupu is a nationally recognized scholar in constitutional law, with an emphasis in his writings on the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Together with his colleague Professor Robert Tuttle, Professor Lupu is the co-author of Secular Government, Religious People (Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2014) and many law journal articles.
Vice President and Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Lori Windham is vice president and senior counsel at Becket, where she has represented clients on cutting-edge religious freedom issues since 2005. She has represented parties before the Supreme Court, arguing Becket’s unanimous victory on behalf of foster families in Fulton v. Philadelphia, as well as working with the Becket team on its Supreme Court victories in Hosanna-Tabor, Hobby Lobby, and Little Sisters of the Poor. She won a victory for the world’s largest religious media network in EWTN v. Azar, staving off millions of dollars in government fines under unlawful the HHS mandate. She has won more than a dozen victories in federal appellate courts, including successful defense of cities and school districts sued for accommodating religion, victories for houses of worship facing discrimination in the land use process, and overturning a multimillion-dollar judgment against a major evangelical ministry. She recently won a first-in-the-nation injunction for an adoption agency threatened with shutdown for its religious beliefs.
Recognized in Washington as an expert on religious freedom issues, Lori has testified in Congressional oversight hearings before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee and before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Outside Washington, Lori is sought-after speaker on First Amendment law, including appearances at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Central European University, and many others.
In addition to these venues, Lori also defends her clients in the media, including television appearances on CBS This Morning, Hardball, CNN Tonight, On the Record, America’s Newsroom, Opinion Journal, and many others. Her work has been covered by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and dozens of other papers. She is also a regular guest on radio, with appearances on shows ranging from Sean Hannity to NPR.
Lori has successfully represented a wide array of clients, including a Santeria priest prohibited from making animal sacrifices, synagogues prohibited from building on their own land, and religious student organizations penalized for their religious speech. One of her most challenging cases involved travel to a remote farming community to ensure that members of the local Amish community were not jailed for using their traditional building methods.
Lori is a graduate of Harvard Law School and earned her B.A. summa cum laude at Abilene Christian University. She has served on the Board of Visitors of Abilene Christian University and received the ACU Young Alumnus of the Year award for her work at Becket. She sits on the board of Dominion Christian School and the visiting committee of the Fund for American Studies’ Summer Law Fellowship.
Director, Center for Education Policy and Mark A. Kolokotrones Fellow in Education, The Heritage Foundation
As director of the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation, Lindsey Burke oversees Heritage’s research and policy on issues pertaining to preschool, K-12, and higher education reform. Burke’s research has been presented at academic conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals including Social Science Quarterly, Educational Research and Evaluation, and the Journal of School Choice, and her commentary and op-eds have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers. She is a frequent guest on radio and television shows and speaks on education reform issues across the country and internationally. She has published evaluations of education choice options for public policy foundations across the country and has done extensive work shaping and evaluating education savings accounts (ESAs).
In 2021, Burke was tapped to join Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s transition steering committee and was also appointed to serve on the Youngkin landing team for education. Burke was also appointed by Governor Youngkin to serve on the Board of Visitors for George Mason University. Her term runs from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2026.
Burke also serves as a fellow at EdChoice, the namesake foundation of Milton and Rose Friedman, on the national advisory board of Learn4Life, a network of public charter schools serving “opportunity youth,” on the board of the Educational Freedom Institute, on the advisory board of the Independent Women’s Forum’s Education Freedom Center, and as a Trustee of Choice Media.
In 2015, Burke won Heritage’s prestigious W. Glenn and Rita Ricardo Campbell Award in recognition of her work fighting for expanded education choice options. The award is given annually to a policy expert who has made “an outstanding contribution to the analysis and promotion of a free society.”
Burke holds a bachelor's degree in politics from Hollins University in Roanoke, VA, and a master of teaching degree in foreign language education from the University of Virginia. She earned her Ph.D. in education policy from George Mason University, where she examined the intersection of education choice and institutional theory.
Senior Scholar, Manhattan Institute; Professor of Law Emerita, University of San Diego
Gail Heriot is a Senior Scholar at the Manhattan Institute, a Professor of Law Emerita at the University of San Diego and the Chairman of the Board of the American Civil Rights Project. She served on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for 18 years. Her new book is entitled “Why We Walk on Eggshells: How Our Civil Rights Laws Stifle Our Public Discourse.”
Former Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education; Former Chair, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
Catherine E. Lhamon served as Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights from November 17, 2021 to January 20, 2025. Before that, she served as the Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. President Obama appointed Lhamon to a six-year term on the Commission on December 15, 2016, and the Commission unanimously confirmed the President’s designation of Lhamon to chair the Commission on December 28, 2016. Lhamon also serves in the cabinet of California Governor Gavin Newsom, where she has been Legal Affairs Secretary since January 2019. Lhamon previously litigated civil rights cases at the National Center for Youth Law.
Before coming to the Commission, Lhamon served as the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education until January 2017. President Obama nominated her to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights position on June 10, 2013, and she was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 1, 2013. Immediately prior to joining the Department of Education, Lhamon was director of impact litigation at Public Counsel, the nation’s largest pro bono law firm. Before that, she practiced for a decade at the ACLU of Southern California, ultimately as assistant legal director.
Earlier in her career, Lhamon was a teaching fellow and supervising attorney in the Appellate Litigation Program at Georgetown University Law Center, after clerking for The Honorable William A. Norris on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In 2016, Politico Magazine named Lhamon one of Politico 50 Thinkers Transforming Politics and the National Action Network honored Lhamon with their Action & Authority Award. In 2015, Yale Law School named Lhamon their Gruber Distinguished Lecturer and the Association of University Centers on Disabilities awarded Lhamon their Special Recognition Award. Chronicle of Higher Education named Lhamon to their 2014 Influence List as the Enforcer. The Daily Journal listed her as one of California’s Top Women Litigators in 2010 and 2007, and as one of the Top 20 California Lawyers Under 40 in 2007. In 2004, California Lawyer magazine named Lhamon Attorney of the Year for Civil Rights.
Lhamon received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was the Outstanding Woman Law Graduate, and she graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College.
Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Professor of American Politics, Boston College; Co-Chair, Harvard Program on Constitutional Government
R. Shep Melnick is the Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Professor of American Politics at Boston College and co-chair of the Harvard Program on Constitutional Government. He is the author of The Crucible of Desegregation: The Uncertain Search for Educational Equality (Univeristy of Chicago Press, 2023); The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education, (Brookings, 2018), Between the Lines: Interpreting Welfare Rights (Brookings,1994), and Regulation and the Courts: The Case of the Clean Air Act (Brookings, 1983), as well as many articles on courts, agencies, and public policy. He is currently completing a book on education and the civil rights state. In 2012 he received the American Political Science Association Law and Courts Section’s “Lasting Contribution” award. He received his BA and PhD from Harvard, and taught at Harvard and Brandeis before moving to Boston College. He has also been a Research Associate at Brookings, President of the New England Political Science Association, and an elected member of the NH House of Representatives.
General Counsel, Mountain States Legal Foundation
William E. Trachman is General Counsel for Mountain States Legal Foundation, where he protects the rights of individuals to live freely and securely under the U.S. Constitution. Previously, he was appointed to serve in the Department of Education as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office for Civil Rights. Prior to his appointment, he served as General Counsel to the Douglas County School District, where he helped litigate the fight for school choice in the school district. Presently, Mr. Trachman serves as Chair of the Colorado Federalist Society and the Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ Colorado Advisory Board. He previously taught as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law. He attended U.C. Berkeley for both undergraduate and law school, and then clerked for the Honorable Harris Hartz on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Trachman is licensed in Colorado, California, and Washington, D.C.
Senior Judge, United States District Court, District of Columbia
Judge Leon was appointed to the United States District Court in February 2002. He received his A.B. from Holy Cross College in 1971, his J.D. cum laude from Suffolk Law School in 1974, and his LL.M. from Harvard Law School in 1981. Immediately prior to his appointment to the bench, Judge Leon was engaged in private practice in Washington, D.C., as a partner in the Washington office of Baker & Hostetler (1989-1999), and Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease (1999-2002). Prior to and while in private practice, Judge Leon served as counsel to Congress in the investigations of three sitting Presidents. In 1987, he was the Deputy Chief Minority Counsel for the U.S. House Select “Iran-Contra” Committee. From 1992-1993, he was the Chief Minority Counsel to the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee’s “October Surprise” Task Force. In 1994, Judge Leon was Special Counsel to the U.S. House Banking Committee for its “Whitewater” investigation. He also served in 1997 as Special Counsel to the bipartisan U.S. House Ethics Reform Task Force. Earlier in his career, Judge Leon served at the U.S. Department of Justice in a number of positions including Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment Division, Senior Trial Attorney in the Criminal Section of the Tax Division, and as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York. He also served as a Commissioner on the White House Fellows Commission and the Judicial Review Commission on Foreign Asset Control. A former full-time law professor at St. John’s Law School (1979-1983), Judge Leon is currently an adjunct law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and the George Washington University Law School.
Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Chair in US Constitutional Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Tracey Maclin is Professor of Law and Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Eminent Scholar Chair. Prior to joining the University of Florida faculty, he was a professor of law and Joseph Lipsitt Faculty Research Scholar at Boston University School of Law. He has also taught at Cornell Law School, Harvard Law School and the University of Kentucky College of Law. Before entering law teaching, Professor Maclin served as a law clerk to Judge Boyce F. Martin, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and worked at Cahill, Gordon & Reindel.
Professor Maclin teaches courses in Constitutional Law and Constitutional Criminal Procedure. He also teaches a seminar on the Supreme Court’s cases in criminal procedure, criminal law, habeas corpus and the death penalty. His scholarship focuses on the Fourth Amendment and the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment. He has published many law review articles and book chapters on constitutional criminal procedure topics. He is the author of The Supreme Court and the Fourth Amendment’s Exclusionary Rule (Oxford University Press 2013). In addition to his legal scholarship, Professor Maclin has authored over a dozen amicus curiae briefs and served as counsel of record for the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Cato Institute in Fourth Amendment cases in the United States Supreme Court.
Emeritus Faculty, University of Colorado Law School
William Pizzi has been a member of the Colorado Law School faculty since 1975. He came to Colorado in 1975, after spending a few years as Assistant U.S. Attorney in New Jersey. He specializes in criminal law, with special interest in foreign criminal trial systems. Professor Pizzi's belief in the comparative study of law has compelled him to coordinate many of the law school's study abroad programs, and he recently served as a professor on the Semester-at-Sea program. Professor Pizzi has always been active in Colorado's legal community, working on the Colorado Bar Association's Ethics Committee and, most recently, serving as the reporter for the Governor's Columbine Review Commission. His task was to take the information from more than a year of meetings, testimony and interviews, and put together a cohesive report. He worked to produce the report with help from other members of the commission, while continuing his regular teaching schedule at Colorado Law School. "It was a very difficult task, because there was no model to follow. It was very much a team effort," Professor Pizzi said of the report. He was pleased with the results of the commission and said, "I'm proud of the recommendations that will help make Colorado schools safer."
United States Attorney, Eastern District of California
Mr. Grant was appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi to serve as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California beginning on August 11, 2025. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 546(d), he was further appointed by the district court effective December 9, 2025.
Mr. Grant is a veteran of the Department of Justice, having served twice in Washington, D.C.: from 1991 to 1993 as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel, and from 2017 to 2021 as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). During his tenure at ENRD, he supervised more than a hundred Department litigators advancing the interests of the United States and its agencies in both enforcement and defensive matters, both civil and criminal.
In addition to his service in the Department, Mr. Grant has decades of experience in private practice in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento. That experience includes arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and numerous other federal and state courts.
Mr. Grant served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger (retired) and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas during the Supreme Court’s October 1994 Term. Earlier he served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston, Texas.
Mr. Grant grew up in Modesto, California and raised his family in Sacramento County. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, from which he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics (1986) and a law degree (1990).
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Nelson was confirmed to the Ninth Circuit in October 2018, as the youngest Circuit Judge to serve from Idaho and he has chambers in his hometown of Idaho Falls. Prior to his confirmation, Judge Nelson served for nine years as General Counsel of Idaho Falls-based Melaleuca, Inc., a consumer goods company. He previously worked in Washington, DC, where he served in all three branches of the federal government, including as Special Counsel for Supreme Court nominations to the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Deputy General Counsel to the White House Office of Management and Budget; Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice; and a law clerk to Judge Henderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has argued in most of the federal courts of appeals and worked on dozens of Supreme Court briefs. He started in the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin as an appellate lawyer, after clerking for Judges Mosk and Brower of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague, and for now-Judge Tom Griffith, then-Senate Legal Counsel, during the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Judge Nelson earned his B.A. from Brigham Young University and his J.D., with honors, from BYU Law School. Judge Nelson has been a member of the Federalist Society since 1998.
Executive Director & Chief Legal Counsel, Our Children's Trust
Julia Olson graduated from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, with a J.D. in 1997. For the first part of her 22-year career, Julia represented grassroots conservation groups working to protect the environment, organic agriculture, and human health. After becoming a mother, and realizing the greatest threat to her children and children everywhere was climate change, she focused her work on representing young people and elevating their voices on the issue that will most determine the quality of their lives and the well-being of all future generations. Julia founded Our Children’s Trust in 2010 to lead this strategic legal campaign on behalf of the world’s youth against governments everywhere. Julia leads Juliana v. the United States, the constitutional climate change case brought by 21 youth against the U.S. government for violating their Fifth Amendment rights to life, liberty, property, and public trust resources. Julia and OCT are recipients of the Rose-Walters Prize for Global Environmental Activism. She received the Kerry Rydberg Award for Environmental Activism in 2017 and is a member of Rachel's Network Circle of Advisors. To rejuvenate, Julia loves being high up in the mountains with her family and her dog or playing tunes on her ukulele with friends.
Senior Counsel, Litigation, Defense of Freedom Institute
Don Daugherty is Senior Counsel, Litigation, at the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies. He previously served as a Senior Counsel at the Institute for Free Speech and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. Before that, he was a partner at three of Wisconsin’s largest firms, with nearly 30 years of trial and appellate litigation experience. He has been consistently recognized as among the “Best Lawyers in America,” as well as Wisconsin’s “Super Lawyers.” He received his B.A. from the University of Virginia and his J.D. from Northwestern University Law School. After law school, he served as a clerk to the Honorable Roger J. Miner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Don is on the Board of Advisors for the Milwaukee Lawyers’ Chapter of the Federalist Society, and on the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s Litigation Practice Group.
Distinguished University Professor, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
University Professor Nelson Lund is the author of Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of Political Philosophy: A New Introduction. He has also written widely in the field of constitutional law, including articles on constitutional interpretation, federalism, separation of powers, the Second Amendment, the Commerce Clause, the Speech or Debate Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Uniformity Clause. In addition, he has published articles in the fields of employment discrimination and civil rights, the legal regulation of medical ethics, and the application of economic analysis to legal institutions and legal ethics.
Professor Lund graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, after which he received an MA in philosophy from the Catholic University of America and a PhD in political science from Harvard University. He left the faculty of the University of Chicago to attend its law school, where he served as executive editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and chapter chairman of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. After law school, he held positions at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Solicitor General and the Office of Legal Counsel. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and to the Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor of the United States Supreme Court. Following his clerkship with Justice O'Connor, Professor Lund served in the White House as associate counsel to the president from 1989 to 1992.
Since joining the faculty at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, Professor Lund has taught Constitutional Law, Legislation, Federal Election Law, Employment Discrimination, State and Local Government, and seminars on the Second Amendment and on a variety of topics in Jurisprudence.
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Thomas G. Hungar is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson Dunn. His practice focuses on appellate litigation, and he assists clients with congressional investigations and complex trial court litigation matters as well. He has presented oral argument before the Supreme Court of the United States in 28 cases, including some of the Court’s most important patent, antitrust, securities, and environmental law decisions, and he has also appeared before numerous lower federal and state courts.
Thomas served as General Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives from July 2016 until January 2019. As General Counsel, he provided legal advice and litigation representation on a non-partisan basis to the House and its leadership, members, officers, and staff, and he worked closely with numerous House committees in connection with their oversight and investigative activities. Previously, he served as a Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. In that position, he supervised business-related appellate litigation for the federal government, with particular emphasis on patent, antitrust, securities, and environmental appellate cases, and he also oversaw appellate litigation in banking, bankruptcy, tax, government contracts, communications, copyright, labor, trademark, and international trade matters. In private practice, Thomas’s appellate experience has encompassed those areas as well as class actions, constitutional law, employment law, product liability, administrative procedure, insurance coverage and bad faith, and general commercial litigation. He has handled scores of business-related appeals in the Supreme Court and lower appellate courts, and has briefed and argued many high-profile matters.
Thomas is a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and is a frequent lecturer in his areas of expertise. While at the Department of Justice, he served as Appellate Counsel to the Intellectual Property Task Force Executive Staff, and he was awarded the John Marshall Award for Outstanding Legal Achievement, the Department’s highest award presented to attorneys for contributions and excellence in legal performance, in recognition of his handling of patent-law matters before the Supreme Court.
Most recently, Thomas has garnered national recognition for his Appellate Practice in The Legal 500 – United States, Best Lawyers in America, and in Chambers USA, which has repeatedly highlighted Thomas for his “expertise in appellate litigation” and experience with employment and antitrust disputes, as well as Congressional Investigations. Thomas was also recently named a “Litigation Star” by Benchmark Litigation.
Thomas served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States from 1992-1994. He also served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court and to Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his law degree from Yale Law School in 1987, where he was a Senior Editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review. He received his Bachelor of Science degree magna cum laude in mathematics/computer science and economics from Willamette University in 1984.
Thomas is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
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