Founder and Senior Director, Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance
Stanley Carlson-Thies is the Founder and Senior Director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance (IRFA), a division of the Center for Public Justice. As part of this role, he convenes the Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom, a multi-faith alliance of social-service, education, and religious freedom organizations that advocates for the religious freedom of faith-based organizations to Congress and the federal government. In addition he is also a Senior Fellow at the Canadian think tank Cardus.
From 2009-2010 he served on a task force of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, helping to draft recommendations on how to clarify the church-state rules that apply to federal funding of social-service providers, and has consulted with federal departments and several states.
He served with the White House Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives from its inception in February 2001 until mid-May 2002. He assisted with writing “Unlevel Playing Field: Barriers to Participation by Faith-Based and Community Organizations in Federal Social Service Programs,” a report released by the White House in August 2001, and “Rallying the Armies of Compassion,” the initial blueprint for President George W. Bush’s faith and community agenda.
Previously, he was Director of Social Policy Studies for CPJ and directed CPJ’s project to track the implementation and impact of the Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 federal welfare reform law. Following his term in the White House, he returned to CPJ as the Director of Faith-based Policy Studies.
He received the William Bentley Ball Life and Religious Liberty Defense Award from the Center for Law and Religious Freedom and the Christian Legal Society in October 2004. He was named as one of 12 advocates who are “reinterpreting God and country” by the National Journal in May 2004. He holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Toronto. His dissertation is on the role of Protestants and Catholics in the development of Dutch politics in the 19th and 20th centuries. Besides the United States, he has lived in Canada, the Netherlands, and Japan, where he was born of missionary parents. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with his wife, Christiane. They are the proud parents of Simon.
Partner, Holme Roberts & Owen LLP
Stuart Lark is a partner in the firm's Colorado Springs office. He concentrates on corporate, tax, constitutional and transactional matters for nonprofit organizations. His experience includes joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, tax exempt financing, corporate structure, IRS rulings, private foundations, unrelated trade or business income tax, property and sales tax, international structure and transactions, planned giving, government funding for religious organizations, faith-based employment rights, immigration, church property disputes and other religious liberty issues. He has published articles and given presentations on many of these issues. In 2002, Mr. Lark took a one-year leave of absence during which he served as Legal Counsel for Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C.
Prior to entering law school, Mr. Lark worked for AT&T as an engineer and international product manager. He also spent one year in the former Soviet Russia working on a missions project.
M.S., Stanford University, 1985
B.S., Purdue University, with distinction, 1984
Founder and Senior Director, Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance
Stanley Carlson-Thies is the Founder and Senior Director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance (IRFA), a division of the Center for Public Justice. As part of this role, he convenes the Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom, a multi-faith alliance of social-service, education, and religious freedom organizations that advocates for the religious freedom of faith-based organizations to Congress and the federal government. In addition he is also a Senior Fellow at the Canadian think tank Cardus.
From 2009-2010 he served on a task force of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, helping to draft recommendations on how to clarify the church-state rules that apply to federal funding of social-service providers, and has consulted with federal departments and several states.
He served with the White House Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives from its inception in February 2001 until mid-May 2002. He assisted with writing “Unlevel Playing Field: Barriers to Participation by Faith-Based and Community Organizations in Federal Social Service Programs,” a report released by the White House in August 2001, and “Rallying the Armies of Compassion,” the initial blueprint for President George W. Bush’s faith and community agenda.
Previously, he was Director of Social Policy Studies for CPJ and directed CPJ’s project to track the implementation and impact of the Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 federal welfare reform law. Following his term in the White House, he returned to CPJ as the Director of Faith-based Policy Studies.
He received the William Bentley Ball Life and Religious Liberty Defense Award from the Center for Law and Religious Freedom and the Christian Legal Society in October 2004. He was named as one of 12 advocates who are “reinterpreting God and country” by the National Journal in May 2004. He holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Toronto. His dissertation is on the role of Protestants and Catholics in the development of Dutch politics in the 19th and 20th centuries. Besides the United States, he has lived in Canada, the Netherlands, and Japan, where he was born of missionary parents. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with his wife, Christiane. They are the proud parents of Simon.
Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Alex Luchenitser is the Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Alex has litigated church-state cases throughout the country for Americans United since January 2001. He has led lawsuits challenging religious proselytization of students in public schools, public funding of religious institutions, discriminatory governmental prayer practices, and government-sponsored religious displays. His successful cases include:
Alex has also authored and edited numerous friend-of-the-court briefs filed on behalf of Americans United. After the Covid-19 pandemic began, Alex led Americans United’s efforts to fight lawsuits that sought religious exemptions from public-health orders, filing fifty friend-of-the-court briefs in such cases around the country, including six in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Alex was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1969 and immigrated to the United States in 1977. He received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in government and economics from Harvard University in 1991, and he received his Juris Doctor with distinction from Stanford Law School in 1994. After finishing law school, Alex served two one-year judicial clerkships, with Justice Warren W. Matthews Jr. of the Alaska Supreme Court and U.S. Magistrate Judge Wayne D. Brazil of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Alex then spent four years in private practice in Northern California, participating in the prosecution of class actions on behalf of investors, consumers, and trust beneficiaries.
Alex has spoken about church-state issues in many television and radio appearances and public presentations and has been quoted in numerous major newspapers. His published articles include:
Alex is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar, is an inactive member of the State Bar of California, and has been admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Federal, and District of Columbia Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia, the Northern District of California, the District of Colorado, the Eastern District of Michigan, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
David R. and Sherry Kirschner Berz Research Professor of Law and, GWU Law School
Senior Litigation Counsel, American Center for Law and Justice
Walter M. Weber is Senior Counsel for the ACLJ in the Washington, D.C. office. A highly regarded legal writer, Weber received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and his law degree from Yale Law School.
Weber emphasizes First Amendment law and has written briefs in many landmark cases at the Supreme Court including NOW v. Scheidler, Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches School District and Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic.
Weber has argued more than a dozen times in appeals before federal and state courts. Prior to joining the ACLJ, Weber served as a staff attorney with the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
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.
Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Alex Luchenitser is the Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Alex has litigated church-state cases throughout the country for Americans United since January 2001. He has led lawsuits challenging religious proselytization of students in public schools, public funding of religious institutions, discriminatory governmental prayer practices, and government-sponsored religious displays. His successful cases include:
Alex has also authored and edited numerous friend-of-the-court briefs filed on behalf of Americans United. After the Covid-19 pandemic began, Alex led Americans United’s efforts to fight lawsuits that sought religious exemptions from public-health orders, filing fifty friend-of-the-court briefs in such cases around the country, including six in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Alex was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1969 and immigrated to the United States in 1977. He received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in government and economics from Harvard University in 1991, and he received his Juris Doctor with distinction from Stanford Law School in 1994. After finishing law school, Alex served two one-year judicial clerkships, with Justice Warren W. Matthews Jr. of the Alaska Supreme Court and U.S. Magistrate Judge Wayne D. Brazil of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Alex then spent four years in private practice in Northern California, participating in the prosecution of class actions on behalf of investors, consumers, and trust beneficiaries.
Alex has spoken about church-state issues in many television and radio appearances and public presentations and has been quoted in numerous major newspapers. His published articles include:
Alex is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar, is an inactive member of the State Bar of California, and has been admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Federal, and District of Columbia Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia, the Northern District of California, the District of Colorado, the Eastern District of Michigan, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
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.
David R. and Sherry Kirschner Berz Research Professor of Law and, GWU Law School
Senior Litigation Counsel, American Center for Law and Justice
Walter M. Weber is Senior Counsel for the ACLJ in the Washington, D.C. office. A highly regarded legal writer, Weber received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and his law degree from Yale Law School.
Weber emphasizes First Amendment law and has written briefs in many landmark cases at the Supreme Court including NOW v. Scheidler, Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches School District and Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic.
Weber has argued more than a dozen times in appeals before federal and state courts. Prior to joining the ACLJ, Weber served as a staff attorney with the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
Which Religious Organizations Count as Religious? The Religious Employer Exemption of the Health Insurance Law's Contraceptives Mandate
Stanley Carlson-Thies
On August 1, 2011, the Health Resources and Service Administration issued guidelines specifying that, among...
Does the Establishment Clause Require Broad Restrictions on Religious Expression As Recommended By President Obama’s Faith-Based Advisory Council?
Stuart J. Lark
Brought to you by the Religious Liberties Practice GroupThe Federalist Society takes no position on particular...
Update: Overview of the White House Office on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and the Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
Brought to you by the Religious Liberties Practice GroupThe Federalist Society takes no position on particular...
Proposed Reduction in Charitable Tax Credit
Brought to you by the Religious Liberties Practice Group President Obama’s 2010 budget outline proposes a 20...
The Stimulus Plan and Faith-Based Organizations
Stanley Carlson-Thies
Brought to you by the Religious Liberties Practice Group The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of...
An Overview of the White House Office on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and the Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
Brought to you by the Religious Liberties Practice GroupPresident Barack Obama announced President Bush’s White House...
Hein, One Year Later: The Future of Church-State Litigation
Alex J. Luchenitser, Robert W. Tuttle, Walter M. Weber, Ira C. “Chip” Lupu
In June 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court held, in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation,...
Hein, One Year Later: The Future of Church-State Litigation
Religious Liberties Practice Group, The Constitution Project, and The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
Washington, DC