Rajshree Agarwal

Rajshree Agarwal is the Rudolph Lamone Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategy at the University of Maryland, and the Director of the Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets. Professor Agarwal studies the evolution of industries, firms and individual careers, as fostered by the twin engines of innovation and enterprise.

Agarwal’s scholarship uses an interdisciplinary lens to provide insights on strategic innovation for new venture creation and for firm renewal. Her teaching and engagement in growth-oriented firms help professionals advance through personal leadership, develop win-win relationships, and create a virtuous spiral between their aspirations and abilities. Professor Agarwal has received numerous awards for her scholarship and mentorship, including the “University Scholar” Award at the University of Illinois and the Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award at the University of Maryland.

Agarwal received her Ph.D. in Economics from SUNY Buffalo in 1994 and has previously held faculty appointments at Universities of Illinois and Central Florida. An author of more than 60 studies, her research has been cited more than 10,000 times and funded by grants from numerous foundations, including the Kauffman Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

Agarwal is a senior contributor at Forbes, providing insights for leading purposeful lives, strategy and innovation. She has been featured in major media outlets including the Washington Post, USA Today, Time, and the Baltimore Sun, and has appeared in several video interviews and podcasts. Her conversation with David Rubin on “The Rubin Report” drew approximately 25,000
views. Agarwal’s ability to put complex thoughts into clear terms led one media outlet to describe her as “an economist who makes things understandable.”

David L. Bernstein

A passionate advocate of the free expression of ideas, David Bernstein is the founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values (JILV), which opposes illiberal ideologies and supports liberal values in and out of the Jewish community, and author of Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews. He is also a co-founder of the Institute for Liberal Values, a consortium of like-minded organizations supporting liberal principles. He is past President and CEO of Jewish Council for Public Affairs and former executive director of the David Project. He spent 13 years at the American Jewish Committee in senior roles. David is a prolific speaker, podcaster and writer, having written hundreds of opinion pieces in the Jewish and general press.

Emily Chamlee-Wright

Dr. Emily Chamlee-Wright is the president and CEO of the Institute for Humane Studies. With deep roots in the classical liberal tradition, IHS supports and connects scholars and public intellectuals applying the ideas and principles that underlie tolerant and pluralistic societies in which individuals and communities thrive in a context of peace, prosperity, intellectual openness, and mutual respect.

She joined IHS in 2016 with an accomplished record as a scholar, academic leader, and educator. Prior to IHS, she served as provost and dean at Washington College and was previously the Elbert H. Neese Professor of Economics and associate dean at Beloit College. Emily earned her PhD in economics from George Mason University. She is a former W.K. Kellogg National Leadership Fellow and received the excellence in teaching award from Beloit College and a Distinguished Alumna Award from George Mason University. She has six books to her credit, including Liberal Learning and the Art of Self Governance and The Cultural and Political Economy of Recovery.

Emily speaks and writes on the challenges facing contemporary liberal society and the norms
and institutions essential to the fulfillment of the liberal project, including:

• The rising threats of illiberalism
• The norms and institutions that underlie the liberal project
• The role of higher education in advancing free, open, and innovative societies
• The ethics of civil discourse

William Mattox

William Mattox is an award-winning writer who serves as the Director of the J. Stanley Marshall Center for Education Freedom at the James Madison Institute. Over the last three decades, William Mattox has

• Written numerous articles for leading publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and USA TODAY (where he served on the Board of Contributors for 20+ years);
• Spoken at major education conferences around the country and at international meetings in Prague, Geneva, Dublin, and Rome; and
• Led workshops on rhetoric and persuasion at Duke, Vanderbilt, the University of Virginia, and a number of other major universities.

In recent years, many of his presentations have highlighted the rhetorical skill of some 1960s Florida A & M students that protested segregated lunch counters. Using historical photographs taken from these protests, William Mattox seeks to show today’s students that the best response to speech you oppose isn’t to censor or “cancel” others, but to offer more persuasive “CounterSpeech.”

Apart from his day job, William Mattox serves as the advisory board chair for the Village Square, a civic organization that promotes viewpoint diversity and constructive dialogue. In this role, he spearheaded the greater Tallahassee area’s commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s birth. He has also served on the Tallahassee Civil Rights Landmark Committee, the Mary McLeod Bethune Statue Events Committee, and the John G. Riley Museum for African-American History Advisory Committee.

Matthew Metzgar

Matthew Metzgar teaches undergraduate economic and MBA classes in the Belk College of Business at UNC Charlotte. Previously, he taught undergraduate and graduate classes in Ohio and New York. He also spent several years working in the private sector. His research interests include the economics of obesity and the effectiveness of instructional techniques.

Dr. Metzgar was recently selected as Gambrell Faculty Fellow investigating the impact of employee ownership on the racial wealth gap. This innovative project was designed to improve wealth distribution in the Charlotte region via employee-owned firms. Dr. Metzgar has been also interviewed for his expertise in labor market shortages for both the local and national economy.

Currently, Dr. Metzgar serves as the co-chair of the Heterodox Academy Campus Community at UNC Charlotte. He is also the lead facilitator on the Constructive Dialogue Faculty Learning Community. Dr. Metzgar regularly presents on teaching innovations at various conferences.

Dr. Metzgar earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Tennessee. Prior to that he earned his MBA from Wheeling Jesuit University and his Bachelor’s Degree from West Virginia University.

Cece O’Leary

Cece O’Leary serves as an attorney for Southeastern Legal Foundation and Director of SLF’s 1A Project.

Cece has worked with Southeastern Legal Foundation since 2018. Cece values the rule of law as a shield against government oppression, and she is committed to educating the public about the nation’s founding principles.

After earning her undergraduate degree in American Government from Bowdoin College, Cece attended Georgia State University College of Law. While in law school, Cece served as a law clerk for SLF and decided to dedicate her legal career to the freedom-based law movement. After graduating, Cece joined SLF and has been fighting for liberty ever since.

In addition to representing clients in both state and federal court, Cece played an integral role in launching SLF’s 1A Project and has trained thousands of students on how to stand up for their First Amendment rights. She believes that before college students can successfully convey their message, they must understand their right to share it. Cece also works to promote property rights, government transparency, and economic liberty both in and out of the courtroom. Her work and that of Southeastern Legal Foundation is regularly covered by national media and you will frequently hear or see her on the radio, podcasts, and television.

Cece is an active member of Federalist Society and is a graduate of several leadership programs. She is an active member of her community and her church. She resides in the Atlanta area with her husband and SLF’s office dog.

Christine Rosen

Christine Rosen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on American history, society and culture, technology and culture, and feminism. Concurrently she is a columnist for Commentary magazine, and one of the cohosts of The Commentary Magazine Podcast. She is also a fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, and a senior editor in an advisory position at The New Atlantis.

Her previous positions include editor of In Character, managing editor of The Weekly Standard, and distinguished visiting scholar at the Library of Congress.

Dr. Rosen is the author or coauthor of many books and book chapters. Her books include The Extinction of Experience (W. W. Norton, forthcoming); Acculturated: 23 Savvy Writers Find Hidden Virtue in Reality TV, Chick Lit, Video Games, and Other Pillars of Pop Culture (Templeton Press, 2011) with Naomi Schaefer Riley; My Fundamentalist Education: A Memoir of a Divine Girlhood (PublicAffairs, 2005), which was named one of the best nonfiction books of the year by the Washington Post; Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement (Oxford University Press, 2004); The Feminist Dilemma: When Success Is Not Enough (AEI Press, 2001); and Women’s Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America (AEI Press, 1999).

A prolific writer, Dr. Rosen is often published in the popular press. Her opinion pieces, articles, and reviews have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Commentary, the New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, National Affairs, National Review, The New Atlantis, The New Republic, The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, Politico, Slate, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, The Washington Post, and The New England Journal of Medicine, among other outlets.

Dr. Rosen’s broadcast appearances include ABC News, BBC News, CBS News, CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News, NBC News, MSNBC, PBS News, and National Public Radio. She has testified before Congress and the US Secretary of Education’s Commission on Opportunity in Athletics.

Dr. Rosen has a PhD in history, with a major in American intellectual history, from Emory University, and a BA in history from the University of South Florida.

Greg Salmieri

Gregory Salmieri is a senior scholar of philosophy in the Salem Center at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches in the philosophy department. He is director of the Center’s Program for Objectivity in Thought, Action, and Enterprise.

Dr. Salmieri is the co-editor of A Companion to Ayn Rand (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016) and Foundations of a Free Society (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), and author of numerous articles and talks. His research focuses on the philosophies of Aristotle and Ayn Rand, on the work involved in knowing, on the nature of wellbeing, and on the principles that make possible a free and prosperous society.

Erec Smith

Erec Smith is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania. Although he has eclectic scholarly interests, Smith’s primary work focuses on the rhetorics of anti-racist activism, theory, and pedagogy. He is a co-founder of Free Black Thought, a website dedicated to highlighting viewpoint diversity within the black intelligentsia. Smith’s recent writings include several op-eds as well as his book, A Critique of Anti-Racism in Rhetoric and Composition: The Semblance of Empowerment (2020). Smith is an advisor for both the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism and Counterweight, an organization that advocates for classical liberal concepts of social justice. Currently, Smith is a visiting scholar in Politics and Society for the Cato Institute.

Nadine Strossen

Nadine Strossen, the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School and past President of the American Civil Liberties Union (1991-2008), is a Senior Fellow with FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education) and a leading expert and frequent speaker/media commentator on constitutional law and civil liberties, who has testified before Congress on multiple occasions. She serves on the advisory boards of the ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin.

The National Law Journal has named Strossen one of America’s “100 Most Influential Lawyers,” and several other publications have named her one of the country’s most influential women. Her many honorary degrees and awards include the American Bar Association’s prestigious Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award (2017). In 2023, the National Coalition Against Censorship (an alliance of more than 50 national non-profit organizations) selected Strossen for its Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech.

When Strossen stepped down as ACLU President, three (ideologically diverse) Supreme Court Justices participated in her farewell/tribute luncheon: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, and David Souter.

She is the author of HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (2018) and Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know (forthcoming fall 2023). She is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak (working title), a 3-hour documentary film series on free speech scheduled for release in fall 2023.

Her book Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights was named a New York Times “notable book” of 1995, and will be republished in 2024 as part of the New York University Press “Classic” series. Her book HATE was selected as the “Common Read” by Washington University and Washburn University.

Strossen has made thousands of public presentations before diverse audiences around the world, including on more than 500 different campuses and in many foreign countries, and she has appeared on virtually every national TV news program. Her hundreds of publications have appeared in many scholarly and general interest publications.

Strossen graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Before becoming a law professor, she practiced law in Minneapolis (her hometown) and New York City. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Eugene Volokh

Eugene Volokh teaches First Amendment law and a First Amendment amicus brief clinic at UCLA School of Law, where he has also often taught copyright law, criminal law, tort law, and a seminar on firearms regulation policy.

Before coming to UCLA, he clerked for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Judge Alex Kozinski on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (6th ed. 2016), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2013), as well as over 90 law review articles. He is a member of The American Law Institute, a member of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel, and the founder and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog. His law review articles have been cited by opinions in eight Supreme Court cases and several hundred court opinions in total, as well as several thousand scholarly articles.

Volokh worked for 12 years as a computer programmer. He graduated from UCLA with a B.S. in math-computer science at age 15, and has written many articles on computer software. Volokh was born in the USSR; his family emigrated to the U.S. when he was seven years old.

Devon Westhill

Devon Westhill is president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He speaks about civil rights and related issues in the media and at events across the country. Mr. Westhill’s writing has been published in numerous outlets including SCOTUSblog, Newsweek, National Review, and The Wall Street Journal, and he has provided expert testimony to both houses of Congress and the EEOC.

Mr. Westhill served as the top civil rights official at the United States Department of Agriculture in the administration of President Donald J. Trump. He has also worked at the United States Department of Labor, Federalist Society, and as a criminal trial lawyer in private practice.

After an enlistment in the United States Navy, Mr. Westhill earned his B.A. in Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his J.D. from the University of Florida.

John Wood, Jr.

John Wood, Jr. is the National Ambassador for Braver Angels, America’s largest grassroots, bipartisan organization dedicated to the work of political depolarization. Their national network of volunteers and bipartisan local alliances create spaces for empathetic dialogue, constructive debate, and are challenging politicians and institutions to build trust across the political divide. Braver Angels has been featured on CBS News, USA Today, The New York Times, Fox News and a wide range of local and national media. John’s roots in a bipartisan, multicultural family have prepared him well for crossing America’s complex political and social divides. A former nominee for congress, Wood is also an opinion columnist for USA Today and the host of the podcast Uniting America with John Wood Jr. and is recognized across America as a leading voice for political and racial reconciliation.