Ira Glasser and Jacob Mchangama to headline FIRE summer conference

FIRE is thrilled to announce the keynote speakers for the 2018 FIRE Student Network Summer Conference in Philadelphia: former ACLU director Ira Glasser and Justitia CEO Jacob Mchangama. 

Jacob Mchangama is founder and CEO of Danish judicial think-tank Justitia. He writes and narrates the podcast “Clear and Present Danger: A History of Free Speech,” is currently a visiting scholar at Columbia Global Freedom of Expression Center, and a visiting fellow at FIRE. Jacob holds an LLM from the University of Copenhagen and is admitted to the Danish bar. In 2016, he was awarded a Marshall Memorial Fellowship and was the 2015 winner of Jyllands-Posten’s Free Speech Award. He is the author of “BUT: The History of Free Speech in Denmark” (2016). His work on freedom of expression and human rights has been featured in international media including Foreign Affairs, NPR, Foreign Policy, Washington Post, and the Economist. 

Ira Glasser served as the fifth executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1978 until his retirement in 2001. He began his career at the American Civil Liberties in 1967 when he was appointed as associate director of the New York Civil Liberties Union before becoming its executive director in 1970. Glasser is a trained mathematician and taught at both the City University in New York and Sarah Lawrence College before his tenure at the ACLU. He currently serves as president of the board of the Drug Policy Alliance.

FIRE’s annual conference, to be held July 20-22 at Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center, is a weekend-long workshop designed to both teach students about their rights on campus and to provide tools to defend them. The conference brings together college students from around the country and across the ideological spectrum who care about free speech and due process and are interested in promoting them on their campuses.

The 2018 FIRE Student Network Summer Conference is free to attend and open to current students at U.S. colleges and universities, including graduate students and incoming freshmen. Housing and meals will be provided, and a travel reimbursement for up to $300 per student will be available to help students travel to and from Philadelphia.

For details and more information, visit thefire.org/conference. Deadline to apply is June 15, but spaces are filling up quickly, so apply today!