Table of Contents
FIRE Staff Speakers
Research & Learn
Having a Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression staffer come to your event to speak is an excellent opportunity to bring positive change to the state of freedom of speech and expression in America. Click “request a speaker” to get started!
If you’re a student, check out our FIRE Student Network for more resources related to free speech activism on your campus.
Having a Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression staffer come to your school to speak to students, faculty, and administrators is an excellent opportunity to bring positive change to the state of student rights on campus. Even if you have never planned a campus event before, the FIRE Student Network is here to help along the way! Click “request a speaker” to get started!
Members of FIRE’s Board of Directors and Advisory Council are also available for speaking engagements. If you are interested in hosting a member of FIRE’s Board of Directors or Advisory Council for your event, please contact partners@thefire.org.
Leadership
Greg Lukianoff
President and CEO
Available Speeches
- Unlearning Liberty
- The Coddling of the American Mind
- Cancel Culture
- Addressing Common, Bad Arguments Against Free Speech
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Will Creeley
Legal Director
Available Speeches
- Free Speech 101: Protecting Free Expression and the First Amendment at our Nation’s Colleges and Universities
- Campus Justice: The Importance of Due Process and Fundamental Fairness in College Proceedings
- FIRE’s “Greatest Hits”: Learning from the Worst Abuses of Campus Rights
- Facebook vs. the First Amendment: Student Speech in the Digital Age
- Student Speech Rights in Court: Case Law Primer and Update
- Correcting Common Mistakes in Campus Speech Policies
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Nico Perrino
Executive Vice President
Available Speeches
- Why Should We Defend Speech We Hate?
- Current Trends in the Fight for Free Speech
- What Happens When America’s Future Leaders Reject Liberty?
- The First Amendment: A Primer for Students
- Using the Media to Take Your Fight to the Court of Public Opinion
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Ronnie London
General Counsel
Ronnie is available to speak on a wide variety of free speech and press First Amendment topics including media and internet regulation, censorship, commercial speech, student and faculty rights, and freedom of information.
Previous speaking engagements
- Co-presenter, Washington (Supreme Court) Update, semi-annual First Amendment Lawyers Association meeting (2012-present)
- Panelist, "So to Speak" Podcast, "Can a graphic designer be compelled to design a website for a same-sex wedding?" (Dec. 8, 2022)
- Potential First Amendment Issues and Potential Roles for Clinics, First Amendment Clinic Summit (Nov. 4, 2021)
Campus Rights
Alex Morey
Vice President of Campus Advocacy
Available Speeches
- Free Speech on Campus: Today's Controversies & Culture
- Free Speech Law on Campus: Public vs. Private Colleges & Universities
- Student Press Censorship 101: Common Threats to Campus Reporting & How to Protect Your Rights
- Due Process on Campus: 101 ("I've been accused of misconduct. Now what?")
- Cultivating a Free Expression Culture on Your Campus
- Student Governments' Role Protecting Free Expression
- Free Speech for Administrators: Best Practices
- Due Process for Administrators: Best Practices
- ... or pitch a custom topic tailored to your event.
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Zachary Greenberg
Faculty Legal Defense/Student Association Counsel
Available Speeches
- Free Speech, Hate Speech, and the First Amendment on Campus: An overview of students' expressive rights in higher education
- Academic Freedom: An overview of professors' expressive right in higher education
- Attorney First Amendment Rights and American Bar Association Model Rule 8.4(g): A Speech Code for Lawyers
- Due Process on Campus: Discussing the rights of students and groups accused of misconduct
- Freedom of Association and Student Groups: Discussing the rights of fraternities, sororities, and other campus groups.
See Zach Speak: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute receives its 'Lifetime Censorship Award' from FIRE
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Graham Piro
Faculty Legal Defense Fund Fellow
Available Topics
Graham is a 2018 graduate of Georgetown University with a B.A. in English and minors in journalism and government. After graduation, he worked for a year as a staff reporter at The College Fix where he covered First Amendment issues on college campuses.
- Interviewing 101 for Student Journalists
- Navigating the First Amendment on College Campuses
- Self-Advocacy for student journalists
- Free Speech basics: What every college student should know
Lindsie Rank
Director of Campus Rights Advocacy
Available Speeches
Lindsie is available to speak on topics such as the role of the student press, trends in censorship of student media, and basic media law. You can read some of her recent writings here:
- Reimagining student media advisory boards as a boon to college press freedom
- Who’s protected by a free student press? Part I: The right to editorial independence
- Who’s protected by a free student press? Part II: Viewpoint diversity and neutrality in the newsroom
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Communications
Daniel Burnett
Senior Director of Communications
Daniel graduated from the University of Georgia in 2011 with a bachelor's degree in journalism. Before joining FIRE, he worked at a global development non-profit and as the director of communications at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, where he defended strong liberal arts curricula and advocated for increased transparency and accountability on campus. In his spare time, Daniel likes studying American history, brunching, and playing kickball. Daniel knows for a fact that Dolly Parton is the best human on Earth, but he believes in your right to disagree.
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Sarah McLaughlin
Senior Scholar, Global Expression
Available Speeches
- Global classrooms, authoritarianism without borders: The new era of campus speech suppression
- China Wants to Silence Critics. Universities Must Fight Back
- 30 Years After the Rushdie Fatwa, Europe Is Moving Backward
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Engagement and Mobilization
Connor Murnane
Campus Advocacy Chief of Staff
Connor earned his M.A. in political communications from American University in 2019, writing his thesis on the rhetorical power of early American newspapers. He has a B.A. in history from Ashland University, where he graduated as an Ashbrook Scholar. Prior to joining FIRE, Connor worked for the American Council of Trustees and Alumni as the director of communications.
Connor is available to speak on a number of topics such as mobilizing for speech reform on campus, defending free expression in your community, freedom of speech in American political thought, the role of alumni, trustees, and college donors in safeguarding campus expression, and more.
Available Speeches
Culture or Codes: Promoting free expression on campus
We the People: Free speech and a more perfect union
Legislative
Tyler Coward
Senior Legislative Counsel
Tyler is an attorney and a 2010 graduate of Indiana University-Bloomington, where he was an executive board member of Sigma Phi Epsilon and a director on the Indiana Memorial Union Board of Directors, IU’s largest student programing board. He is also 2015 graduate of the Michigan State University College of Law, where he participated in the school’s First Amendment Clinic and served as president of MSU Law’s chapter of the Federalist Society. During law school, Tyler completed legal internships at the US Department of the Interior’s Departmental Ethics Office and later at the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
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Litigation
Robert Corn-Revere
Chief Counsel
Robert Corn-Revere, FIRE's Chief Counsel, is a leading First Amendment lawyer with a career spanning four decades. He has argued and won key free speech cases in the Supreme Court, obtained the first posthumous pardon in New York history for the late comedian Lenny Bruce, and successfully defended CBS in the Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction" case. Before coming to FIRE, Bob served as the principal outside litigator in FIRE's "Stand Up for Speech" project. His latest book, The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder: The First Amendment and the Censor's Dilemma, was published by Cambridge University Press.
He is available to speak on most free speech issues, including such topics as book censorship, regulation of new technologies including social media, freedom of speech on campus, sex and censorship, and comedy and the First Amendment.
Adam Steinbaugh
Attorney
Available Speeches
- When to Pull the FIRE Alarm (Free Speech, the FIrst Amendment, and How FIRE Can Help): A brief overview of the First Amendment and freedom of expression in higher education and how FIRE can help those whose rights are threatened.
- Excepting the Unacceptable (Or: What to Except When You’re Excepting): Discussing the categorical exceptions to the First Amendment as viewed through the lens of FIRE cases.
- The First Amendment in Cyberspace: How the First Amendment applies to social media and higher education.
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Gabe Walters
Attorney
Gabe has litigated precedent-setting freedom of speech and freedom of information cases in federal and state courts across the country. He has been published and quoted in media outlets including The New York Times and The Washington Post. He began his legal career as a fellow with the ACLU of Virginia.
Policy Reform
Laura Beltz
Director, Policy Reform
Available Speeches
- Working With Administrators to Effect Change: Providing tips from a collaborator at FIRE
- Decoding Speech Codes: Discussing regulations on student speech and common mistakes universities make
- Rewriting Speech Codes: Walking through how to identify and revise restrictions on student speech
FIREs Speech Code of the Month Series
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Mary Griffin
Senior Program Officer, Policy Reform
Available Speeches
- Freedom of Speech on Campus (Free speech, the basics of the First Amendment, Speech Codes on Campus, How to get involved with policy reform efforts)
- Speech Codes 101: How to identify your school’s restrictive policies (Free speech basics, Speech Codes on Campus)
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Public Advocacy
Aaron Terr
Director, Public Advocacy
Aaron is available to speak on various topics such as internet speech regulation, misinformation, "hate speech," library censorship, compelled speech, K-12 speech policies, and free speech culture issues.
Available Speeches
- Censorship, Fake News and Viewpoint Discrimination: What is the role of the government versus market forces in enabling free speech?
- Your guide to Section 230, the law that safeguards free speech on the internet
- Yes, you should be worried about the FBI’s relationship with Twitter
Strategic Partnerships
Molly Fratianne
Prior to joining FIRE, Molly spent the bulk of her career working for a philanthropic nonprofit, focusing her time on student relations and freedom of speech. In her current role as Director of Strategic Partnerships, she collaborates with a wide range of organizations and allies that are also working to advance freedom of speech and expression.
Molly is available to discuss topics like why free speech matters, the importance of freedom of expression in the arts, and building a free-speech coalition.
Fellows
Nadine Strossen
New York Law School Professor Emerita Nadine Strossen, past national President of the American Civil Liberties Union (1991-2008), is a Senior Fellow with FIRE and a frequent speaker/media commentator on constitutional law and civil liberties, who has testified before Congress on multiple occasions. 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 (to be released in October 2023).
She is available to discuss issues about free speech, intellectual freedom, and civil discourse.
James Kirchick
James Kirchick is a contributing writer to Tablet magazine, a writer at large for Air Mail, and author of the instant New York Times bestseller, "Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington."
He has reported from over 40 countries, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, the New York Review of Books, New York, Rolling Stone, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Welt, the Spectator, and the Times Literary Supplement, among many other publications in the United States and around the world.
His first book, “The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues and the Coming Dark Age,” was published by Yale University Press in 2017.
Jacob Mchangama
Jacob Mchangama is CEO of the think tank Justitia and directs Justitia´s Future of Free Speech Project at Vanderbilt University. Jacob has written and commented extensively on free speech and human rights in international media outlets including The Economist, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, BBC, CBS News, NPR, CNN, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, Politico as well as top-tier academic and peer-reviewed journals. Jacob frequently appears on international TV and Radio providing expert commentary on issues related to free speech, tech and human rights. Jacob is the producer and narrator of the podcast “Clear and Present” Danger: A History of Free Speech and author of the critically acclaimed book “Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media” published by Basic Books in 2022.
He is available to discuss the history and future of free speech, free speech and racial justice, free speech and technology: from social media to AI, global free speech, the “free speech recession," blasphemy and hate speech, free speech in Europe vs. the US, free speech and human rights.