Greg Lukianoff

Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, New York Times best-selling author, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. He is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, and FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus. He co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure with Jonathan Haidt, The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution with Rikki Schlott, and, most recently, The War On Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech—And Why They Fail with Nadine Strossen. Greg is also an Executive Producer of Can We Take a Joke?, a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture, both on and off campus, and of Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story, an award-winning feature-length film about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser.

Greg has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and numerous other publications. He frequently appears on TV shows and radio programs, including the CBS Evening News, The Today Show, and NPR’s Morning Edition. In 2008, he became the first-ever recipient of the Playboy Foundation’s Freedom of Expression Award, and in 2024, he became the first-ever recipient of the Russell Kirk Center’s Richard D. McLellan Prize for Free Speech and Expression. He has testified before both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives about free speech issues both within and outside of American higher education.

Published Writings

• The Coddling of the American Mind: How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health on Campus – The Atlantic
• Law Alone Can’t Protect Free Speech – WSJ
• Against Conservative Pessimism about Free Speech on Campus – National Review

Available Speeches

Unlearning Liberty

Based on Greg’s book, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, this speech reveals how the intolerance for dissent and debate on America’s college campuses threatens the freedom of every citizen—and makes us all just a little bit dumber.