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 (FIRE). Among other books, 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, and its follow-up, The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All — But There Is a Solution with Rikki Schlott. Most recently, Greg co-authored The War On Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech — And Why They Fail with Nadine Strossen, which was released in July 2025.

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Greg also is an executive producer of Can We Take a Joke? (2015), 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 (2020), 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 he has testified before both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives about free speech issues on America’s college campuses.

Originally from Connecticut, Greg now lives and works in the Washington, D.C., area.

Selected television appearances

• CBS’s The Takeout with Major Garrett (2025)
• TED Talk (2025)
• Greg’s 2024 testimony before Congress about AI (opening statement and highlights)
• CNN’s Smerconish (2023)
• HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher (2023)
• C-SPAN’s After Words (2023)

Selected podcast appearances

• The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway (2025)
• The Megyn Kelly Show (2025)
• Thoughtful Money (2025)
• The Adam Carolla Show (2024)
• Lex Fridman Podcast (2023)
• The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast (2023)

Books

• The War On Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech — And Why They Fail (2025; with Nadine Strossen)
• The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All — But There Is a Solution (2023; with Rikki Schlott)
• The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (2018; with Jonathan Haidt)
• Freedom From Speech (2014)
• Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate (2012)
• FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus (2012)

Selected writings

• Everyone’s a Free-Speech Hypocrite (The New York Times, 2025)
• Bury the ‘Words Are Violence’ Cliché (The Free Press, 2025)
• Trump’s Attacks Threaten Much More Than Harvard (The Atlantic, 2025)
• Don’t Teach the Robots to Lie (National Review, 2025; with Adam Goldstein)
• Please, Georgetown. Don’t fire an academic over tweets. (The Washington Post, 2022; with Adam Goldstein)
• The Coddling of the American Mind: How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health (The Atlantic, 2015; with Jonathan Haidt)
• Law Alone Can’t Protect Free Speech (The Wall Street Journal, 2020; with Adam Goldstein)