Table of Contents

Announcing FIRE’s 2015 Summer Conference, Featuring Nadine Strossen and Radley Balko!

FIRE is thrilled to announce that our seventh annual FIRE Student Network Conference will take place this year from July 24–26 in Philadelphia, featuring guest keynote speakers Nadine Strossen and Radley Balko.

FIRE’s annual conference is a weekend-long workshop designed to teach students about their rights on campus—and to provide the tools to defend them. Our conference brings together college students who care about free speech and due process from around the country and across the ideological spectrum. Together, they learn to protect and celebrate these core rights, taking the lessons from the conference back to their campuses.

During her time as president of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 through 2008, Nadine Strossen—the first woman and youngest person ever to fill that role—helped to nearly double the organization’s membership. Twice named one of “The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America” by the National Law Journal, Strossen now serves as the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law at New York Law School.

Radley Balko is an opinion blogger at The Washington Post, where he runs the popular civil liberties and criminal justice reform blog The Watch. He is the author of the 2014 book Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces and a media fellow at the Cato Institute. A leading voice on national civil liberties issues, Balko’s work has been published in The Wall Street Journal and Forbes. He has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR, and his work has been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States.

In addition to our two keynote speakers, the 2015 conference will feature newly expanded workshops with FIRE staff. Working directly with attendees, FIRE staffers will educate  students about their rights and provide practical lessons about how to successfully challenge illiberal campus policies.

The conference will open with a reception on Friday evening and close with lunch on Sunday. It 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. Travel reimbursement for up to $300 per student will be available to help students travel to and from Philadelphia.

For more information, visit thefire.org/conference.

Space fills up quickly, so apply today! See you this summer!

Recent Articles

FIRE’s award-winning Newsdesk covers the free speech news you need to stay informed.

Share