Table of Contents

FIRE Staff Speakers

Research & Learn

Hosting a FIRE speaker is a great way to catalyze social change and educate your community about the importance of free speech, due process, and religious liberty.

Students discuss a topic at a FIRE Student Network event

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 Alden DiDio at alden.didio@thefire.org.


Greg Lukianoff

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

FIRE Legal Director 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

Nico Perrino

Executive Vice President

Available Speeches

  • Why Should We Defend Speech We Hate?
  • Current Trends in the Fight for Free Speech
  • 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

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

More About Ronnie

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Joe Cohn

Joe Cohn

Legislative and Policy Director

Available Speeches

  • Campus free speech
  • Campus due process
  • Title IX
  • Addressing anti-Semitism in a constitutional framework
  • How to be a persuasive advocate

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Tyler Coward

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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Laura Beltz

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

FIRE’s Speech Code of the Month Series

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Zachary Greenberg

Zach Greenberg

Senior Program Officer, Student Organizations, Campus Rights Advocacy

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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Adam Steinbaugh

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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Sarah McLaughlin

Sarah McLaughlin

Senior Scholar, Global Expression

Available Speeches

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Alex Morey

Alex Morey

Director, Campus Rights 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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Daniel Burnett

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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Lindsie Rank

Lindsie Rank

Student Press Counsel

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:

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Mary Griffin

Mary Zoeler

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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Gabe Walters

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.

More about Gabe

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Aaron Terr

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

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Anne Marie Tamburro

Anne Marie Tamburro

Program Officer, Faculty Legal Defense Fund, Student Press

Anne Marie's time working with student and local press organizations motivated her to go to law school to pursue a career involving freedom of speech. 

Available Speeches

  1. Public records and FOIA
  2. Public records at private universities
  3. Student press freedom
  4. Campus free speech

More About Anne Marie

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