Steve Simpson, "The First Amendment Is Not Enough: Why Free Speech Needs a Moral Defense"

With commentary by Professor Lakier

Steve Simpson is the director of Legal Studies at the Ayn Rand Institute. A former senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, Mr. Simpson has litigated constitutional cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and state and federal courts throughout the nation. He was co-counsel in Arizona Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, IJ’s successful Supreme Court challenge to Arizona’s public financing law. He was the lead litigator in SpeechNow.org v. FEC, the case that created Super PACs. He was on the legal team in IJ’s landmark eminent domain case Kelo v. City of New London and in IJ’s successful challenge to New York’s ban on the interstate shipping of wine in Swedenburg v. Kelly. Mr. Simpson earned his law degree from New York Law School.

Professor Lakier has an AB from Princeton University, a JD from New York University School of Law, and an MA and PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Between 2006 and 2008, she was an Academy Scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International and Area Studies at Harvard University. After law school, she clerked for Judge Leonard B. Sand of the Southern District of New York and Judge Martha C. Daughtrey of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Before joining the faculty, Professor Lakier taught at the Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law.

Presented on October 31, 2016, by the Federalist Society.