Coffee & Welcome

Location: Myron Taylor Hall, The Gallery

Opening Remarks

Location: Myron Taylor Hall, Room 184

Keynote Speaker

Location: Myron Taylor Hall, Room 184

Speaker: Cass R. Sustein, Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School

Panel 1: Free Thought and Free Speech

Location: Myron Taylor Hall, Room 184

This panel will discuss how the Supreme Court’s free speech jurisprudence impacts freedom of thought and vice versa. It will address the relationship between free thought and commercial speech, compelled speech, and the right to receive information and ideas. Panelists will debate whether free thought should be a fundamental first amendment right, a general liberty interest under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, or something else altogether.

Moderator: Nelson Tebbe, Jane M.G. Foster Professor of Law at Cornell Law School

Panelists:

• Genevieve Lakier, Professor of Law at University of Chicago School of Law, Herbert and Marjorie Fried Teaching Scholar
• Erin Miller, Associate Professor of Law and Philosophy at University of Southern California Gould Law School
• Mason Marks, Florida Bar Health Law Section Professor of Law at the Florida State University College of Law, Senior Fellow at Harvard Law School Petrie-Flom Center, Visiting Fellow at Yale Law School Information Society Project

Break

Panel 2 (Lunch): Technology, Privacy, and Cognitive Liberty

Location: Myron Taylor Hall, Room 184

This panel will analyze the relationship between freedom of thought and the free exercise of religion. Speakers will address the Court’s recent interpretations of the free exercise clause, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the Controlled Substances Act, and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA). Panelists will discuss cases involving the balance between the freedom to hold religious beliefs and the government’s interest in regulation and public policy.

Moderator: Mathew Lawrence, Associate Dean of Faculty and Professor of Law at Emory Law School

Panelists:

• David Pozen, Charles Keller Beekman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School
• Nita Farahany, Robinsons O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Duke Law School
• Chinmayi Arun, Research Scholar in Law, and Executive Director of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School

Break 2

Panel 3: Free Thought and Free Exercise

Location: Myron Taylor Hall, Room 184

This panel will discuss the decline of privacy as a fundamental right (following Dobbs and other decisions) and its impact on free thought in the face of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, and psychotropic drugs. These technologies raise unprecedented concerns about the potential for surveillance and mental manipulation. Panelists will discuss how free thought theory, doctrine, and jurisprudence should evolve to protect freedom of thought, including those related to personal identity and mental and bodily autonomy.

Moderator: Michael C. Dorf, Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell Law School

Panelists:

• Stephanie Barclay, Professor of Law at Georgetown Law
• Xiao Wang, Assistant Professor of Law, General Faculty Director, Director Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, General Faculty, Batten School of leadership and Public Policy at University of Virginia Law School