About Nadine:

Nadine Strossen, the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School and the immediate past President of the American Civil Liberties Union (1991-2008), is a leading expert and frequent speaker/media commentator on constitutional law and civil liberties, who has testified before Congress on multiple occasions. 

She serves on the advisory boards of the ACLU, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), Heterodox Academy, and National Coalition Against Censorship. The National Law Journal has named Strossen one of America’s “100 Most Influential Lawyers,” and several other publications have named her one of the country’s most influential women. 

Her many honorary degrees and awards include the American Bar Association’s prestigious Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award (2017). At NYLS’s 2019 commencement, Strossen made history by receiving both the award for outstanding teaching and the award for the best book. When Strossen stepped down as ACLU President, three (ideologically diverse) Supreme Court Justices participated in her farewell/tribute luncheon: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, and David Souter. 

Strossen’s 2018 book HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship has earned praise from ideologically diverse experts, including progressive Harvard University Professor Cornel West and conservative Princeton University Professor Robert George. HATE was selected by Washington University as its 2019 “Common Read” for all incoming students. Her earlier book, Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights, was named a New York Times “notable book” of 1995. 

Strossen has made thousands of public presentations before diverse audiences around the world, including on more than 500 different campuses and in many foreign countries, and she has appeared on virtually every national TV news program. Her hundreds of publications have appeared in many scholarly and general interest publications. Strossen graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Before becoming a law professor, she practiced law in Minneapolis (her hometown) and New York City. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.