Lee Tyner has served as University Attorney (general counsel) for The University of Mississippi since the summer of 2003. From 1998-2003 Mr. Tyner was Associate University Attorney. Mr. Tyner was a litigation associate with Butler, Snow, O'Mara, Stevens & Cannada in Jackson, Mississippi from 1992-1998. He presently teaches courses at the University in Business Law and Communications Law. Mr. Tyner graduated with a B.A. in Economics and History from The University of Mississippi in 1987 and received the J.D. in May of 1992 from The University of Virginia School of Law. He is a member of the Mississippi Bar Association and is a past chair (FY 2015-16) of the Board of Directors of the National Association of College and University Attorneys. He has trial and appellate experience in media law, labor and employment, personal injury, constitutional, environmental, sunshine laws, insurance bad faith, and consumer finance litigation.
Traevena Byrd is a graduate of the University of Iowa, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in African American World Studies with honors in 1994 and her law degree in 1997. She is currently serving as General Counsel at Towson University. As General Counsel, Ms. Byrd serves as the legal advisor to the President and University executive officers. She leads the Office of University Counsel, serves on the President's Council, and acts as the liaison to the Maryland Office of the Attorney General. Traevena currently serves on NACUA's Board of Directors.
Greg Lukianoff is an attorney and the president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and The End of American Debate and Freedom From Speech, as well as a co-author of The Atlantic’s September 2015 cover story, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” written in partnership with Jonathan Haidt. Greg has also been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, TIME, The Boston Globe, Forbes, the New York Post, U.S. News & World Report, The Stanford Technology Law Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Reason, CNET, The Daily Caller, Congressional Quarterly, The Charleston Law Review, and numerous other publications. Greg, along with Harvey A. Silverglate and David French, is a co-author of FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus. He is also a blogger for The Huffington Post and Ricochet.com. Greg is a frequent guest on local and national syndicated radio programs; has represented FIRE on national television shows, including CBS Evening News and CBS This Morning, NBC’s Today Show, CNN’s New Day, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, Fox’s Special Report and The O’Reilly Factor, Fox Business’s Stossel and The Independents, and MSNBC’s Dr. Nancy; and has testified before both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives about free speech issues on America’s campuses. In 2008 he became the first ever recipient of the Playboy Foundation Freedom of Expression Award and in 2010 he received Ford Hall Forum’s Louis P. and Evelyn Smith First Amendment Award on behalf of FIRE. Greg is also an executive producer for Can We Take a Joke?, a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture on and off campus.
Greg is a graduate of American University and of Stanford Law School, where he focused on First Amendment and constitutional law. Before joining FIRE, Greg practiced law in Northern California, interned at the ACLU of Northern California and the Organization for Aid to Refugees in Prague, Czech Republic, and was the development manager of the EnvironMentors Project in Washington, D.C. Greg is also a proud member of the board of directors of Philadelphia’s Theatre Exile. In his free time, Greg also runs the Genetic Music Project, an open source genetic art project combining music and science.
Penny Rue joined Wake Forest University as Vice President for Campus Life and Professor of Counseling in July 2013. She serves as Vice President for Campus Life, with a broad responsibility for the well-being and safety of our students and their commitment outside the classroom.
Dr. Rue served as Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the University of California San Diego for six years. She is nationally known for her creative leadership in strengthening campus communities.
She served for five years as Senior Associate Dean of Students at Georgetown University and for seven years as Georgetown's Director of Student Programs. Earlier in her career she held posts at The University of Maryland and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Rue has a doctorate degree in Counseling and Personnel Services from the University of Maryland, where her dissertation research focused on a conceptual study of community on the college campus. Rue has taught the Capstone class in the San Diego State University Master’s Program in Student Affairs and College Student Development in the Higher Education doctoral program at the University of Virginia. She has a Master’s degree in student personnel services from The Ohio State University, from which she received the Maude Stewart Outstanding Alumna Award in 2011, and an A.B. magna cum laude in English and Religion from Duke University. In 2011 she was named a Pillar of the Profession by the NASPA Foundation. She is currently the Public Policy Division Chair of NASPA and has served on the Board of Directors since 2015.
In March 2017, she will begin a three-year term – serving as Chair-elect (2017-2018), Chair (2018-2019) and then Past Chair (2019-2020).
At Wake Forest University Dr. Rue supervises several departments, including Residence Life and Housing, Office of the Dean of Students, Wellbeing, Campus Recreation, Student Health Service, the Office of the Chaplain and University Police.
Geoffrey R. Stone is the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Mr. Stone received his J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1971, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Law Review. After serving as a law clerk to Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School in 1973. Mr. Stone has served as dean of the University of Chicago Law School (1987-1994) and Provost of the University of Chicago (1994-2002).
Mr. Stone is the author or co-author of many books on constitutional law. His most recent book, Sex and the Constitution, explores the history of sex, religion, law and constitutional law from the ancient world to the present. Among Mr. Stone’s other books on constitutional law, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime (2004) received eight national awards, including the Robert F. Kennedy Award for the Best Book of the Year, the Los Angeles Times’s Award for the Best Book of the Year in the field of History, and Harvard University’s Award for the Best Book of the Year in Public Affairs.
Mr. Stone’s is currently chief editor of a twenty-volume series, Inalienable Rights, which is being published by the Oxford University Press. He is an editor of the Supreme Court Review, a former chair of the Board of the American Constitution Society, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Law Institute, and the National Advisory Council of the American Civil Liberties Union.
In 2014, University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer appointed Mr. Stone as Chair of a Faculty Committee tasked with defining the University’s position on Free Expression. That report has since been adopted by a broad range of academic institutions, including Princeton, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, the University of Wisconsin, American University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Missouri.