What’s the point of free speech?  Why does the U.S. Constitution recognize a right of free speech?  What are the moral and legal grounds for free speech?  What are the risks of the choice to protect free speech?  What are the moral and legal grounds for free speech?  What limits, if any, exist or should exist?  Join panelists Hon. Kyle Duncan, Prof. Vincent Lloyd, and Prof. Ilana Redstone to examine these questions.

Judge Duncan received his B.A. from Louisiana State University in 1994, his J.D. from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University in 1997, and his LL.M. from Columbia Law School in 2004.

After graduating from law school, he clerked for Louisiana-based Circuit Judge John Malcolm Duhé Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

From 2008–2012, Duncan served as Appellate Chief for Louisiana’s Attorney General’s office. From 2012–2014, he served as general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. From 2004-2008, he was an assistant professor of law at the University of Mississippi School of Law.

Before becoming a judge, Duncan practiced at the Washington, D.C. firm of Schaerr Duncan LLP, where he was a founding partner. He was appointed by President Trump to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on May 1, 2018.

Vincent Lloyd is Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University, where he also directs the Center for Political Theology. A scholar of religion, race, and politics, his most recent book is Black Dignity: The Struggle Against Domination (Yale University Press). His essays and interviews have been featured in publications including The Guardian, The Atlantic, Commonweal, First Things, Public Books, and LA Review of Books. He has served as a visiting professor at Notre Dame, Emory, University of Virginia, and Durham University. Currently he is writing a book about abuse, from the personal to the political.

Ilana Redstone is an Associate Professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is also a co-director of the Mill Institute at UATX. She is the creator of the “Beyond Bigots and Snowflakes” video series and the author of the Certainty Trap (book out in summer 2024). She has a joint Ph.D. in demography and sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.