The Freedom of Thought Podcast

The Freedom of Thought Podcast

The Freedom of Thought Podcast: An opportunity to explore the people behind the books, articles, arguments, and events that contribute to the law and public discourse. We interview the scholars and attorneys bringing fresh thinking to new challenges and questions, and ask: what makes you different? What are the convictions behind your engagement on controversial questions? How has your work shaped your thinking, and how have your ideas evolved? What have you learned about the value of freedom of thought?

Episodes

Frozen Out: Debanking Practice and Policy in the New Administration

January 29, 2025 • 88 mins
Financial institutions have faced growing scrutiny for debanking customers, with no explanation. While debanking is sometimes legally necessary when banks suspect unlawful conduct, recent reports have prompted high-profile questions about the practice, including from the President himself.
 
The lack of transparency does not help. How do financial institutions determine which accounts or services will be closed? Are these decisions d...
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Open Minds with Prof. Richard Epstein and Prof. Todd Zywicki - Part I

January 16, 2025 • 45 mins
Prof. Richard Epstein joins Prof. Todd Zywicki to discuss his academic journey, where he learned early on, particularly through the lens of Roman law, that legal issues cannot be understood by mere definitions, but by understanding deeper substantive theory. Prof. Epstein emphasizes valuable lessons he learned along the way, such as the importance of figuring out where one’s particular strengths lie and how to “do” law by oneself. ...
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Panel: Preserving Judicial Independence in a Time of Political Division

December 5, 2024 • 63 mins
At this Freedom of Thought Project event, panelists will discuss the current political landscape in the U.S. and how rhetoric from political leaders impacts our judiciary, society, and our freedoms.

Featuring:

James Burnham, President, Vallecito Capital
Jay Edelson, Founder & CEO, Edelson PC
Prof. Nicole Stelle Garnett, John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
Moderator: Megan McArdle, Columnis...
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Fireside Chat with Solicitors General T. Elliot Gaiser and Eric Wessan

November 26, 2024 • 49 mins
At this Freedom of Thought Project event, panelists will discuss the current political landscape in the U.S. and how rhetoric from political leaders impacts our judiciary, society, and our freedoms.

Featuring:

T. Elliot Gaiser, Solicitor General, Ohio
Eric Wessan, Solicitor General, Iowa
Moderator: Megan McArdle, Columnist, Washington Post
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Open Minds with Prof. Julia Mahoney and Prof. Joshua Kleinfeld - Part II

August 27, 2024 • 75 mins
In Part 2, Professor Julia Mahoney joins Professor Joshua Kleinfeld to discuss freedom of thought in diverse professional worlds, from universities to law to corporations to medicine. Why have professional sectors become more ideological? Has concentration in the for-profit sector contributed to this development, and what are some possible solutions? What obligations do shareholders have to their employees? Join us for a conversati...
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Open Minds with Prof. Julia Mahoney and Prof. Joshua Kleinfeld - Part I

August 19, 2024 • 64 mins
In Part I, Professor Julia Mahoney joins Professor Joshua Kleinfeld to delve into the complexities of governmental regulation and market power. What makes markets possible? How do institutions enable people to cooperate in a productive way? In what ways can they prohibit people from doing so? Tune in for a conversation on private power, free markets, crony capitalism, and more.
Featuring:

Prof. Julia Mahoney, John S. Battle Professor...
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2024 Freedom of Thought Conference: Luncheon Fireside Chat with Hon. Andrew Ferguson and Hon. Paul B. Matey

June 20, 2024 • 52 mins
Featuring:

Hon. Andrew Ferguson, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
Moderator: Hon. Paul B. Matey, U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
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2024 Freedom of Thought Conference: Panel 3 - Securing the Rights of a Free People

June 20, 2024 • 99 mins
What responsibility do states have in protecting the rights of their citizens? How should we think about rights like the freedom of speech — do rights operate primarily as a limit on government power, or do they protect the natural rights of the citizen? Which framework is more consistent with original understanding? What limits applied to freedoms of speech — to what extent were they regulable by government and for what ends? How ...
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2024 Freedom of Thought Conference: Panel 2 - The Challenge of Citizens United

June 20, 2024 • 90 mins
How did corporate rights evolve to include expressive constitutional rights akin to those of a natural person? How should we think about constitutional protections for corporate speech promoting commercial interests? Should the degree of alignment between ownership and control affect the constitutional interests of the corporation? Does SEC regulation on shareholder voting interfere with shareholders’ constitutional rights? If subs...
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2024 Freedom of Thought Conference: Panel 1 - Did James Madison Think Corporations Were People Too?

June 20, 2024 • 90 mins
How did citizens understand corporate power at the Founding? What were the rights, privileges, and limits on corporations, and how did the rights of corporations compare to those of individual citizens? Should the fact that significant elements of the corporation–including their creation and ability to operate across state lines–were privileges granted by the state affect our thinking on corporate rights? And how does contemporary ...
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2024 Freedom of Thought Conference: Panel 4 - The NetChoice Problem

June 20, 2024 • 106 mins
We know how to think about government coercion. We have ready and familiar frameworks for evaluating how government power should be exercised against the private individual. But courts and policymakers increasingly are called to mediate between private actors with competing claims to liberty, and the analysis is perhaps more complex and uncertain. How should we evaluate such competing claims and what are the self-governance interes...
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Open Minds with Andrew Ferguson and James Burnham

June 17, 2024 • 70 mins
In this episode of Open Minds, Andrew Ferguson discusses his career, from judicial clerkships to the Hill to state government, and how the mentors and friends he made along the way helped shape his career and intellectual development.

Andrew Ferguson and James Burnham then turn to the questions of the moment. What role can state solicitors general play in curtailing government overreach? What is antitrust law? How did a bipartisan c...
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Open Minds: Concentrated Control, Acceptable Opinions, and Corporate Influence - Part II

May 8, 2024 • 42 mins
In Part 2 of Open Minds with Ryan Newman, we discuss government and private coercion and how state plenary authority plays into questions of freedom. How does concentrated economic and government power affect the democratic power of private citizens? How does a corporation's size and scale change its ability to exercise political influence? And how can conservative and libertarian discussions shift from focusing on process and proc...
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Open Minds: A New Approach for Putting Conservativism into Practice Part I

April 25, 2024 • 42 mins
Part 1 of Open Minds with Ryan Newman covers how his upbringing in the American southwest and his less conventional career, including military service, as well as judicial clerkships, and service in both state and federal government, shaped his life and thought. What does it mean to fight for what you believe in? What grounds our rights, and are there limits to those rights? How do political leaders balance our competing interests ...
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NetChoice and Murthy: Speech and Coercion in the Digital Age

April 9, 2024 • 78 mins
What can state actors do to protect or interfere with online public discourse? The recent argument in National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo suggests that there is some outer limit of government coercion on private actors to interfere with disfavored ideas. But questions from the bench in Murthy v. Missouri, argued the same morning, have some wondering if those limits might allow for significant “informal” pressure by gover...
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When Mozilla Fired Its Founder: On the 10 Year Anniversary of Brendan Eich Leaving His Company

April 3, 2024 • 64 mins
Co-founder of Mozilla and creator of JavaScript, Brendan Eich had made remarkable contributions to the technology sector. He also had contributed $1,000 to the (successful) Proposition 8 campaign against same-sex marriage. On April 3, 2014, Mozilla forced him out of the company he had founded, with apologies for not having acted sooner.
Watching it all unfold, Prof. Todd Zywicki was concerned, warning that this would not stop with f...
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Open Minds with Jonathan Mitchell and James Burnham - Part II

March 14, 2024 • 34 mins
In the second part of this interview, James Burnham and Jonathan Mitchell discuss areas where conventional wisdom can be challenged and how he has sought to shift the Overton window in legal discourse. Should legal doctrine eclipse constitutional and statutory text? Join us for a sweeping discussion on equality doctrine, judicial review limitations, private civil enforcement, and more.

Featuring:

Jonathan Mitchell, Principal, Mitchel...
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Open Minds with Jonathan Mitchell and James Burnham - Part I

March 13, 2024 • 51 mins
In the first part of this interview, James Burnham and Jonathan Mitchell discuss his unusual career progression in alternating legal practice and academia, how his experience with consequentialism informs his formalism and textualism, and what's next for the conservative legal movement.

Featuring:

Jonathan Mitchell, Principal, Mitchell Law PLLC
James Burnham, President, Vallecito Capital, LLC
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NetChoice and the Future of State Regulation of Big Tech

February 27, 2024 • 75 mins
A panel of experts from a variety of political perspectives will discuss the range of briefing and arguments in Moody v. NetChoice, LLC and NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton.
Featuring:

Ryan L. Bangert, Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives & Special Counsel to the President, Alliance Defending Freedom
Prof. Julia D. Mahoney, John S. Battle Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Prof. Ganesh Sitaraman, New Yo...
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Race at Work: Can Businesses Treat People Differently on the Basis of Race?

February 12, 2024 • 78 mins
In June of last year, the Supreme Court held that consideration of applicants’ race in admissions decisions of Harvard and the University of North Carolina violated both the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
But what are the implications outside of university admissions? How might this decision affect the interpretation and enforcement of federal laws against discriminat...
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