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Summit Overview
Global Free Speech Summit
On 2025 October 3rd and 4th, The Future of Free Speech and Vanderbilt University will host the inaugural Global Free Speech Summit, an event to discuss the most pressing challenges threatening freedom of expression worldwide and identify impactful solutions to reinvigorate this fundamental freedom.
But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, expound the actual teachings of the great explorer truth.
Features
Global Free Speech Summit
On 2025 October 3rd and 4th, The Future of Free Speech and Vanderbilt University will host the inaugural Global Free Speech Summit, an event to discuss the most pressing challenges threatening freedom of expression worldwide and identify impactful solutions to reinvigorate this fundamental freedom.
But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, expound the actual teachings of the great explorer truth.
Keynote Speakers
Confirmed Speakers and Panelists
Sarah Isgur
Sarah Isgur is the editor of SCOTUSblog, a regular on the panel of ABC’s flagship political show This Week with George tephanopoulous, co-host of the acclaimed Advisory Opinions legal podcast, and a rising voice whose work has been featured in a recent New Yorker profile and
David French
David French is a columnist for The New York Times, co-host of the Advisory Opinions podcast, and a visiting professor at Lipscomb University. A graduate of Harvard Law School, David is a former constitutional litigator and a past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
Peter Greste
Professor Peter Greste is an academic, film maker, journalist, and author. He is currently professor of journalism at Macquarie University and executive director of a not-for-profit advocacy group, the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom. He came to academia in 2018
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar is a social entrepreneur and media executive with extensive experience in economic development, innovation, and nonprofit leadership. Over the past decade, Faisal has driven large-scale change and fostered growth in the Middle East and beyond.
Glen Weyl
Glen Weyl is Founder and Research Lead of Microsoft Research’s Plural Technology Collaboratory and Technology for Religious Liberty initiative, Founder and Chair of the Plurality Institute and Founder and Board Member of the RadicalxChange Foundation.
James Kirchick
James Kirchick is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, a writer at large for AIR MAIL, a contributor to the Axel Springer Global Reporters Project, and the author of the instant New York Times bestseller, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington.
Uriel Epshtein
Uriel Epshtein is the Chief Executive Officer of Renew Democracy Initiative (www.rdi.org). RDI’s mission is to unmask and confront the international alliance of dictators while inspiring those in free countries to defend their own democracies.
Thomas Chatterton Williams
THOMAS CHATTERTON WILLIAMS is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Losing My Cool, Self-Portrait in Black and White, and Summer of Our Discontent. He is a visiting professor of humanities and senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, a 2022
Rikki Schlott
RIKKI SCHLOTT is a journalist and political commentator based in Manhattan. Her previous book, The Canceling of the American Mind, with co-author Greg Lukianoff and foreword by Jonathan Haidt, was named one of the best books of 2023 by the Wall Street Journal,
Usama Khilji
Usama Khilji is cofounder and Director of Bolo Bhi, an advocacy, policy, and research citizens group focused on digital rights and internet policy. He serves as the Vice Chair of the Global Network Initiative. Usama regularly trains member of the judiciary in Pakistan on matters
Dr William B Irvine
William B. Irvine is emeritus professor of philosophy at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, USA. He is the author of eight books that have been translated into more than twenty languages. His Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy played a key role in the
Yascha Mounk
Yascha Mounk is the Founder of Persuasion, the host of "The Good Fight" podcast, and writes a weekly column at aschamounk.substack.com. His latest book is The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power In Our Time.
Dr Alice Siu
Dr. Alice Siu serves as the Associate Director of the Deliberative Democracy Lab and is a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. She earned her Ph.D. from Stanford's Department of Communication,
Peter Boghossian
Peter Boghossian serves as the Executive Director of the National Progress Alliance and Founding Faculty Advisor at the University of Austin. Drawing on over 25 years of teaching experience, he specializes in the Socratic method, scientific skepticism, and critical thinking,
Jodie Ginsberg
Jodie Ginsberg is the chief executive officer of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a non-profit organization that supports journalists at risk by documenting threats and attacks on the media, providing advice and assistance, and conducting advocacy. A journalist by profession,
Jonathan Turley
Professor Jonathan Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. He has written over three dozen academic articles that have appeared in a variety of leading law journals at
Greg Lukianoff
Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, New York Times best-selling author, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). He is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech,
Ben Brooks
Natasha Edirisooriya
Chemi Lhamo
John Tamasi
Nita Farahany
Kevin Goldberg
Prof Randall Kennedy
Tyler Cowen
Bay Fang
RDI
Mathew Johnson-Roberson
Tarik Beyhan
Szabolcs Pany
Investigative Editor, Central European Investigations, VSquare
David Plazas
Opinion and Engagement Director, The Tennessean
Jonas Parello-Plesner
Executive Director, Alliance of Democracies Foundation
Guilherme Döring Cunha
Pereira
President, Gazeta do Povo
Francesca Procaccini
Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University Law School
Jeffrey Sachs
Assistant Professor, Department of Politics, Acadia University
Freddie Sayers
Editor-in-Chief & CEO, UnHerd
John M. Siegenthaler
Partner at Finn Partners and former NBC anchor
Sarah Shirazyan
Director and Head of GenAI Policy at Meta, Inc. and a Lecturer at Stanford Law School
Nadine Strossen
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School
David Sullivan
Executive Director, Digital Trust Safety Partnership
Jules White
Professor of Computer Science and Senior Advisor to the Chancellor for Generative AI in Education and Enterprise Solutions, Vanderbilt University
Panelists discussed free speech in three discrete yet overlapping areas
This multi-day summit offered speakers, panelists and attendees a unique opportunity to engage with and exchange ideas, research, and solutions to turn back the tide of global threats to free speech stemming from these three sectors.
About The Future of Free Speech
The Future of Free Speech is an independent, nonpartisan think tank located at Vanderbilt University. Through knowledge, research and advocacy, it works to restore a resilient global culture of free speech in the digital age. Led by Jacob Mchangama, The Future of Free Speech has published cutting-edge research and provided influential commentary on the state of global freedom of expression.
About Dialogue Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt reaffirms its over a century-and-a-half-long commitment to free speech and civil discourse through Dialogue Vanderbilt. The initiative comprises a vast array of programs and offerings, including the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, the Vanderbilt Debate Team, the Open Dialogue Visiting Fellows program and The Future of Free Speech.
About The Future of Free Speech
The Future of Free Speech is an independent, nonpartisan think tank located at Vanderbilt University. Through knowledge, research and advocacy, it works to restore a resilient global culture of free speech in the digital age. Led by Jacob Mchangama, The Future of Free Speech has published cutting-edge research and provided influential commentary on the state of global freedom of expression.
About Dialogue Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt reaffirms its over a century-and-a-half-long commitment to free speech and civil discourse through Dialogue Vanderbilt. The initiative comprises a vast array of programs and offerings, including the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, the Vanderbilt Debate Team, the Open Dialogue Visiting Fellows program and The Future of Free Speech.
