The Encounter Books Gala

Charles R. Kesler is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, editor of the Claremont Review of Books, and the Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College. He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in government from Harvard University. From 1989 to 2008, he directed CMC’s Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom. He teaches in the Claremont Institute’s Publius and Lincoln Fellows Programs and has served on several national commissions, including the U.S. Congress’s James Madison Commemoration Commission and the Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings issue. In 2018, he received the prestigious Bradley Prize for his contributions to American political thought. Dr. Kesler is the author of I Am the Change: Barack Obama, The Crisis of Liberalism, and Crisis of the Two Constitutions: The Rise, Decline, and Recovery of American Greatness. His edition of The Federalist Papers remains the best-selling edition in the country.

Amy L. Wax is the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She holds a B.S. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale, an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. She previously served in the U.S. Solicitor General’s Office under the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, where she argued fifteen cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. She began her academic career at the University of Virginia Law School in 1994 and joined Penn in 2001. Her courses and scholarship span civil procedure, social welfare policy, affirmative action, and the economics of family and work. She is the author of Race, Wrongs, and Remedies and a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, the Claremont Review of Books, National Affairs, and The New Criterion. She is a regular guest on podcasts and media outlets discussing law, policy, and constitutional issues.

Tom Cotton is a United States senator from Arkansas and chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. He serves on the Intelligence Committee (chair), Armed Services Committee (Airland, Cybersecurity, and Strategic Forces subcommittees), the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and the Joint Economic Committee. A native of Yell County, Arkansas, Senator Cotton is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals and worked briefly in private practice before joining the U.S. Army in the wake of the September 11 attacks. He served nearly five years on active duty in the United States Army as an infantry officer, deploying to Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division and to Afghanistan with a Provincial Reconstruction Team. Between his Army service and election to the Senate, he worked for McKinsey & Company and served one term in the House of Representatives. He and his wife, Anna, have two sons, Gabriel and Daniel.

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. He previously served as executive director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution and vice president of the Cato Institute. He is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court, coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations?, and editor of eleven volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Shapiro has filed more than 500 Supreme Court amicus briefs and is a frequent commentator for The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and National Review. He writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack and has testified before Congress and state legislatures. He lectures regularly for the Federalist Society and serves on several boards. He holds an A.B. from Princeton, an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago.

Richard W. Graber is president and CEO of The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and has served on its board since 2014. From 2006 to 2009, he was the U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic, where he promoted transparency, judicial reform, and missile defense cooperation. He later served as senior vice president for global government relations at Honeywell International and led government relations for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Before his diplomatic service, Mr. Graber was president and CEO of Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren, a major law firm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has also served on the boards of the Philanthropy Roundtable, the Kern Family Foundation, and Curt Joa, Inc. Mr. Graber holds a J.D. from Boston University School of Law and an A.B. from Duke University, graduating magna cum laude. He and his wife, Alexandria, have two sons, Scott and Erik, and reside in Wisconsin.