We are delighted to share that President Trump named three James Wilson Affiliated Scholars, staff, and faculty to support the Executive Branch’s new Religious Liberty Commission!

Our Co-Director Professor Gerry Bradley and JWI Affiliated Scholar Professor Francis Beckwith were named to the Advisory Board of Legal Experts. Professor Mark David Hall, also a JWI Affiliated Scholar, was selected to serve on the Advisory Board of Lay Leaders.

On May 1, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order establishing the Religious Liberty Commission. The commission, whose leadership may be found here, will be tasked with assessing both the state of religious freedom in America and the threats against it. Among other esteemed leaders, Dr. Ryan Anderson (a James Wilson Fellowship Faculty Member) was designated to serve as one of the commissioners. The newly created commission will, by July 4th, 2026, prepare a detailed report outlining its findings and proposing means by which religious liberty might be enhanced and bolstered across our great Nation.

The bios of each of the JWI affiliated members are included below. We hope you join us in our excitement for the good work this Committee is sure to do!

Gerard V. Bradley is Co-Director of the James Wilson Institute. He served as professor of law at the University of Notre Dame from 1992 to 2024, where he taught Legal Ethics and Constitutional Law. At Notre Dame he directed (with John Finnis) the Natural Law Institute and co-edited The American Journal of Jurisprudence, an international forum for legal philosophy. He served as president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars for many years and has been a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institute of Stanford University. He is also a senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute.

Bradley received his B.A and J.D. degrees from Cornell University, graduating summa cum laude from the law school in 1980. Before teaching at Notre Dame, he served in the Trial Division of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and taught at the University of Chicago College of Law. In 2009, he was a Visiting Professor of Politics at Princeton University.

Bradley has published over one hundred and fifty scholarly articles and reviews, and is the author and editor of twelve books, such as Catholic School Teaching: A Collection of Scholarly Essays (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and Unquiet Americans: U.S. Catholics, Moral Truth, and the Preservation of our Civil Liberties (St. Augustine’s Press, 2019).

Francis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy & Church-State Studies, Affiliate Professor of Political Science, and Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy at Baylor University, where he is also a Resident Scholar in the Institute for Studies of Religion. He is the author of over 100 academic articles, book chapters, reviews, and over a dozen books including Politics for Christians: Statecraft As Soulcraft (InterVarsity, 2010), Never Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant (Baylor University Press, 2019), Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice(Cambridge University Press, 2007), and Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2015), winner of the American Academy of Religion’s 2016 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the category of Constructive-Reflective Studies. 

A graduate of Fordham University (Ph.D., philosophy) and the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis (Master of Juridical Studies), he has served as a 2002-2003 Visiting Research Fellow in Princeton University’s James Madison Program, the 2008-2009 Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow in the de Nicola Center at the University of Notre Dame, and the 2016-2017 Visiting Professor of Conservative Thought & Policy at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Mark David Hall is a professor at the Robertson School of Government at Regent University. He is one of the most outstanding scholars of early America, whose many distinguished publications have argued persuasively for the crucial importance of Christianity in the flourishing of America’s experiment in ordered liberty. He is also widely regarded as a leading student of religious liberty and church-state relations in America. Hall has served or is serving as an expert witness for the U.S. Department of Justice, the State of Arkansas, the Alliance Defending Freedom, and the Institute for Justice. Prior to Regent, he was the Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Politics at George Fox University.

Dr. Hall earned a B.A. in Political Science from Wheaton College (IL) and a Ph.D. in Government from the University of Virginia. His primary research and writing interests include American political theory, the relationship between religion and politics, and religious liberty/church-state relations.

Dr. Hall has written, edited, or co-edited a dozen books, including Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism: Why Christian Nationalism is Not an Existential Threat to America or the Church (Fidelis Books, forthcoming); Proclaim Liberty Through All the Land: How Christianity Has Advanced Freedom and Equality for All Americans (Fidelis, 2023); Did America Have a Christian Founding?: Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth (Nelson Books, 2019); Great Christian Jurists in American History (Cambridge University Press, 2019); Faith and the Founders of the American Republic (Oxford University Press, 2014); and Roger Sherman and the Creation of the American Republic (Oxford University Press, 2013). He has also penned more than 150 book chapters, journal articles, reviews, and other pieces.

Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., is the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and the founder and editor of Public Discourse, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey. He is also the inaugural St. John Paul II Teaching Fellow in Social Thought at the University of Dallas Constantin College of Liberal Arts.

He is the author of When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment and Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom, and he is the co-author of What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense and Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination. Anderson's research has been cited by two U.S. Supreme Court Justices, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, in two Supreme Court cases.

He received his bachelor of arts degree from Princeton University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude, and he received his doctoral degree in political philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. His dissertation was titled: "Neither Liberal Nor Libertarian: A Natural Law Approach to Social Justice and Economic Rights."