Congressman Frank Wolf Receives 2014 International Religious Liberty Award
For his tireless advocacy and record of legislative accomplishment, the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society and the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University were pleased to present the Religious Liberty Award to retiring Congressman Frank Wolf. Throughout his 33-year career in Congress, Representative Wolf has championed efforts to alert the United States and the world to the plight of men, women, and children who are persecuted for living their religious convictions. Representative Wolf authored the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, which established the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and the International Religious Freedom Office at the…
Religious Liberty Essay Contest 2014
Winners of the 2014 Religious Liberty Student Writing Contest were announced at the Fifth Annual International Religious Liberty Award Dinner in Washington D.C. on October 9. The contest is sponsored annually by the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society and the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University.
Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, W. Cole Durham, Jr., presented awards for their excellent papers to Audra Savage, Paul Quast, Paul Baumgardner, Kelly Thomas, and Zachary Phillipps.
1st Place: Audra L. Savage, Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University
Paper: Turning the Other Cheek: The Persecution of the Christian Minority
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Audra L. Savage – Religious Liberty Essay Contest 2014: First Place
First place winner in the 2014 Religious Liberty Essay Contest, Audra Savage, is a Master of Laws (LLM) candidate at Emory Law School’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion. Her paper, “Turning the Other Cheek: The Persecution of the Christian Minority,” written for Professor Johan van der Vyver’s class at Emory, was presented at three academic conferences in three different countries and will be published in the Florida Journal of International Law. Audra received her Juris Doctor (JD) degree from Columbia University School of Law and a Bachelor of Science in communication studies and international studies from Northwestern University. She decided to pursue the LLM at Emory…
Paul Quast – Religious Liberty Essay Contest 2014: Second Place
Paul Quast is a third-year law student at the University of Notre Dame. His paper, “Religion’s Jurisdiction,” was awarded second place in the 2014 Religious Liberty Essay Contest. Paul was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. He graduated from the Colorado College in 2010, where he majored in Religion and minored in Philosophy. During those studies Paul’s interest in religion and the law grew, and he gained a deep respect for the many ways people relate to the divine. Before coming to law school the Bishop of Paul’s Diocese told him to study the First Amendment and use that knowledge to help the Church and the Faithful. These last two years at Notre Dame have truly given Paul the opportunity…
Paul Baumgardner – Religious Liberty Essay Contest 2014: Third Place
Paul Baumgardner, a doctoral student in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, received the third place award in the 2014 Religious Liberty Essay Contest for his paper “Your Land Is Holy To Me: The Constitutional Battle to Access Sacred Sites on Public Lands.” Originally from Kansas, Paul attended Baylor University. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2012. His research interests include constitutional history, American political development, and political philosophy. For the past several years, Paul has done work on Native American religious and cultural…
Kelly Thomas – Religious Liberty Essay Contest 2014: Honorable Mention
Kelly Thomas received an Honorable Mention in the 2014 Religious Liberty Essay Contest for her paper “Teaching a Man to Fish: The Role of International Religious Freedom in Establishing Stable Democracies Abroad and Achieving US National Security Objectives.” Originally from Maine, Kelly is a senior in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University studying International Security. Her specific research examines the relationship between state-sponsored religious persecution and religiously driven terrorism, and the implications of that relationship for U.S. foreign policy. Kelly currently works as both a research intern at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Political-Military Analysis as well as a research assistant for the Religious…
Zachary J. Phillipps – Religious Liberty Essay Contest 2014: Honorable Mention
Zachary J. Phillipps received an Honorable Mention award in the 2014 Religious Liberty Awards contest for his paper “Non-Prophets: Why For-Profit, Secular Corporations Cannot Exercise Religion Within the Meaning of the First Amendment,” which has been published in Conn Law Review Online. Zach is originally from Wisconsin. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration with a minor in Religion from Hamline University in Saint Paul, MN. He is currently attending the University of Connecticut School of Law and will graduate in May 2015.