Melissa Harris-Perry is a professor of political science at Tulane University in New Orleans, host of MSNBC’s “Melissa Harris-Perry” and author of Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2004).

Bruce David Forbes is a professor of religious studies at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, specializing in religion in America and religion and popular culture. He is co-editor of Rapture, Revelation and the End Times: Exploring the ‘Left Behind’ Series. Forbes also co-edited the book Religion and Popular Culture in America.

Russell Arben Fox is a political science professor at Friends University in Wichita, Ks. On In Medias Res, a blog of his writings, he has written that the Democratic Party has abandoned religious progressives. He has called for transformation of America’s political and party system.

Charles C. Haynes is the founding director of the Religious Freedom Center at the Freedom Forum Institute. He writes and speaks extensively on religious freedom and faith in public life, specializing in church-state conflict related to public schools.  

Eugene Volokh teaches law at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has written extensively about religious exemptions, freedom of speech and religious accommodation law.

Carole J. Buckner is dean of the Abraham Lincoln University School of Law in Los Angeles.

At Arizona State College of Law, a Christian Legal Society chapter had a disagreement with the school about the nondiscrimination policy. Paul Bender is dean emeritus and a professor at the law school and a civil rights authority who has been critical of waivers for campus groups.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law, is a nationally recognized expert in constitutional law. He has defended Guantanamo detainees.

Thomas C. Berg is a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. He is a leading expert on church-state issues and has written on religious land use questions. He supports the rights of religious organizations to choose members based on religion and sexual conduct. He has also written about religious speech in the workplace.