HAMPTONS INSTITUTE: GUARDRAILS ON DEMOCRACY

Norman Eisen is the founder and executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, which has been helping lead the successful national court fights against the Trump Administration, helping secure multiple landmark orders against its authoritarian moves. His work in the courts of law is matched by his efforts in the court of public opinion as the co-founder and publisher of The Contrarian. He is also the co-founder and former chair of other major non-profits including CREW and States United.

Anthony D. Romero is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the nation’s premier defender of civil liberties. He took the helm of the organization just seven days before the September 11, 2001 attacks. Romero has been the longest-serving head of the 105-year-old organization since its founder, Roger Baldwin, stepped down in 1950.

Throughout his 23-year tenure, Romero has built the ACLU into a legal, political and advocacy juggernaut. He has presided over the most successful growth in the ACLU’s history – growing the organization twelvefold and making it the largest and most impactful legal and advocacy organization in the United States. 

Under Romero’s leadership, the ACLU has pursued aggressive litigation and advocacy around the greatest injustices of our time, including: challenges to the war on terror and fighting to close Guantánamo; protecting the right to free speech—regardless of ideology—across the internet and social media platforms, in classrooms and on campuses, and in the public square; combating racial disparities within the criminal justice system, reducing mass incarceration, and advocating for the commutation of federal death sentences; winning the freedom to marry for same-sex couples and ensuring federal civil rights protections for LGBTQ workers; and fighting assaults on transgender rights and dignity. The ACLU brought 434 legal actions during the first Trump Administration and to date, has brought over 120 legal actions during President Trump’s second term.

Romero revamped and scaled the ACLU’s political program, resulting in winning ballot referenda to protect abortion rights for millions across the nation; and the launch of the ACLU’s first political action committee—the ACLU Voter Education Fund—in 2024. He also launched a nationwide Systemic Equality campaign for racial justice.

With a staffed presence in every state, and covering the waterfront of issues from free speech, abortion rights, immigrants’ rights, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, and racial justice, among other issues, the ACLU stands alone in its commitment to defending the rights and liberties of all people in the United States. A nonpartisan organization, the ACLU advances civil liberties and civil rights without respect to political affiliation and holds Democratic and Republican leaders alike accountable to the Constitution. Romero is the ACLU’s sixth executive director and the first Latino and openly gay man to serve in that capacity.

Romero’s parents hailed from Puerto Rico, and he was the first in his family to graduate from high school. A graduate of Stanford University Law School and the Princeton University School of Public Policy and International Affairs, he has served on numerous nonprofit boards and is currently a Trustee of Princeton University. 

Photo: Bryan Derballa

Jim Zirin is the author of three books, the latest of which is Plaintiff in Chief-Portrait of Donald Trump in 3500 Lawsuits. He is the host of the critically acclaimed television talk show, Conversations with Jim Zirin, which can be seen weekly throughout the New York metropolitan area, and on PBS stations nationwide.

In an early review, Kirkus Reviews praised the "unique approach to the continuing deconstruction of the Trumpian edifice," adding that "former federal prosecutor Zirin pieces together a highly damning portrait of Donald Trump as a serial abuser of the law. The book is so incriminating not only because of the author's credentials, but also because the details are grounded in lawsuits filed by Trump, against Trump, or, in some instances, cross-filed by the opposing parties." 

Jim has been a leading litigator, who has appeared in federal and state courts around the nation. He is a former federal prosecutor in New York, having served in that office under the legendary Robert M. Morgenthau.

His first book, The Mother Court, published in 2014, is about the great trials that went down in the Southern District in the mid-twentieth century. It inspired the Shonda Rhimes TV series “For the People.” His second book, Supremely Partisan, questioned the political nature of certain decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is a principal interlocutor in the critically acclaimed documentary film, Where’s My Roy Cohn? released in theaters everywhere.

Jim has written over 200 op-ed articles for The Hill, Time, Forbes, Barron’s, the LA Times, the London Times, the Washington Post, the New York Sun, and the Nation. He has lectured on the Supreme Court at Chatham House in London. In August 2003, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg appointed him to the New York City Commission to Combat Police Corruption.

He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.