2019-2020 Class of Fellows

Melissa J. Barthelemy is a Doctoral Candidate in Public History with a designated emphasis in Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has served as an intern and consultant for the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs assisting with special projects pertaining to free speech, campus climate, mental health services, and crisis management.

Barthelemy has helped lead campus and community responses to the May 23, 2014 Isla Vista Tragedy in which six UCSB students were killed and 14 individuals were injured in a violent rampage. As such, she has served as a liaison between family and friends of the victims and the University administration, and has played a lead role in organizing memorial anniversary events. She is interested in relationships between intolerant and offensive speech, campus safety, and hate crimes committed in college environments. She has presented at national conferences on the topics of proactive responses to free speech community controversies, and campus responses to violence.

She holds a J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law with an emphasis in Public Interest Law, an M.A. from San Francisco State University with an emphasis in United States Constitutional History, and a B.A. from University of California Santa Cruz in United States History. For more information visit http://www.melissabarthelemy.com.

Jonathan Friedman is the program director for campus free speech at PEN America where he oversees advocacy, analysis, and outreach in the national debate around free speech and inclusion in higher education. Prior to joining PEN America, Friedman was an adjunct professor at NYU and Columbia University, teaching courses in comparative and international education, higher education, and social theory. His research on American and international higher education looks at such topics as university administration, organizational cultures, nationalism, and cross-cultural understanding. Friedman holds a Ph.D. in International Education from NYU, and has received awards for his teaching, research, and leadership.

Nikita Gupta specializes in Transforming Trauma through Healing and Resiliency in educational as well as public and private settings. She is a recognized leader and educator and has worked nationally with at-risk communities, educational leaders and community service providers. Nikita is the founder of the innovative GRIT Coaching program at University of California, Los Angeles. The GRIT (Guidance, Resilience, Integrity, and Transformation) Program is nationally recognized as a model for excellence in mental health promotion, advocacy, and transformation for students, staff and faculty.

As a 2020 Fellow of the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, Nikita designed educational frameworks that are adaptable to various contexts for engaging communities in Trauma-Informed Practice and Embodied Leadership. Nikita’s methodology is interdisciplinary and includes Neurobiology, Positive Psychology and Somatic Education through prisms of Community Health and Social Justice.

Nikita’s work is rooted in practices of personal empowerment and social healing. Her ultimate goal is to recontextualize the untapped potential of healing, mindful awareness and resilience into institutional spaces toward achieving a greater capacity for holistic success, thriving and connection for all.

Nikita received her Master’s in Public Health from UCLA. She is also a long-time Yoga Teacher and Meditation Facilitator. Her efforts to integrate practices of healing and restoration are dedicated to both individuals and organizations. Through training, coaching and consultation, she aspires to uplift the collective in bravely moving through the unknown, while finding joy and satisfaction in each day.

Spoma Jovanovic, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Since 2001, she has been teaching students there how to collaborate with community members on programs and activist strategies designed to enhance ethical conversations and action related to civic literacy, cultural understanding, democratic participation, and social justice.

She is the author of the book, Democracy, Dialogue and Community Action: Truth and Reconciliation in Greensboro, and editor of Partnerships: A Journal of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement. Dr. Jovanovic’s scholarship has been featured in dozens of academic journal articles and book chapters, as well as in national magazines, daily newspapers, and a 2013 TEDx Greensboro talk.

Her communication activism has included launching, with the community, the first U.S. truth and reconciliation process, bringing participatory budgeting to her city, and advancing political engagement with an urban high school, as well as expanding spaces for free speech.

Rebecca MacKinnon directs the Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) project at New America, working to set global standards for corporate respect for freedom of expression and privacy online. The RDR Corporate Accountability Index ranks the world’s most powerful internet, mobile, and telecommunications companies on relevant commitments and policies, based on international human rights standards. (See: https://rankingdigitalrights.org) Author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom (2012), MacKinnon co-founded of the citizen media network Global Voices, serves on the Board of Directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists and was a founding board member of the Global Network Initiative. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, she was CNN’s Bureau Chief and correspondent in China and Japan between 1998-2004. She has also taught at the University of Hong Kong and the University of Pennsylvania, and held fellowships at Harvard, Princeton, and the Open Society Foundations.

Saugher Nojan is a PhD Candidate in Sociology with a designated emphasis in Critical Race & Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research focuses on social inequality, immigrant/refugee integration, civic/political engagement and education. Saugher is trained in community-collaborative research methods and worked as a graduate researcher for the Center for Collaborative Research for an Equitable California and the Student Success Equity & Research Center. She is also a former fellow for the California Immigration Research Initiative. Saugher received her Masters in Education at UC Santa Cruz and was recently awarded the 2019 Chancellor’s Achievement Award for Diversity.

Contact Saugher on Twitter: @snojans.

Lara Schwartz teaches at American University School of Public Affairs, where she founded and directs the Project on Civil Discourse. She specializes in civil discourse and campus speech, constitutional law, civil rights, politics, communications, and policy. Drawing on her experience as a legislative lawyer, lobbyist, and communications strategist in leading civil rights organizations, Lara emphasizes collaborative learning and universal design in her teaching. She has served as a Faculty Fellow at AU’s Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning.

Andrea Malkin Brenner, PhD is a sociologist and college transitions educator who works with high school students and their parents on challenges related to college transitions. She also works with high school and college faculty and administration to design first-year experience programs. Andrea is the creator of the nationally-recognized American University Experience (AUx) Program, now a mandatory full-year course for first-year students at American University. Previous to that, Dr. Brenner served as a faculty member in the Department of Sociology at American University for 20 years, teaching classes on inequality, social problems, and the life course. She also directed AU's University College program, the university's oldest and largest living-learning community for first-year students.

They are co-authors of How to College: What to Know Before You Go (And When You’re There).

Emerson is a staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project where he focuses on First Amendment free speech protections.

Prior to joining the ACLU in 2018, he was a legal advisor for Africa at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL). He provided technical legal assistance to African civil society leaders, government officials, law students, and other stakeholders to improve the legal framework protecting the freedom of association, assembly, and expression. Emerson previously served as assistant general counsel to the New York City Council, where he worked to increase transparency for council members’ discretionary spending, and contributed to the council’s friend-of-the-court brief against the NYPD’s “Stop and Frisk” program. In 2011, he was as senior policy fellow in the office of a Member of Parliament in Ghana. Earlier in his career, Emerson conducted research and wrote about U.S. foreign policy for The Century Foundation and worked for the National Democratic Institute’s Central and West Africa Team.

Emerson holds a J.D. from NYU Law, where he was a Root-Tilden-Kern scholar for public interest law, and a Master of Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. He earned a B.A. in political science at Stanford.

Shira Tarrant is Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at California State University, Long Beach where she engages students in her research on gender and sexual politics. Dr. Tarrant is the author or editor of several books including The Pornography Industry: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press), Men and Feminism (Seal Press), and Gender, Sex, and Politics (Routledge). Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, Bitch magazine, and The Atlantic; her commentary has appeared in global and local media, including the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, NBC, New York Times, Forbes, Ms. magazine, Huffington Post, and others. Shira Tarrant received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. Read more at http://shiratarrant.com or follow her on Twitter @shiratarrant.

John K. Wilson is the co-editor of the American Association of University Professors' AcademeBlog.org, and the editor of the Illinois AAUP's Illinois Academe. He has a Ph.D. in higher education from Illinois State University, and is the author of eight books, including The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education (Duke University Press), Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies (Paradigm Publishers), and President Trump Unveiled: Exposing the Bigoted Billionaire (OR Books).