Speakers
Notice of Event Cancellation: Due to the overwhelming response to our Jamestown Quadricentennial celebration, we will be unable to hold the Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy this year. We regret that we had to cancel this important conference. By God’s grace, we hope to host it once again in 2008.
Douglas W. Phillips, Esq.
Doug Phillips is the director of Vision Forum Ministries, a discipleship and training ministry that emphasizes Christian apologetics, worldview training, multi-generational faithfulness, and creative solutions whereby fathers can play a maximum role in family discipleship. Doug is the founder and one of the featured speakers at the Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy. A constitutional attorney, Doug served with the Home School Legal Defense Association for six years. He serves as Adjunct Professor of Apologetics for the Institute for Creation Research, and co-authored the book, Weapons of Our Warfare with ICR’s president Dr. John Morris. He is the author/editor of Robert Louis Dabney: The Prophet Speaks, Poems for Patriarchs, The Birkenhead Drill, and The Letters & Lessons of Teddy Roosevelt for His Sons among other works. His writings have appeared in numerous publications including WORLD magazine, Acts and Facts, The Houston Chronicle, Education Reporter, Quit You Like Men, The Home School Court Report, The Teaching Home, Home School Digest, Home Schooling Today, Citizen Magazine, and Patriarch magazine. A strong advocate of mentorship, Phillips has taught from his home intensive college-level, independent courses on apologetics, law, theology, and government to home school students and graduates. Doug and his wife, Beall, live with their eight children, Joshua, Justice, Liberty, Jubilee, Faith Evangeline, Honor, Providence and new arrival Virginia, in San Antonio, Texas.
The Honorable Howard Phillips
During the Nixon Administration, Mr. Phillips headed two Federal agencies, ending his executive branch career as director of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity in the Executive Office of the President, a position from which he resigned when President Nixon reneged on his commitment to veto further funding for “Great Society” programs. Since 1974, Mr. Phillips has been Chairman of The Conservative Caucus, a non-partisan, nationwide grassroots public policy advocacy group which has been in the thick of battles, in opposition to the Panama Canal and Carter-Brezhnev SALT II treaties in the 1970s, in support of SDI and major tax reductions during the 1980s, and in the vanguard of efforts to terminate Federal subsidies to ideological activist groups under the banner of “defunding the Left.” A 1962 graduate of Harvard College (where he was twice elected president of the Student Council), Phillips is president of Policy Analysis, Inc., a public policy research organization which publishes the bimonthly Issues and Strategy Bulletin. He has published three books: The New Right at Harvard (1983), Moscow’s Challenge to U.S. Vital Interests in Sub-Saharan Africa (1987), and The Next Four Years (1992). Phillips, his wife, Peggy, and their immediate family reside in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Mike Farris
Michael Farris is HSLDA’s Chairman of the Board and General Counsel. He founded HSLDA in 1983 and served as president through 2000. Education Week named Mike one of the most significant “100 Faces of a Century,” and credited him with helping to move home education “out of the shadows and pushing states to codify parents’ right to teach their children themselves.” In September 2000, Farris was inaugurated as the first President of Patrick Henry College, the only college in America with a home-schooled majority in the student body. PHC is a Christian college blending classical instruction with apprenticeship methodology. Farris is a constitutional lawyer, a published author of nine non-fiction works and three novels, an ordained minister, and a leading pro-family activist on Capitol Hill. He and his wife Vickie were married in 1971. They have ten children and seven grandchildren. They have home schooled since 1982.
Jeffrey Tuomala
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Law at Liberty University School of Law, Dean Tuomala (J.D., LL.M.) previously taught at the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law and at Regent University School of Law, with main areas of teaching in international law, criminal law, administrative law, torts, jurisprudence and legal history. He has pursued his commitment to restoring the moral foundations of law by serving as legal consultant to the Honorable Roy S. Moore, arguing the case of Regina v. Demers before British Columbia’s highest court (which addressed the unborn child’s right to life under international law), and serving as an international law consultant on the Michael New case. His particular interest in the application of biblical truth to law is reflected in his several publications, which include “Christ’s Atonement as the Model for Civil Justice,” 38 Am. J. Juris. 221 (1993). As a Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (with eight years on active duty), Tuomala has an expertise in the international law of human rights and armed conflict and has prepared teaching materials and taught courses on four continents to military officers from more than 50 countries. He spent several years in the general practice of law in his hometown of Geneva, Ohio, where he also served as City Solicitor. He and his wife, Abby, have seven children and two grandchildren.
Dr. Roger Schultz
Dr. Roger Schultz is the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Before coming to Liberty University in 2002, he taught at Virginia Intermont College, the University of Arkansas, and Oak Hills Christian College. He is particularly interested in worldview education and how Christian commitments and biblical presuppositions influence approaches to academic disciplines. Dr. Schultz is a specialist in American religious history and he frequently preaches in local churches and speaks at church conferences. Recent conference topics include God and Government; America’s Christian Heritage; Biblical Creationism; Amazing Grace; Fundamentals of the Faith; and the Legacy of the Reformation. His essays and articles have appeared in WORLD Magazine; Banner of Truth; Faith for All of Life; Fides et Historia; Chalcedon Report; Contra Mundum; Human Events; The Presbyterian Witness; Presbyterian Advocate; American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia; The Ozark Historical Review; The Journal of Christian Reconstruction; The Christian Observer; Presbyterian and Reformed News; and Christianity and Civilization. The Schultzes have nine children — one is a Liberty University alumna and four are current Liberty students. A native Minnesotan, Dr. Schultz enjoys hunting and fishing. Given the chance, he will spin bear and moose stories of the north woods and tell of his adventures as a canoe guide in the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area.
Colonel John Eidsmoe
John Eidsmoe is a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel and Judge Advocate and an Alabama State Defense Force Colonel and Chaplain. He currently teaches Constitutional Law at the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Alabama, where his students have twice given him the Outstanding Professor Award. He is an ordained pastor in the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations and an adjunct professor at Birmingham School of Theology. As a constitutional attorney, Colonel Eidsmoe has defended home schools and Christian schools, debated ACLU attorneys on radio and television, and served on the Ten Commandments Legal Defense Team in the recent Alabama litigation. He has authored thirteen books and produced numerous audio and video lecture series, and holds five academic degrees in law, theology, and political science, as well as graduating from the Air Command and Staff College and the Air War College. A Third Degree Black Belt with the American Taekwondo Foundation, Colonel Eidsmoe served as a Regional Representative for the Gospel Martial Arts Union, is an avid horseman and skier, and tries to get eight hours of sleep every week. He and his wife Marlene have been married since 1970, have three children (David, Kirsten, and Justin), and live in rural Pike Road, Alabama.
Joseph Farah
Joseph Farah is the founder, editor and chief executive officer of WorldNetDaily.com, the world’s leading independent Internet news source. In addition, Farah writes a daily column for WND and a weekly newspaper column for Creators Syndicate. Joseph Farah made a name for himself with traditional daily newspapers prior to his founding of WorldNetDaily — running the Sacramento Union, directing the news operation of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner for six years and serving as editor in chief of a group of California dailies and weeklies. The former nationally syndicated daily talk-show host has written for such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Jerusalem Post, National Review, TV Guide, Reason, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Sun-Times and a host of other national, international and regional publications. He is the co-author, with U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, of “This Land is Our Land” (1996), Farah speaks all over the world on topics ranging from the Middle East to the media to domestic policy issues.
Dan Ford
Dan Ford has been an avid collector of artifacts and historic documents for nearly two decades. As a researcher and historian, he has compiled an archive of original source materials by which to verify contemporary accounts of the lives of our forebearers. These artifacts range from more ancient cuneiform tablets, scrolls, and pottery, to less ancient pamphlets, maps, broadsheets, books, private letters, and public documents. He has been a group teacher and conference speaker on the subjects of Christian English and American history for the past ten years. His single goal in each presentation has been to explain and document, by way of facts and artifacts, the abundant evidence of our godly cultural inheritance. With twenty-five years in the field of graphic illustration, he is well-known for his illustrated work In the Name of God, Amen. Dan and his wife Theresa reside in St. Louis, Missouri.
Joshua Carden
Joshua Carden is currently an attorney with a practice in Weatherford, Texas, where he focuses on civil litigation, mineral interests, estate planning, and business formation. Joshua is also part owner of a Liberty Tax Service franchise in Weatherford. Prior to this, Carden was an associate at King & King, P.C. in Weatherford from 2005 to 2006. He worked for Phil King, a Christian, homeschooling, State Representative from District 61 (Parker and Wise Counties). He has also served in the past as litigation staff attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, a national legal alliance dedicated to preserving our first liberty. Carden also worked for a season with Mike Farris at the Home School Legal Defense Association, and in 1999 graduated from the Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy. In 2000, Joshua became a Fellow in the inaugural class of the Blackstone Fellowship at the Alliance Defense Fund. In 2002, he received his J.D. magna cum laude from Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, VA. Joshua is licensed to practice law in Arizona and Texas, has appeared in federal courts in California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas, and Washington, and has co-authored amicus briefs for the U.S. Supreme Court.