Truth in Turmoil

JOIN US! JUNE 17, 2025

On Tuesday, June 17, 2025, American Public Square, the National WWI Museum and Memorial and the Kansas First Amendment Foundation will present the second program of the Civility Examined series.

This conversation will explore how free expression has been challenged, protected, and politicized by both political parties—on college campuses, within Congress, in international forums, and across an increasingly polarized public square. The program will also examine free speech within the Trump administration and the broader implications for democratic institutions at home and abroad.

Reshad Staitieh, programs director for The Conflict Resolution Center will moderate the discussion. Distinguished panelists include:

• • Renée Diresta, associate research specialist – McCourt School of Public Policy (specializing in adversarial abuse in current information technologies)
  • Laura Clark Fey, privacy law specialist – Fey, LLC
  • Jonathan Turley, author, attorney and legal scholar

Fact Checking will be performed by UMKC Law Students with the support of associate dean for students and MO Chair in Law, the Constitution and Society at UMKC, Allen Rostron. Steve Corbin, professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls and contributing writer for The Fulcrum will serve as the program’s Roving Reporter.

This event is brought to you by American Public Square, the National WWI Museum and Memorial and the Kansas First Amendment Foundation.

Program Recording

Event Photos

Reshad Staitieh was born and raised in Overland Park, Kansas. He is a musician, a writer, a mediator, and an attorney. Not always in that order.

Reshad is a proud graduate of the University of Missouri where he attended law school and received his undergraduate degrees in English and Political Science. After law school, Reshad moved to Washington, D.C., and began work as a Staff Attorney for a national civil rights and advocacy organization, focusing on First Amendment protections. He represented individuals who had experienced discrimination in the workplace, at school, or while traveling. In addition to his direct client work, Reshad managed a series of national programs, litigated constitutional issues at the federal level, and established a civil rights incident database to track violations and trends.

He has lectured on free speech, religious freedoms, ethics, and effective practice management. Currently, Reshad is the Programs Director for the Conflict Resolution Center – St. Louis, a nonprofit that provides free, community-oriented mediation and conflict coaching services to the St. Louis region. Reshad also serves on the Board of Directors for the Kansas First Amendment Foundation.

Renée DiResta is a social media researcher and the author of “Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality.” She studies adversarial abuse online, ranging from state actors running influence operations, to spammers and scammers, to issues related to child safety. In October 2024, she joined the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy as an Associate Research Professor. Prior to that, she was the Technical Research Manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory.

Renée has advised Congress, the White House, state legislatures, and business organizations on issues related to technology and policy, including information operations, generative AI, election security, researcher transparency, child safety, and more. In 2018-2019, at the behest of SSCI, she led outside teams investigating both the Russia-linked Internet Research Agency’s multi-year effort to manipulate American society and elections, and the GRU influence campaign deployed alongside its hack-and-leak operations in the 2016 election.

Renée is a contributor at The Atlantic. Her bylined writing has also appeared in Wired, Foreign Affairs, Columbia Journalism Review, New York Times, Washington Post, Yale Review, The Guardian, POLITICO, Slate, and Noema, and she also publishes in academic journals. She has been a Presidential Leadership Scholar; an Emerson Fellow, a Truman National Security Project fellow, Mozilla Fellow in Media, Misinformation, and Trust, a Harvard Berkman-Klein affiliate, and a Council on Foreign Relations term member.

Laura Clark Fey, one of the first twenty-seven U.S. attorneys recognized as Privacy Law Specialists through the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) and among the earliest global professionals recognized as certified AI Governance Professionals (AIGP), leads Fey LLC, a global data privacy, AI, and information governance law firm. She and her team help multinational and U.S. organizations develop and implement practical solutions to their unique data privacy, AI, and information governance challenges.

Laura is a member of the inaugural class of IAPP Fellows of Information Privacy (FIP), a Certified U.S. and European Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US/E), and a Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM). Laura has taught Global Data Protection in the Age of AI at the University of Kansas School of Law and International Issues at Baylor Law School for the past 5 years. The U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Commission selected Laura as part of the first class of 20 EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Arbitrators.

Professor Jonathan Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar, litigator, and legal commentator. He is the author of the best-selling and award-winning book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage (2024) and the forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution (2026).

Professor Turley joined the George Washington faculty in 1990 and, in 1998, was given the prestigious Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law, the youngest chaired professor in the school’s history. He has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last three decades, including the representation of whistleblowers, accused spies, former cabinet members, judges, members of Congress, and a wide range of other clients.

Professor Turley testified over 100 times before Congress, including both the Clinton and Trump impeachments.

In 2024, the Washingtonian featured Professor Turley as one of the most influential persons in public policy. He was ranked 38th in the top 100 most cited “public intellectuals” (and second most cited law professor) in the study by Judge Richard Posner.

Professor Turley was called the “dean of legal analysts” by the Washington Post and has worked for various networks and newspapers for over three decades. He has served as a legal analyst for NBC, CBS, BBC, and Fox News.

Professor Turley received his B.A. at the University of Chicago and his J.D. at Northwestern. In 2008, he was given an honorary Doctorate of Law from John Marshall Law School for his contributions to civil liberties.

Roving Reporter

Steve Corbin is emeritus professor of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, where he headed the marketing department. He is a contributing writer for several publications, including “The Fulcrum“.

Fact Checker

Fact Checking will be performed by UMKC Law Students with the support of associate dean for students and MO Chair in Law, the Constitution and Society at UMKC, Allen Rostron.

Allen Rostron teaches at the UMKC School of Law. He is the Associate Dean for Students and the Edward A. Smith – Missouri Chair in Law, the Constitution, and Society. He teaches courses on constitutional law and torts, and he writes about a variety of constitutional issues including the First Amendment and the Second Amendment.