Staff

Hadley Arkes, Founder and Co-Director

Hadley Arkes has been a member of the Amherst College faculty since 1966, and since 1987 he has been the Edward Ney Professor of Jurisprudence. Since 2016, he has assumed emeritus status. He has written five books with Princeton University Press: Bureaucracy, the Marshall Plan and the National Interest (1972), The Philosopher in the City (1981), First Things (1986), Beyond the Constitution (1990), and The Return of George Sutherland (1994). But his most recent books have been with Cambridge University Press, including Natural Rights and the Right to Choose (2002), and Constitutional Illusions and Anchoring Truths: The Touchstone of the Natural Law (2010). His latest book is Mere Natural Law (2023) from Regnery Gateway. His articles have appeared in professional journals, but apart from his writing in more scholarly formats, he has become known to a wider audience through his writings in the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, and National Review. He has been a contributor also to First  Things, a journal that took its name from his book of that title. For eight years he wrote a column for Crisis magazine under the title of "Lifewatch" and he has carried over that concern as one of the band of friends who formed the new web journal The Catholic Thing.

He was the main advocate, and architect, of the bill that became known as the Born-Alive Infants’ Protection Act. The account of his experience, in moving the bill through Congress, is contained as an epilogue or memoir in his book, Natural Rights & the Right to Choose. Arkes first prepared his proposal as part of the debating kit assembled for the first George Bush in 1988. The purpose of that proposal was to offer the “most modest first step” of all in legislating on abortion, and opening a conversation even with people who called themselves “pro-choice.” Professor Arkes proposed to begin simply by preserving the life of a child who survived an abortion–contrary to the holding of one federal judge, that such a child was not protected by the laws. Professor Arkes led the testimony on the bill before the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House in July 2000, then again in July 2001. The legislative calendar was upended in the aftermath of September 11th, but in March 2002, the bill was brought to the floor of the House, where it passed unanimously. To  the surprise of Professor Arkes, the bill was brought to the floor of the Senate on July 18 by the Deputy Majority Leader, Harry Reid, and passed in the same way. On August 5, President Bush signed the bill into law with Professor Arkes in attendance.

Professor Arkes has been the founder, at Amherst, of the Committee for the American Founding, a group of alumni and students seeking to preserve, at Amherst, the doctrines of  “natural rights” taught by the American Founders and Lincoln. That interest has been carried over now to the founding of a new center for the jurisprudence of natural law, in the  Washington, D.C. area: the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding, named for one of the premier minds among the American Founders.

 

Gerard Bradley, Co-Director

 

Gerard V. Bradley is Co-Director of the James Wilson Institute. He serves as professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, where he teaches Legal Ethics and Constitutional Law. At Notre Dame he directs (with John Finnis) the Natural Law Institute and co-edits The American Journal of Jurisprudence, an international forum for legal philosophy. Bradley has been a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, and a senior fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, in Princeton, N.J. He served for many years as president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

Bradley received his B.A and J.D. degrees from Cornell University, graduating summa cum laude from the law school in 1980. After serving in the Trial Division of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office he joined the law faculty at the University of Illinois. He moved to Notre Dame in 1992. Bradley has published over one hundred scholarly articles and reviews. His most recent books are an edited collection of essays titled, Challenges to Religious Liberty in the Twenty-First Century (published by Cambridge University Press in 2012) and Catholic Social Teaching (published by Cambridge University Press in 2019).

 

Michael Maibach, Managing Director

Mr. Maibach is a seasoned professional in global business diplomacy.  From 2003-12 he was the President of the European-American Business Council, after serving for 18 years as the Vice President of Global Government Affairs at the Intel Corporation.  Today he is Managing Director of the James Wilson Institute, and a Distinguished Fellow on American Federalism at Save Our States.  Mr. Maibach has earned MA degrees from Northern Illinois, Georgetown, Ashland, and the Institute of World Politics where he is a Trustee.  He speaks in classrooms and before civic groups often in defense of the Founders’ Constitution and its Electoral College.”  He can be reached at mcm at maibach.us. 

Garrett Snedeker, Deputy Director

Garrett Snedeker maintains the James Wilson Institute's year-round presence in the Washington, D.C. area. In addition to planning events, handling the Institute's website, hosting the Anchoring Truths Podcast, and running its office, he is the main point of contact for all partnership opportunities and media inquiries. He is a graduate of the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where he served on the George Mason Law Review as Articles Editor. He graduated from Amherst College, as a one-time student of Prof. Arkes, and formerly worked as editor of the congressional research website LegiStorm. His writing has been featured in Newsweek, The Federalist, The American Mind, The American Conservative, Starting Points Journal, and the Online Library of Law & Liberty. He has been quoted in Politico, Roll Call, and the Boston Herald and collaborated on stories for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and National Journal. He can be reached at garrett at jwinst.org.

  

Daniel Osborne, Programs Director

Daniel Osborne graduated from Patrick Henry College in May 2017, completing a Bachelor of Arts in government centering on political theory, with a minor in education. Before coming to work at the Institute, he worked as a high school social studies teacher overseas in Dongguan, China, teaching students in topics ranging from world history and government to philosophy and the history of art. Previously, Daniel worked as an audio visual support technician for events ranging from political rallies to local theater productions. He can be contacted at daniel at jwinst.org.

 

 

Forgét, Programs Manager

 

Forgét graduated cum laude from the University of Dallas with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, with a focus on ethics and critiques of modern gender theory and Neo-Cartesian philosophy. While in attendance, she also studied abroad in Italy and Greece, learning Greek and Roman architecture, literature, and history. Before working for the James Wilson Institute, she worked in banking, collegiate admissions, and as a student journalist. She can be contacted at forget @ jwinst.org.