Board of Directors
Jon Anderson
President and Publisher, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division (New York, NY)
Jon Anderson has been President and Publisher of the Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division since 2009. In his position, Mr. Anderson is responsible for the overall operations for the Children’s Division including editorial and production, publicity, marketing and licensing activities. He oversees a publishing portfolio that serves every category of the children’s publishing business, and while maintaining an extensive backlist that includes numerous Caldecott, Newbery, and National Book Award winners, continues to publish acclaimed and bestselling books for children of all ages. Prior to joining Simon & Schuster, Mr. Anderson was the President and Publisher of Running Press Book Publishers, a division of Perseus Books Group. There he was responsible for revitalizing and expanding the publisher’s children’s program to include middle grade and young adult fiction. Before that, Mr. Anderson was at Penguin Putnam, Inc., where he was Vice President and Publisher of Price, Stern, Sloan and Penguin’s DreamWorks program.
Mr. Anderson is also the author of over twenty-five children’s books under the pseudonym William Boniface, with cumulative sales of more than two million copies. Mr. Anderson is a graduate of the University of Minnesota. He lives in New York City.
Amy S. Berkower Weiss
President of Writers House LLC
Amy Berkower Weiss began her career as a literary agent in 1979 after graduating from the University of California at Santa Cruz. She founded the company’s now thriving children’s book department and has developed a diverse client list, including bestselling authors Nora Roberts, Ken Follett, Sharon Creech, Laurie Halse Anderson, Barbara Delinsky, Ann Martin, Andrew Clements, Michael Lewis, Dave Barry, Dav Pilkey and the Estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She previously served as President at Poets + Writers and was on the board of A Room of Her Own Foundation.
Jonathan Bloom
Bloom is a former managing partner to Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and specialized in media and First Amendment and intellectual property law. His practice included counseling and litigation on behalf of news organizations, the Association of American Publishers Inc. (for which he acted as counsel to the Freedom to Read Committee), individual book publishers, entertainment companies, Internet service providers, and other clients in the areas of copyright, trademark infringement, misappropriation, defamation, and a wide range of First Amendment and related issues.
He has written amicus briefs advocating First Amendment rights on behalf of the Association of American Publishers and other media and free-speech organizations, including the Freedom to Read Foundation, in appeals involving Son of Sam laws, prior restraint, the application of consumer protection law to dietary advice publications, and defamation claims against works of satire and fiction.
Since 1998 he has served as executive editor of Bright Ideas, the newsletter of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the New York State Bar Association, and is a member of the section’s executive committee.
Lee Rowland
Executive Director, National Coalition Against Censorship
Lee Rowland is a seasoned legal professional with over a decade of experience as a lawyer with prominent organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Brennan Center for Justice, and the New York Civil Liberties Union. With a rich background in litigation, lobbying, and public speaking, Lee has served as lead counsel in federal First Amendment cases addressing diverse issues like public employee speech rights, First Amendment rights of community advocates, government regulation of digital speech, and state secrecy surrounding the lethal injection process.
Lee is a prolific author, contributing amicus briefs and blogs on crucial topics such as the intersection of speech and privacy, student and public employee speech, obscenity, and the Communications Decency Act. She has previously represented several organizations affiliated with the National Coalition Against Censorship.
In addition to her legal work, Lee has also taught free expression law and advocacy as an adjunct professor at the New York University School of Law and CUNY’s Hunter College Human Rights Program. She has also been a Communications and Media Law Committee member for the New York Bar Association.
Before taking the helm as Executive Director of The National Coalition Against Censorship in 2023, she previously served as the Policy Director for the New York Civil Liberties Union, running the civil rights group’s lobbying and public advocacy, as well as a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. Her career also includes a stint as a Democracy counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice, focusing on the First Amendment rights of voter registration advocates, and overseeing the ACLU of Nevada’s Reno office, where she regularly argued before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Nevada Supreme Court.
She is an alumna of Middlebury College and Harvard Law School, bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience to her multifaceted career in law and advocacy. Lee spends much of her free time finding new places to play street bocce in New York City.
Eric M. Freedman
Professor of Law, Hofstra University
Eric M. Freedman is the Siggi B. Wilzig Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Rights at Hofstra Law School. His career combines scholarship in constitutional law with public interest litigation dealing with the First Amendment and a variety of other civil liberties fields. Professor Freedman is the author of a number of scholarly and popular articles on First Amendment law and history. He is a director of and counsel to the National Coalition Against Censorship, a former chair of the Communications Media Committee of the ACLU, and has served several terms on the Communications Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association.
A graduate of the Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale College, Professor Freedman earned a Master’s Degree in history from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand while on a Fulbright Scholarship there. He received his law degree from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Hofstra University has awarded him its Stessin Prize for Outstanding Scholarship and twice named him as its Distinguished Scholarly Lecturer. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Prior to coming to Hofstra, Professor Freedman clerked for Judge Irving R. Kaufman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and practiced as a litigator at the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York and Washington.
Judy Gold
Stand-up Comedian, Actress, Podcaster, Television Writer, Author and Producer
Judy Gold has had stand-up specials on HBO, Comedy Central and LOGO, and was a part of Netflix’s Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration. She is the author of Yes I Can Say That: When They Come For The Comedians, We Are All In Trouble, a book about free speech and cancel culture. Her solo show, Yes I Can Say That! directed by BD Wong and starring Judy premiered in March 2023 at 59E59 Theaters. She hosts the weekly hit podcast, It’s Judy’s Show with Judy Gold. Judy is featured in the new Netflix documentary Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution, which explores the history of LGBTQ+ standup comedy. Judy’s recent acting credits include feature films She Came To Me, Tripped Up, and Love Reconsidered. Recent TV credits: City On A Hill, Better Things, The First Lady, and Extrapolations. Judy is one of the main subjects in the Hulu documentary Hysterical. She has appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Tonight Show. Judy also won two Emmy awards for writing and producing The Rosie O’Donnell Show. Judy has made numerous appearances on The View, The Today Show, The Drew Barrymore Show and on MSNBC, CNN and NewsNation as a free-speech advocate. She has three albums, Conduct Unbecoming, Kill Me Now, and Judith’s Roommate Had a Baby.
Mitchell Kaplan
Founder, Books & Books; Co-Founder & Board Chairperson, Miami Book Fair
Mitchell Kaplan, a Miami Beach native, founded Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida, in 1982. Books & Books now has locations throughout south Florida, including a store in Key West guided by Judy Blume and her husband, George. Books & Books was named Bookstore of the Year in 2015 by Publishers’ Weekly.
Mitchell is a co-founder of Miami Book Fair and serves as the Chairperson of its Board of Advisors. The Book Fair, sponsored and supported by Miami-Dade College, brings over 300 authors and exhibitors to a weeklong celebration of all things literary into the heart of downtown Miami and onto the College’s Wolfson Campus.
Mitchell is the former President of the American Booksellers Association (ABA) and also served on the Board of ABFFE, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. In 2011, Mitchell received the National Book Foundation’s prestigious “Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community”.
Mitchell, with his partner Paula Mazur, formed the Mazur Kaplan Company to bring books to the screen. Film adaptations include The Man Who Invented Christmas, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, All the Bright Places and Let Him Go.
He’s married to Rachelle and they have a daughter, Anya, and twin sons, Daniel and Jonah.
Randall Kennedy
Professor, Harvard Law School
Randall Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina. For his education he attended St. Albans School, Princeton University, Oxford University and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court of the United States.
Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Mr. Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race Affirmation Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002). A member of the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, Mr. Kennedy is also a Trustee emeritus of Princeton University.
Emily Knox (Board President)
Associate Professor, University of Illinois
Emily is an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her book, Book Banning in 21st Century America,was published by Rowman & Littlefield and is the first monograph in the Beta Phi Mu Scholars’ Series. She also recently edited Trigger Warnings: History, Theory Context, also published by Rowman & Littlefield. Her articles have been published in the Library Quarterly, Library and Information Science Research, and the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy. Emily’s research interests include information access, intellectual freedom and censorship, information ethics, information policy, and the intersection of print culture and reading practices. She is also a member of the Mapping Information Access research team and was awarded the Illinois Library Association Intellectual Freedom Award in 2015. Emily has also served on the boards of the Association for Information Science & Technology and the Freedom to Read Foundation. She received her Ph.D. from the doctoral program at the Rutgers University School of Communication & Information.
Ambika Kumar
Attorney, Davis Wright Tremaine LLC
Ambika Kumar is co-chair of the media law practice at Davis Wright Tremaine LLC, is a widely recognized expert in handling the legal risks associated with online content. She has a deep understanding of how free speech principles apply to rapidly evolving technology and has represented clients in cutting-edge lawsuits regarding content liability and electronic privacy. Some of the world’s top technology and media companies rely on Ambika’s direct, honest guidance and strong legal advocacy.
Ambika has extensive experience defending clients under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and other federal protections for user-generated content. She has successfully defeated attempts to censor or challenge such content in courts across the country. Additionally, Ambika regularly advises and litigates on matters related to First Amendment, defamation, copyright, and trademark, as well as public records, reporter’s privilege, and courtroom access for a diverse range of clients.
Gina Maria Leonetti
Director/Producer
Gina Maria Leonetti spent approximately twenty years as a Directors Guild of America Film/TV Assistant Director, working on a variety of projects from television shows, commercials and major motion pictures. Some of her credits include the films Five Corners, Outrageous Fortune, Conspiracy Theory, Married to the Mob and The Silence of the Lambs, the television series Tattingers and numerous commercials.
More recently, Gina Maria has Executive Produced the short film “First Chair” along with the documentaries “Fellowship of Reconciliation: Over 100 years of Waging Peace & Justice”, “Art & Heart: The World of Isaiah Sheffer” and “Playing with Fire: Jeannette Sorrell and the Mysteries of Conducting”.
Gina has served on several boards. Currently, she’s in her sixth year serving on the 2nd Stage Theater Company and in her eleventh year on the board of New York City’s largest emergency food pantry, the West Side Campaign Against Hunger.
Gina Maria lives in New York City and loves to go to the theatre, make pottery and take advantage of all that NYC has to offer.
Tony Lyons
President & Publisher, Skyhorse Publishing
Tony Lyons is at the helm one of the fastest-growing independent book publishers in the United States and offers a wealth of experience in the publishing industry. Prior to founding Skyhorse in 2006, Lyons served as the Publisher at The Lyons Press from 1997 to 2004. Lyons takes a hands-on approach to overseeing all aspects of book publishing at Skyhorse. Under his leadership, the company has flourished from a small team to a prominent mid-sized publisher of more than 9,500 titles, including 56 New York Times bestsellers, a testament to his leadership and vision. Per a recent article from the Wall Street Journal, “his willingness to publish what others won’t have made Skyhorse not only a bulwark of dissent across the political spectrum but also a stronghold of literary culture against its self-righteous antagonists.”
Barbara Marcus
President and Publisher of Random House Children’s Books
Barbara Marcus is a leading business and marketing strategist in the areas of children’s content and distribution and is currently president and publisher of Random House Children’s Books, the world’s largest children’s trade publisher. Previously, Marcus was a strategic innovations advisor to Penguin Books USA. Before her tenure at Penguin and Random House, she was president of Scholastic Children’s Book Publishing and Distribution. Among other revenue-building ventures, she led the publishing effort for six out of the seven Harry Potter titles as well as book clubs and book fairs. Marcus serves on the advisory board of First Book; the board of directors of Graham Windham; and the Executive Publishing Committee of United Jewish Appeal (UJA) Federation of New York.
Sheryl Oring
Artist and Dean of the School of Art at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia
Sheryl Oring she leads all aspects of the School of Art at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Sheryl has created large-scale public artworks addressing First Amendment rights and civic engagement for over two decades. With her I Wish to Say project, she has typed over 4,000 postcards to U.S. presidents at hundreds of locations nationwide. Her book, Activating Democracy: The I Wish to Say Project, was published by the University of Chicago Press.
In Berlin, she created the sculptural installation Writer’s Block as a tribute to the authors whose books were burned in Nazi Germany; the work premiered on Bebelplatz and was later shown at the Jewish Museum Berlin as well as locations in Budapest, Boston, and New York. Sheryl holds an MFA in Visual Art from the University of California, San Diego, and a BS in Journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is the first artist to join the NCAC board.
Oren J. Teicher
Retired
Oren J. Teicher retired as the Chief Executive Officer of the American Booksellers Association in December 2019. He worked on behalf of independent bookstores for more than 30 years, beginning in 1990 as the ABA Associate Executive Director, then as Director of Government Affairs, and, through 2009, as ABA’s Chief Operating Officer. He was appointed as ABA’s CEO in 2009.
Teicher has been an active defender of First Amendment rights. In the mid-1980s, he was president was of Americans for Constitutional Freedom, an organization formed to fight the censorship activities of the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography. After he joined ABA, he helped create and then led the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the bookseller’s voice in the fight against censorship. He is also a former chair of Media Coalition, an anti-censorship organization. The Westchester chapter of ACLU gave him its John Peter Zenger Award.
Teicher is a former Trustee of the White Plains, N.Y., Public Library. He was named Publishers Weekly’s Person on the Year in 2013 and was the recipient of the National Book Foundation’s Literarian Award in 2019 for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.
Before joining ABA, Teicher was the Director of Corporate Communications for the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, and he served for many years as a senior staffer in the U.S. Congress.
Teicher is a graduate of The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and lives in White Plains, New York. He and his late wife, Alison Greene, are the parents of three grown children, Carrie (David), Jessy (Emily), and Zach(Anne). He has four grandchildren, Frankie, Maya, Danny, and Ali.