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.
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.
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
Interim Dean, University of Illinois
Emily is the interim dean 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 (Board President)
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.
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.
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.
Liz Storch
Librarian & Attorney
After 18 years as a commercial litigation partner at Sidley Austin LLP, Liz Storch earned a master’s degree in Library and Information Science with a concentration in school librarianship from Rutgers University. Liz worked for over ten years as a teacher librarian at a New York City K-8th grade independent school promoting a school-wide culture of reading as well as teaching digital and information literacy skills and ethics. Consistent with her belief that students must have the freedom to read, ask questions, and access information in order to learn and become active participants in our democracy, Liz was instrumental in designing rigorous research projects and classroom curriculum with social justice and other themes to be used in subject matter classes.
Liz enjoys working with children and teens and is passionate about using her teaching librarian and legal skills to freedom of expression and oppose censorship. She received a JD degree from Northwestern University School of Law and a BA from Wellesley College.
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.
Jon Yaged
Chief Executive Officer of Macmillan Publishers
Jon Yaged is Chief Executive Officer of Macmillan Publishers. Jon previously served as President, Macmillan Publishers, and President & Publisher, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. During his tenure as CEO and President, the company has recorded the highest revenue and operating income in its history. Over the course of his 20-year career in children’s publishing, Jon oversaw the publication of many bestselling books and series while working with critically acclaimed, award-winning authors and illustrators, including Katherine Applegate, Leigh Bardugo, Angeline Boulley, Eoin Colfer, Taye Diggs, Shane W. Evans, Jimmy Fallon, Jules Feiffer, the Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, Marissa Meyer, Rick Riordan, Mo Willems, and Gene Luen Yang. In addition to fostering publishing programs that are reflective of the communities in which we live, Jon is focused on leading a company that invests in its employees by creating a culture of collaboration, mentorship, and innovation.
Jon began his publishing career at The Walt Disney Company, reaching the level of Vice President, US Publisher, Disney Book Group. He also served as Chief Operating Officer of a social media marketing company and, before joining Disney, he practiced entertainment and technology law.
Jon currently serves on the Board of the Association of American Publishers, the Advisory Council for the National Coalition Against Censorship, and is on the finance committee of The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. He has a JD from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from George Washington University. Jon lives with his family in New York City.