First Liberty is a nonprofit law firm created in 1997 by an anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion lawyer named Kelly Shackelford, who has been featured by Leonard Leo’s Federalist Society and is a leader of Ziklag, a group trying to make U.S. law and society accord with their view of the Bible. A member of the Project 2025 advisory board, First Liberty has recently won several high-profile Supreme Court cases weakening the separation of church and state. For example, during October Term 2021, First Liberty successfully argued for pumping public money into religious schools and successfully defended a public high school football coach against claims that he was essentially coercing his players into praying with him publicly–which the majority opinion in the case denied, despite the photographic evidence documented in the dissent.
Kelly Shackelford
Kelly Shackelford is the president and CEO of First Liberty Institute. He has been featured by Leonard Leo’s Federalist Society and is a leader of Ziklag, a group trying to make U.S. law and society accord with their view of the Bible. ProPublica has reported that Ginni Thomas personally thanked Shackelford for the First Liberty’s work against Supreme Court reform, emailing him: “YOU GUYS HAVE FILLED THE SAILS OF MANY JUDGES. CAN I JUST TELL YOU, THANK YOU SO, SO, SO MUCH.” On the same call where he read out the email, Shackelford called Justice Elena Kagan “treasonous” and “disloyal” for supporting an enforceable ethics code for Supreme Court Justices. First Liberty frequently initiates litigation before the Court to change legal precedents in order to erode the separation of church and state and assail anti-discrimination measures.
