Assistant Dean for Law Student Affairs Emily Nagisa Keehn Chosen as a Fellow with the UC National Center for Free Speech & Civic Engagement
The University of San Diego (USD) School of Law commends Assistant Dean for Law Student Affairs Emily Nagisa Keehn for being chosen as a 2026-27 Fellow with the UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement. Keehn was selected as a fellow alongside Dustin Sharp, Professor at USD’s Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies and Executive Director of the Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.
Selected as part of the Center's ninth fellowship cohort, Keehn and Sharp are among 11 fellows who will "build on the Center's rich body of work equipping students, staff, faculty and other higher education professionals with tools and resources to navigate the evolving challenges facing colleges and universities today."
Keehn and Sharp will work on their project, “Private Institutions Under Public Standards: The Leonard Law and the Future of Student Expression.” The project examines California's Leonard Law, which applies First Amendment-like speech protections to students at private universities. It analyzes the law's doctrinal and governance implications, explores its practical consequences for institutional decision-making, offers guidance for administrators, and evaluates whether similar legislation should be adopted elsewhere, balancing student expression, institutional autonomy, democratic participation, and pluralism.
The Center’s mission is to explore the intersection of expression, engagement, and democratic learning and consider what can be done to restore trust in the value of free speech on college campuses and within society at large. This year’s cohort draws on a broad range of perspectives and expertise, and their research examines topics such as the role of AI in civic education, fostering cross-partisan community, and protecting academic freedom.
About the School of Law
Each year, USD Law educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world. The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest law and taxation.
USD School of Law is one of the 88 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates. The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 34th nationally among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact and 35th nationally in past-year faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.