Witherspoon Institute

The Institute’s founders have ties to Princeton University’s politics department, but the think tank is independent of Princeton, with no financial or administrative connection. ³ Founders include Robert George, a law professor at Princeton University who has ties to several conservative organizations. ⁴

The organization conducts seminars and programs for college and high school students. ²

Background

The Witherspoon Institute is a right-leaning think tank named after John Witherspoon, a member of the First Continental Congress and signatory on the Declaration of Independence. Witherspoon was also the sixth president of Princeton University and a mentor to former U.S. President James Madison. ^{2 1}

The institute is independent of Princeton University though its founders, Robert George, Luis E. Tellez, Donald Drakeman, and Stephen Whelan, are all tied to the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions housed in the Politics Department at Princeton. ¹ The organization has also sponsored seminars for students at Princeton University. ³

The Witherspoon Institute conducts seminars for high school and college students on moral, political, and social issues. ² The Institute also operates a fellowship program with more than 20 scholars, including professors from Notre Dame University, Georgetown University, the University of Saint Andrews, and Princeton University. ⁵

Programs and Policies

The Witherspoon Institute’s six focus areas are university ethics, religion and the Constitution, family, marriage, business ethics, and bioethics. ⁵ The Witherspoon Institute opposes same-sex marriage, embryonic stem-cell research, and abortion. ⁶ The Institute has published books stating that an embryo should be considered human life and also published a 10-point document about marriage and the public good that former U.S. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) cited on the Senate floor in 2006 during a debate over a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman. ^{5 1}

A leader in the organization expressed concern in 2020 about “social justice” in Christian churches, speculating that the left-of-center movement served certain social groups and classes more than it served God. ⁷

The Witherspoon Institute’s CanaVox Initiative promotes traditional marriage and family life. ² The Institute has also established the Center on Religion and the Constitution, and the Center on the University and Intellectual Life. ³

In 2007, the Witherspoon Institute joined with Princeton University religious organizations to co-sponsor a conference aiming “to equip students with a set of arguments to defend Christian faith and morality as a valid, eminently reasonable system of belief.” ⁵

Public Discourse

The Institute established Public Discourse, an online journal, in 2008 under founding editor Ryan Anderson. ⁸ The publication states that it is organized around five “pillars”: the individual, the family, the university, the market economy, and the state. ² Public Discourse covers topics such as abortion, natural law, economics, and constitutional law. It has included writers featured in The New Republic, the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, the Weekly Standard, The Economist, and National Review. ⁵

In 2021, Public Discourse published an article by three Southern Baptist ethicists who encouraged Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine, including the vaccine produced by Johnson and Johnson, arguing there are no moral problems associated with the vaccine or its development. This came after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops raised concerns that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was developed through cell lines that came from abortion and encouraged Catholics to get either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine if available. ⁹

Leadership

Luis E. Tellez has been the president of the Witherspoon Institute since its 2003 founding. Tellez previously worked in the chemical industry. Tellez is a member of the advisory council of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. ²

Robert George, a Princeton University professor of jurisprudence, helped found the organization. ⁴ He is currently the Herbert W. Vaughan Senior Fellow of the Institute and was previously visiting professor at Harvard Law School. George was formerly chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics. He also previously served on UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. George sits on the boards of a number of right-of-center organizations, including the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, the Heritage Foundation, and the Center for Individual Rights. ²

Stephen Whelan is the chairman of the board of trustees to the Witherspoon Institute. Whalen is a partner with the New York law firm Blank Rome LLP and a lecturer in Princeton University’s Politics Department. He is also on the advisory council of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. ²

J. Snell is the director of academic programs at the Witherspoon Institute. Previously, he was director of the philosophy program at Eastern University and the Templeton Honors College. He is the founder and former director of the Agora Institute for Civic Virtue and the Common Good. ²

Kelly M. Hanlon is the director of operations at the Witherspoon Institute. Hanlon is also on the steering committee for the Center for Statesmanship, Law, and Liberty at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She is the president of the Greater Philadelphia Alumni Association for the University of Louisville. ²

Serena Sigillito is editor of Public Discourse. She is a 2019 Robert Novak Journalism Fellow at the Fund for American Studies. Sigillito was previously the Robert Lewit Fellow in Education Policy at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Sigillito was a Publius Fellow at the right-of-center Claremont Institute. She was also a fellow of the Leonine Forum. ²

Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, a blind lawyer and human rights activist, accepted a fellowship with the Witherspoon Institute in 2013. He has spoken against human rights abuses by the nation’s Communist regime. ¹⁰