NEW YORK—The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University announced today that Nadine Farid Johnson will be joining the Institute in January as its inaugural policy director. Farid Johnson will lead the Institute’s efforts to inform public policy debates about speech, technology, and democracy, and help cultivate a new generation of policy leaders equipped to defend the freedoms of speech and the press in the digital age.

“We’re thrilled that Nadine will be joining the Institute and excited to have the opportunity to build a public policy program to complement and strengthen the litigation, research, and public education programs we’ve already built,” said Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institute’s executive director. “Nadine’s deep experience in both the public and private sectors will make her a vital member of the Institute’s leadership team.”

Farid Johnson comes to the Knight Institute most recently from PEN America, where she served as the managing director of that organization’s Washington and Free Expression Programs, focusing on foreign policy, tech policy, privacy, press freedom, and educational censorship. She co-authored several PEN America reports, including Speech in the Machine: Generative AI’s Implications for Free Expression, and testified before Congress as a constitutional expert. 

Before joining PEN America, Farid Johnson was a United States diplomat whose work spanned the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and multilateral affairs. She served as the executive director of the ACLU of Kansas and was a professor of constitutional, international, and intellectual property law at Gonzaga University and a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. In the private sector, Farid Johnson worked as a patent litigator and oversaw operations and community engagement programming at Google. She is a graduate of DePauw University and Tulane Law School and studied at the U.S. Naval War College.

“I’m delighted to have this chance to build a public policy program at the Knight Institute, which has already established itself as one of the most respected and influential voices on questions relating to speech and technology,” said Farid Johnson. “With Congress, state legislatures, and regulators around the world increasingly grappling with issues relating to social media, digital surveillance, and artificial intelligence, this is exactly the right time to launch this program.”

Since its establishment seven years ago, the Knight Institute has filed precedent-setting litigation, undertaken major interdisciplinary research initiatives, hosted numerous public events, and become an influential voice in debates about the freedoms of speech and the press in the digital age. The new policy program will build upon this work to deepen the Institute’s involvement in policy debates and in setting regulatory agendas surrounding speech and privacy online.  

For more information, contact: Lorraine Kenny, [email protected].