Trey Dimsdale

Trey Dimsdale serves as counsel for First Liberty Institute (FLI) and executive director of the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, an FLI initiative focused on education and cultural advocacy for freedom.

Posts by Trey Dimsdale

The Michaela Way and Living in Community

Educators love innovation. Education reform is a perennial theme in political campaigns, and almost every government has new rhetoric about how to reverse plummeting test scores, declining student achievement, and increased school violence and truancy. Continue Reading...

The Constitution of the Fifth Republic at 65

Nearly 20 people were killed in Paris during and immediately following the Islamist attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015. Then, in November of that same year, terrorists killed 130 and injured hundreds more in a series of coordinated attacks across Paris that included suicide bombers detonating explosives outside the Stade de France, indiscriminate shootings at crowded restaurants, and the storming of the Bataclan concert hall, where an American rock band played for a sold-out crowd of 1,500. Continue Reading...

When a Judge Is Forced Off the Bench

“Bury the lead!” is certainly unusual editorial advice but possibly the only good strategy for an essay on the vagaries of the federal court system. You never want your readers to know that they might find the subject matter of your essay less than exciting. Continue Reading...

A Win for Religious Employees

As it turns out, the Supreme Court last week opted against transforming the United States into a totalitarian, theocratic hellscape like the New York Times’ Linda Greenhouse had prophesied in January. Continue Reading...

Affirmative Action and the Imago Dei

In the days since the Supreme Court handed down its landmark ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the media have been saturated with sympathetic personal stories of accomplished people who claim they (or others claim) would never have had a chance at success without race-based affirmative action policies in college admissions. Continue Reading...

Why the Anglican Communion Matters

As an ecclesial model, Anglicanism has until recently managed controversy and diversity better than almost any other. The generous boundaries of the tradition have space for a wide spectrum of expressions, from low-church evangelical to the Anglo-Catholicism of the Oxford Movement to charismatic, nonliturgical modern worship in individual parishes like London’s Holy Trinity Brompton to local expressions influenced by the best parts of regional culture throughout Africa and Asia. Continue Reading...

Why Christianity Is Necessary for Liberty

Depending on one’s perspective, religious freedom was either born or died with the founding of the United States of America. The colonial powers of Europe of the late 18th century had dominant religious majorities and established churches. Continue Reading...

Antonin Scalia’s Rise to Greatness

When Judge Antonin Scalia was confirmed to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States on September 16, 1986, no senator voted in opposition. He was confirmed by a vote of 98-to-0, a margin completely unthinkable 30 years later. Continue Reading...