Charles C. Haynes is senior scholar at the First Amendment Center and director of the center's education programs in schools. The First Amendment Center, with offices in Virginia and Tennessee, works to preserve and protect First Amendment freedoms through information and education. Haynes was one of the principal organizers and drafters of a series of consensus guidelines on religious liberty in public education endorsed by a broad range of major religious and educational organizations. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Education distributed three of these guides to every public school in the United States.

Haynes is the author or co-author of six books, including Religion in American History: What to Teach and How, Finding Common Ground: A Guide to Religious Liberty in Public Schools, Religion in American Public Life: Living With Our Deepest Differences and Taking Religion Seriously Across the Curriculum. His bi-monthly column Inside the First Amendment appears in newspapers nationwide.

An educator for more than 20 years, Haynes served as executive director of First Liberty Institute at George Mason University in Fair-fax, Va. Haynes holds a master's degree in religion and education from Harvard Divinity School and a doctorate in theological studies from Emory University. He presently serves as president of the Character Education Partnership.

Sam Chaltain is the coordinator of the First Amendment Schools project at the First Amendment Center. He came to the First Amendment Center from the public and private school systems of New York City, where he spent five years teaching high school history, English, and journalism, and coaching soccer and basketball.

Since joining the First Amendment Center, he has written articles for Teaching Tolerance, Educational Leadership, ABA Insights, and Learning Magazine, among others. Chaltain has a master's degree in American studies from the College of William and Mary, with an emphasis on 20th century social and cultural history. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he graduated with a double major in African American studies and history.

John E. Ferguson Jr. is the education coordinator for the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. While at the First Amendment Center, Ferguson authored several articles for legal and educational journals, and acted as associate editor on the newest revisions of Finding Common Ground: A Guide to Religious Liberty in Public Schools. He also travels around the nation speaking to educators and civic groups about religious liberty in the public schools.

Ferguson is a graduate of Vanderbilt University's Law and Divinity schools, earning his Juris Doctor and Master of Theological Studies. He is a member of the Tennessee and Washington, D.C., bars. He graduated summa cum laude from Howard Payne University with a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in practical theology and academy of freedom.

David L. Hudson Jr. is a research attorney at the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He is a First Amendment contributing editor to the American Bar Association's Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases. He also is the author of two books for young people: The Bill of Rights: The First Ten Amendments of the Constitution and The Fourteenth Amendment: Equal Protection Under the Law. He has written several law review articles dealing with the First Amendment rights of public school students. Hudson received his law degree from Vanderbilt University and his undergraduate degree from Duke University.

Oliver Thomas is a lawyer, minister, author and school board member. He serves as director of the Niswonger Foundation, a private operating foundation designed to provide educational opportunities in Southern Appalachia.

Thomas has written and lectured extensively on the subject of religion and public education and has consulted with hundreds of school districts. He has been involved in litigation at every level of state and federal court including the U.S. Supreme Court. Thomas's clients have included the National Council of Churches and the Baptist Joint Committee.

In addition to representing several Evangelical groups, Thomas co-authored the ACLU handbook on church-state law. Before returning to his native Tennessee, he taught at Georgetown University Law Center.

Thomas is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, University of Virginia, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where he was chosen as the most outstanding divinity graduate.