Charles Haynes – Vice President, Freedom Forum Institute / Religious Freedom Center; Senior Scholar, First Amendment Center

Charles C. Haynes is vice president of the Freedom Forum Institute / Religious Freedom Center and a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center.r He wites and speaks extensively on religious liberty and religion in American public life. Haynes is best known for his work on First Amendment issues in public schools. Over the past two decades, he has been the principal organizer and drafter of consensus guidelines on religious liberty in schools, endorsed by a broad range of religious and educational organizations. Haynes is the author or co-author of six books, including First Freedoms: A Documentary History of First Amendment Rights in America, and Religion in American Public Life: Living with Our Deepest Differences. His column, Inside the First Amendment, appears in newspapers nationwide. He is a founding board member of the Character Education Partnership, and serves on the steering committee of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools and the American Bar Association Advisory Commission on Public Education. He chairs the Committee on Religious Liberty, founded by the National Council of Churches. In 2008, he received the Virginia First Freedom Award from the Council for America’s First Freedom. Haynes holds a master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School and a doctorate from Emory University.