Our Speakers: Andrew Seidel & Elizabeth Cavell

Elizabeth Cavell is Associate Counsel with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national nonprofit organization that works to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church.

She’s a host of a monthly podcast, We Dissent, which is the only women-helmed legal affairs show for atheists, agnostics and humanists, offering legal wisdom from the secular viewpoint of women lawyers.

She received her B.A in English from the University of Florida in 2005. After college, Elizabeth spent a year as a full-time volunteer in AmeriCorps*NCCC. She attended Tulane University Law School and received her Juris Doctor in 2009.

After law school, she worked as a deputy public defender in southern Colorado. She joined the Foundation as a staff attorney in January 2013, after working for the Foundation part-time since September 2012.

Elizabeth heads the legal education team, which focuses on educating the public about the importance of state/church separation and how it strengthens our democracy and civil rights.

Andrew L. Seidel is Vice President of Strategic Communications for AU, an author, and an attorney who’s defended the First Amendment for more than a decade.

He’s appeared on Fox News to debate Bill O’Reilly, MSNBC, and hundreds of other media outlets. 

Andrew is the author of two books: The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American (2019) and American Crusade: How the Supreme Court is Weaponizing Religious Freedom (forthcoming in September). He’s also co-editor of an academic text, Law and Religion: Cases and Materials (Foundation Press, 2022) 5th Edition, with Prof. Leslie Griffin of UNLV law school.

While writing the epilogue for The Founding Myth, Andrew conceived of and organized the groundbreaking “Christian Nationalism at the January 6, 2021, Insurrection” report which was published by the Baptist Joint Committee and FFRF. He contributed two section, briefed members of Congress on the report, which led to a fiery speech on the House floor, and was asked to submit testimony to the January 6th Committee, which he did in March 2022.

A Senior Correspondent at Religion Dispatches, Andrew’s written many opeds and several scholarly articles, and has debated the existence of God, the tax-exempt worthiness of politicking churches, and whether America was founded as a Christian nation.

Andrew graduated cum laude from Tulane University (’04) with a B.S. in neuroscience and environmental science and magna cum laude from Tulane University Law School (’09, part of the first post-Katrina class), where he was awarded the Haber J. McCarthy Award for excellence in environmental law. He studied human rights and international law at the University of Amsterdam and traveled the world on Semester at Sea. Andrew completed his Master of Laws at Denver University Sturm College of Law (’11) with a perfect GPA and was awarded the Outstanding L.L.M. Award for his work as the Erik Bluemel International Environmental Law Fellow.