Dr. Mary Anne Franks

Professor, George Washington University Law School

Dr. Mary Anne Franks is the Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor in Intellectual Property, Technology, and Civil Rights Law at George Washington Law School. An internationally recognized expert on the intersection of civil rights, free speech, and technology, she also serves as the President and Legislative & Tech Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, the leading U.S. nonprofit organization focused on image-based sexual abuse. In 2013, she wrote the first model criminal statute on the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images, which became the template for multiple state and federal laws. She is the author of the award-winning 2019 book The Cult of the Constitution and the new book Fearless Speech (2024). She holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a DPhil from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar.