Vincent Phillip Muñoz is an assistant professor of political science at North Carolina State University, where he has taught since 2001. He is preparing a book-length manuscript titled Religious Liberty and the American Founders. He has also written on religious liberty and the founding, constitutional law, republican government, Locke, Montesquieu, and Plato. He will present the argument that both "strict-separationists" like Justice David Souter and "non-preferentialists" like Justice William Rehnquist misinterpret the founders’ thought on matters of church and state, and he will raise fundamental issues regarding the First Amendment.