# Kristen Waggoner President and CEO of [[Alliance Defending Freedom]] since 2022 (succeeding [[Michael Farris]]) and one of the most active religious-liberty / First-Amendment Supreme Court advocates of the post-2015 period. Waggoner argued and won ***Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission*** (2018), ***303 Creative LLC v. Elenis*** (2023), and has been the principal architect of ADF's docket strategy across multiple post-2015 religion-and-speech cases. A 2022 *Washington Post* profile described her as "the rising face of conservative religious-liberty advocacy at the Supreme Court." Waggoner's institutional positioning is **establishment-conservative-credentialed and aggressive**. She holds a J.D. from Regent University Law School and joined ADF in 2002, rising through the legal-team ranks across two decades before assuming chief-legal-counsel and then president roles. Under Farris's preceding tenure (2017–2022), ADF substantially expanded its policy-advocacy and state-legislative work; under Waggoner's leadership, the organization has continued the litigation expansion with particular emphasis on the post-Bostock religion-vs-anti-discrimination-law fights, the post-Bremerton Establishment Clause restructuring, and the religious-school-funding cases. For the Right Wing KB, Waggoner is the **current operational head** of the largest Christian-conservative litigation organization in the United States — the load-bearing Legal-Litigation Infrastructure layer entry alongside [[Becket Fund]] (Mark Rienzi), [[First Liberty Institute]] ([[Kelly Shackelford]]), [[Liberty Counsel]] (Mat Staver), and [[American Center for Law and Justice]] (Jay Sekulow). Each of the five has a distinct strategic specialization within the broader [[Christian Nationalism Ecosystem]]; Waggoner's specialty is the **public-accommodations / free-speech / religious-exercise intersection** where culture-war cases tend to cluster. ## Biography **Kristen K. Waggoner** grew up in the **Pacific Northwest** — Washington State. She earned her **J.D. from [[Regent University]] School of Law** (Virginia Beach, Virginia) — the [[Pat Robertson]]-founded institution that has been a significant pipeline for Christian-conservative legal talent. Before joining ADF, Waggoner practiced at **Ellis, Li & McKinstry**, a Seattle-area law firm, where she developed private-practice litigation experience. ## ADF Career Progression (2002–) Waggoner joined [[Alliance Defending Freedom]] in **2002** and rose through the organization's legal team over two decades. She was named **Senior Vice President of Legal Strategy** and then **General Counsel / Chief Legal Counsel** in **2017** — a role that placed her as ADF's lead Supreme Court advocate during a period of historically consequential religious-liberty litigation. ## Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018) Waggoner served as **lead counsel** for baker Jack Phillips in ***Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission*** — argued before the Supreme Court in **December 2017** and decided **7-2** on **June 4, 2018** (Kennedy majority opinion). The Court ruled narrowly in Phillips's favor, finding that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had displayed **impermissible hostility toward Phillips's religious beliefs** during its proceedings — but declined to establish a broad rule on whether religious exemptions from anti-discrimination laws are constitutionally required. The narrow ruling left the core free-exercise-vs-anti-discrimination question for future cases. ## 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (2023) Waggoner's most consequential Supreme Court argument. She served as **lead counsel** for web designer Lorie Smith in ***303 Creative LLC v. Elenis*** — decided **6-3** on **June 30, 2023** (Gorsuch majority opinion). The Court ruled that Colorado could not compel Smith to create wedding websites for same-sex couples because doing so would constitute **compelled speech** in violation of the [[First Amendment]]. The opinion established that businesses whose products involve **expressive or creative content** have a constitutional right to decline projects that conflict with their beliefs — a substantially broader ruling than *Masterpiece Cakeshop* and one that created a significant carve-out from anti-discrimination law for "expressive" businesses. The dissent (Sotomayor, joined by Kagan and Jackson) argued the decision was the first time the Court had sanctioned discrimination by a commercial business based on the business owner's speech rights. ## ADF Presidency (2022–) Waggoner succeeded [[Michael Farris]] as **President and CEO** of [[Alliance Defending Freedom]] in **2022** — making her the operational head of the largest and most well-funded Christian-conservative litigation organization in the United States (~$100 million annual revenue, ~450 staff). Under Waggoner's leadership, ADF has continued expanding its **state-legislative advocacy** (model legislation on trans-sports, parental-rights, and school-choice), **international operations** (European and Latin American religious-liberty litigation), and **Supreme Court docket** — with active involvement in post-*Dobbs* abortion-access litigation, religious-school-funding cases, and trans-rights-related cases. ## KB Significance Waggoner is the **current operational head** of the most consequential organization in the Legal-Litigation Infrastructure layer of the [[Christian Nationalism Ecosystem]]. Her *303 Creative* victory established the broadest free-exercise / free-speech carve-out from anti-discrimination law in the Roberts Court era. The ADF-under-Waggoner represents the maturation of the religious-liberty litigation movement from defensive posture (seeking exemptions) to offensive posture (seeking to reshape the scope of anti-discrimination law itself). Her position vis-à-vis the broader four-shop legal pipeline — alongside [[Becket Fund]] (pluralism-positioning), [[First Liberty Institute]] (Establishment Clause engineering), and [[American Center for Law and Justice]] (populist-evangelical litigation) — is the **culture-war / public-accommodations intersection** where the most politically-visible religion-clause cases cluster. ## See Also - [[Alliance Defending Freedom]] - [[Michael Farris]] - [[Religious Liberty]] - [[Christian Nationalism Ecosystem]]