Allison Stanger is Distinguished Endowed Professor at Middlebury College, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and the founding director of Middlebury's Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs. With degrees in Actuarial Science/Mathematics, Economics, Soviet Studies, and a PhD in Political Science from Harvard University, Prof. Stanger’s research focuses on the relationship between the law, technology, and policy.
Her work has been far-reaching and widely influential in academic and policy circles. She is the author of multiple books including Whistleblowers: Honesty in America from Washington to Trump, and many articles in The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Financial Times, New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, and Wired. Prof. Stanger served as an advisor to Secretary Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff and has repeatedly testified before Congress at the request of both Democrats and Republicans, including for the Congressional Commission on Wartime Contracting, the Senate Budget Committee, and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, among others.
In early 2017, Stanger accepted an invitation from students to moderate a discussion with political scientist Charles Murray, whom they had invited to speak at Middlebury College. Students shut down the speech, and while accompanying Murray as they left the site, Prof. Stanger was injured by protesters attempting to obstruct their vehicle from leaving campus and suffered a concussion whose consequences she grapples with to this day. Despite this ordeal, Prof. Stanger continues to defend the virtues of bi-partisan dialogue and discourse. Her new book, Who Elected Big Tech? is forthcoming with Yale University Press and explores how political and social discourse is transformed by the internet and digital media.
For her courageous defense of free speech as a pillar of a pluralistic society, the Columbia Academic Freedom Council is honored to present Prof. Allison Stanger with the 2025 Academic Freedom Award.