Carl H. Esbeck is the R.B. Price Professor Emeritus and Isabella Wade & Paul C. Lyda Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Missouri. He has published widely on the First Amendment and church-state relations, and his articles have appeared in law reviews throughout the U.S. and U.K., including the BYU Law Review and Utah Law Journal. During 1999–2002 Professor Esbeck directed the Center for Law and Religious Freedom, a public interest law firm in Washington,D.C. He then served as special counsel to the Deputy Attorney General, and the U.S. Department of Justice, where he directed the task force for the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Professor Esbeck published Disestablishment and Religious Dissent: Church-State Relations in the New American States, 1776–1833 (2019), examining the undoing of the American colonial and state religious establishments. His most recent article, which he co-authored with three other law professors, is The Respect for Marriage Act: Living Together Despite Our Deepest Differences, 2024 ILL. L. REV. 511 (2024). He received his Juris Doctor from Cornell University School of Law.