The late Ken Starr, a prominent lawyer and academic well known for his advocacy on behalf of religious liberty, is slated to receive an award posthumously later this year.
The Religious Freedom Institute announced in a statement on Friday that it was planning to posthumously award Starr with its 2025 Defender of Religious Freedom Award at an award ceremony and dinner scheduled to take place at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 6. Starr, who died in 2022, was best known as the former president of Baylor University, and for serving as an independent counsel investigating President Bill Clinton from 1994-98.
Shortly before his death, Starr published a book titled Religious Liberty in Crisis. Starr told The Christian Post that the goal of the book, published in 2021, was to give “every American a grounding in [the] fundamental principles of religious liberty.”
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“From my time working with Ken during his earliest days at Baylor, I grew to have the deepest admiration for him as a jurist, tireless defender of religious freedom, man of deep faith, and winsome leader,” said RFI President David Trimble. “Ken became a mentor, colleague, and friend, and, most importantly, he was (and remains) my brother in Christ.
“For all of these reasons, and countless others, I am overcome with joy and gratitude at this opportunity to honor Ken’s extraordinary legacy of defending America’s first freedom,” Trimble added. Several friends and colleagues of Starr shared statements with RFI elaborating on why they viewed him as worthy of the award.
“Ken Starr and I began our public service in Washington, D.C. the same year and for decades, joined together to defend the precious right of religious freedom,” recalled former Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va. “After I retired from Congress, I had the privilege of collaborating with him in an entirely different setting when I was named Wilson Chair in Religious Freedom at Baylor during Ken’s tenure as president there.”
Wolf praised Starr as “a man of deep principle and conviction,” adding, “his ardent devotion to America and to securing religious freedom for everyone flowed from his higher devotion to Jesus Christ.” He described the Defender of Religious Freedom Award as “a fitting tribute to my dear friend.”
Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, echoed Wolf’s sentiment, stating, “Ken is as deserving of this award as anyone could be.”
Dershowitz added, “Of the many issues he was called upon to deal with in his vast career, none were more important to him than preserving robust constitutional safeguards for religious freedom.”
“One of the through lines in his remarkable career was Ken’s commitment to religious liberty,” asserted former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement. “I saw that commitment first hand in my first case with him — the Wisconsin school choice case — and in teaming up with him years later to defend the First Amendment rights of elementary school students. I am pleased to join RFI in celebrating Ken’s decades-long commitment to upholding America’s extraordinary free exercise tradition.”
In addition to his academic and legal career, Starr served on the Supreme Court Advisory Council of the religious liberty legal nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom. He also served on the board of the Christian Legal Society.
The stated purpose of the Defender of Religious Freedom Award is to recognize “a person who has defended religious freedom for everyone, everywhere from within his or her faith tradition.” The Religious Freedom Institute has handed out the award annually since 2019. Starr will become the first person to receive the award posthumously.
Past recipients of the Defender of Religious Freedom Award are: former Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Philadelphia Charles Chaput; former head of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention Russell Moore; former Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus Carl Anderson; former President and founder of Alliance Defending Freedom Alan Sears; Princeton University professor Robert George; and former Religious Freedom Institute President Thomas Farr.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
