IJ Founders Awarded For Achievements in Liberty

IJ Founders Awarded For Achievements in Liberty

The ninth annual Thomas S. Szasz Award, given for outstanding contributions to the cause of civil liberties, was presented to Institute for Justice Co-Founders Chip Mellor and Clint Bolick for their activism.

Sponsored by the Center of Independent Thought, the award honors Dr. Szasz’s career-long battle for civil liberties. For more than four decades, Dr. Szasz has distinguished himself as the preeminent defender of individual rights in the fields of psychiatry and psychology. He has remained a steadfast champion of the values of private property and voluntary exchange, the rule of law, and the open society.

The Thomas S. Szasz Award is a tribute conferred annually on a person or organization, American or foreign, judged to have contributed in an outstanding degree to the cause of civil liberty. In this way, it is hoped that, in years to come, fighters in the cause of Man vs. The State will find encouragement to persevere.

Institute for Justice President Mellor was recognized for, among other accomplishments, his creation of the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Law School, the nation’s first legal clinic that offers free legal services to entry-level entrepreneurs. IJ Litigation Director Bolick’s path-breaking litigation advancing school choice was cited among the reasons he received the honor.