Nicole Neily
President, Parents Defending Education
Nicole Neily is the president and founder of Parents Defending Education (PDE), a national membership organization that gives parents the resources and support they need to advocate for their children’s education. PDE defends parents’ rights in both courts of law and public opinion, and has successfully sued school districts and the US Department of Education in federal court; facilitated thousands of comments submitted to the Federal Register; filed dozens of federal OCR complaints; and also filed hundreds of public records requests, including the FOIAs that exposed the National School Board Association’s collusion with the Biden Administration. She is also the executive director of PDE Action, a 501(c)4 advocacy organization.
Prior to launching PDE, Nicole created Speech First, a campus free speech organization that sued 6 public universities under her leadership; she has also worked as president of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, a state-level investigative journalism organization; as executive director and senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum; and at the Cato Institute.
