Constitutional litigator and former Editor-in-Chief Adam Sieff ’07 visited AP Government classes Mar. 6 to speak to students about First Amendment rights and the complexities involved with them in judicial processes.
Sieff is a constitutional rights attorney who has served as both a delegate to the Los Angeles Democratic Party as well as a counsel to the former President Joe Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign. He is also a former vice president of the American Constitution Society of Los Angeles. He currently lectures at the Gould School of Law at the University of Southern California.
History Teacher Peter Sheehy said the material the students were learning mandated a visit from a speaker of Sieff’s merit.
“He’s an expert in constitutional law, he’s a graduate of our school and he’s coming to speak at a time when we’re beginning our unit on the Supreme Court and doing mock oral arguments,” Sheehy said. “So it’s kind of a wonderful bit of timing for that.”
Sheehy said he appreciated how Sieff helped the students better understand First Amendment rights.
“He took us into a deep dive to understand the philosophical foundations of First Amendment free speech jurisprudence, freeing that or separating it from the constitutional law itself,” Sheehy said. “And then he began to layer in the more specific constitutional principles and precedents. So, I think it was great for them to systematically build up through the reasoning and then begin to apply the legal concepts.”
Director of Alumni Relations Sam De Castro Abeger ’07 said Sieff’s visit also tied into his connection to the school as an alum, especially considering that Abeger and Castro were former classmates.
“[Sieff’s] practice is mainly focused on the First Amendment line,” Abeger said. “So Adam and I were talking about Harvard-Westlake and how he wanted to get more involved as an alum, and how he wanted to talk to students about it because he thought it would be interesting.”
Abeger said Sieff’s experience as a student at the school could help to further the understanding of the current students on his work.
“Knowing that students at Harvard-Westlake could learn from that firsthand experience, hearing not just from Dr. Sheehy and Mr. Klein, who talk to you guys every day as teachers,” Abeger said. “But hearing from someone who was in your shoes, who sat in the classroom, who’s now doing work in the real world, in the First Amendment space, and now talking about what he does on a day to day basis, and can connect you in the real world way of what that work looks like.”
Eric Chang ’25 said Sieff taught students about their First Amendment rights by asking them questions about the legality of certain phrases.
“For each of these situations, he would ask us if we thought the speech or expression should be allowed and protected by the First Amendment, or whether the government should intervene and restrict that speech or expression,” Chang said. “He talked about identifying the difference between speech that may be offensive and make others uncomfortable but is legally allowed versus speech that can be considered as actually dangerous.”
Chang also said he was fascinated by the intricacies of First Amendment rights and the territory in which they can become especially confusing.
“What I found interesting was how initially, I thought some of the scenarios he brought up shouldn’t be protected by the First Amendment,” Chang said. “But I realized that it gets complicated if the government has to step in and determine where freedom of speech or expression crosses the line.”
