Nico Perrino
FIRE Staff Speaker
![Executive Vice President Nico Perrino](https://www.thefire.org/sites/default/files/styles/280x280/public/2018/07/11160042/nico-staff-2018-sm.jpg?h=780c5ae8&itok=TRxcPyMK)
Nico Perrino is FIRE's Executive Vice President and the creator and host of FIRE’s So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast. Prior to his current role, he led FIRE's Communications department for nearly a decade, most recently as its Senior Vice President of Communications.
Nico previously worked in the Communications department at the Institute for Justice. His writing has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Politico, Newsweek, and The Guardian, and he regularly travels the country to speak about free speech and civil liberties issues.
As a documentarian, Nico was Co-Director and Senior Producer of “Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story” (2020), a feature-length film about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser. He worked as Creative Consultant on “Can We Take a Joke?” (2015), a film about censorship in stand up comedy.
Nico graduated from Indiana University-Bloomington (IU) with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and history. While at IU, he was a member of the track & field team and served as editor-in-chief for the Indiana Standard and as a reporter and columnist for the Indiana Daily Student.
Originally from Chicago, Nico now lives and works in the Washington, D.C. area.
Recent Writings
- What happens when America's future leaders reject the liberty on which it was founded?,
- In defunding Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, legislators force academic freedom back into the closet,
- No, a heckler’s veto is not ‘more speech’,
- Defending Free speech is a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it: SPIN magazine interviews Nico Perrino of FIRE,
- Free speech was under fire in 2022,
- Free speech culture, Elon Musk, and Twitter,
- ‘So to Speak’ podcast: Elon Musk, PayPal, and is New York trying to destroy Twitch?,
- ‘So to Speak’ podcast: Does your book need a sensitivity reader?,
- ‘So to Speak’ podcast: What does the First Amendment protect on social media?,
- ‘So to Speak’ podcast: Nature Human Misbehavior,
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FIRE is a mission-driven organization of hardworking, dedicated team members committed to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought.
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