Young Americans for Liberty: An Interview with CEO Lauren Daugherty

“Ron Paul is so beloved because he is so principled. That is what we are focused on here. We will work with other people who share our interests, but we’re not going to sacrifice our principles to do it.”

On June 9th, Henri Mattila was joined by Lauren Daugherty, the CEO of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL). Topics discussed included Ms. Daugherty’s thoughts on YAL’s priorities and current initiatives, the organization’s work defending on-campus speech rights, and what she sees as libertarianism’s role in the cultural debates of today.

YAL is the nation’s premier youth libertarian organization, having a presence on over 500 college campuses. In addition to student activism, the organization oversees the Hazlitt Coalition, a network of like-minded state legislators.

The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

I would like first to hear about your own background. What brought you to the Young Americans for Liberty organization?

I was a college activist myself, and I was chair of the College Republicans at my university, and then I went on to do other work at non-profits in D.C. Later, I moved to Texas and did Libertarian Party work here, and I was CEO and publisher of a business magazine. I had planned to stay in the business world; I was enjoying not being in electoral politics or anything similar. But then the position of CEO of YAL became available; I’d followed the organization basically since its founding, particularly over the past several years as they grew in influence and effectiveness, and I had a lot of respect for that.