{{Short description|American non-profit executive, founder of Becket (law firm)}} {{Infobox person | name = Kevin Hasson | image = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = | birth_place = | death_date = | death_place = |alma_mater = University of Notre Dame<br>Notre Dame Law School | other_names = | occupation = | years_active = | known_for = Founder and president emeritus of Becket | notable_works = }} '''Kevin J. "Seamus" Hasson''' is founder and president emeritus of Becket, a non-profit, public interest law firm that represents persons of all faiths. The Becket Fund is well known for successfully representing the Little Sisters of the Poor in the U.S. Supreme Court. The firm also successfully represented Hobby Lobby in ''Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.'', in which the Supreme Court held that protections under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act applied to closely held corporations. The Becket Fund also secured a victory in ''EEOC v. Hosanna Tabor'', which the ''Wall Street Journal'' called one of "the most important religious liberty cases in half a century."<ref>{{cite news| url = https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204124204577154932994154936| title = Review & Outlook: Hosannas for the Court - WSJ| newspaper = Wall Street Journal| date = 13 January 2012}}</ref>

Prior to his retirement, Hasson lectured and debated in a wide variety of venues, including The University of Oxford, the Vatican, Harvard Law School, and Stanford Law School. He holds honorary doctorates from several universities, including The Catholic University of America, Ave Maria University, and his alma mater, the University of Notre Dame.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.becketlaw.org/staff/kevin-seamus-hasson-2/ | title=Kevin "Seamus" Hasson }}</ref> Hasson currently serves as a trustee at the University of Dallas.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://udallas.edu/about/administration/index.php | title=Administration }}</ref>

Hasson has been quoted in the ''New York Times'', the ''Washington Post'', the ''Wall Street Journal'', the ''Christian Science Monitor, USA Today'', and ''U.S. News & World Report'', as well as in regional media outlets from the ''Los Angeles Times'' to the ''Chicago Tribune'' to the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has appeared on broadcast news programs including the Today Show, Dateline NBC, Fox & Friends, NPR, CNN, and Al-Jazeera. While serving as President of the Becket Fund, Hasson met with religious and world leaders across the globe, such as Pope John Paul II, the Dalai Lama, and Elie Wiesel.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.becketlaw.org/staff/kevin-seamus-hasson-2/ | title=Kevin "Seamus" Hasson }}</ref>

Before founding the Becket Fund in 1994, Hasson was an attorney at Williams & Connolly in Washington D.C., where he focused on religious liberty litigation. From 1986 to 1987, he served in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department where he advised the White House and cabinet departments on church-state relations. In this position he worked under Samuel Alito.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.clmagazine.org/article/index/id/OTM2MQ/ |title=article on Hasson and his views |access-date=2012-09-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140902115344/http://www.clmagazine.org/article/index/id/OTM2MQ/ |archive-date=2014-09-02 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Hasson was involved in successfully arguing the right of the Catholic University of America to enact and enforce a Vatican ban on a professor from teaching theology. He also was a counsel for the Catholic Church in ''Abortion Rights Mobilization, Inc. v. United States Catholic Conference'' where he defended the right of the Catholic Church to maintain its tax exempt status while teaching and advocating its moral position on abortion.<ref>United States Catholic Conference v. Abortion Rights Mobilization, Inc., 487 U.S. 72 (1988). Hasson not named counsel in reporter.[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9933493440340983831&hl=en&as_sdt=2,5]</ref>

He is a 1985 ''magna cum laude'' graduate of the University of Notre Dame Law School, and also holds a master's degree in theology from Notre Dame. He is a member of the board of directors of the Bible Literacy Project.

== Awards == In 2011, the International Center for Law and Religion Studies and J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University presented Hasson the ''International Religious Liberty Award'' in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the promotion and preservation of religious freedom.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.iclrs.org/index.php?pageId=1&linkId=261&contentId=2196&blurbId=1435|title=Becket Fund Founder Seamus Hasson Receives Religious Liberty Award 2011|last=|first=|date=|website=International Center for Law and Religion Studies|access-date=2017-08-14}}</ref>

==Publications== * ''The Right to Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War Over Religion in America''. San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2005. {{ISBN|978-1594030833}} * " 'Believers, Thinkers, and Founders: How We Came To Be One Nation Under God' ". New York, NY: Penguin Random House, 2016 {{ASIN|B00540P9N4}}

==References== <references/>

==External links== {{wikiquote}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20080101160718/http://www.becketfund.org/index.php/person/3.html Becket Fund for Religious Liberty] * [https://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1207/p01s03-uspo.html Hasson support for Muslim U.S. House Representative Keith Ellison to use a Koran in his swearing-in ceremony] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070928105005/http://clmagazine.org/backissues/2006julyaug_14-17onreligiousliberty.pdf ''Celebrate Life'' magazine] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20061019062852/http://www.becketfund.org/index.php/article/544.html Series of debates with the ACLU's Jeremy Gunn] * [http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0700/hasson1.asp "Will school choice for yeshivas, parochial schools finally become a reality?"], ''Jewish World Review'' * [https://web.archive.org/web/20030227081648/http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week543/perspectives.html PBS interview]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hasson, Kevin}} Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:21st-century American lawyers Category:21st-century American male writers Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers Category:21st-century Roman Catholics Category:American male non-fiction writers Category:American Roman Catholic writers Category:Notre Dame Law School alumni Category:Place of birth missing (living people) Category:Roman Catholic activists Category:University of Notre Dame alumni Category:Writers from Washington, D.C.