The Hon. William G. Young is an active trial judge of 48 years, serving on both the Massachusetts Superior Court and the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Since he was nominated to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1985, Young decided several cases of First Amendment and open government significance. Last year, Young presided over American Association of University Professors (AAUP) v. Rubio, et. al., a case focused on federal efforts to deport individuals for their political speech.

“This case — perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court — squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us,” Young wrote in his 2025 decision. “The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally ‘yes, they do’.”

Damien Fisher is a fierce defender of government transparency and regularly uses the New Hampshire Right to Know Law to fight against secrecy. An independent journalist without the resources most newsrooms provide, Fisher often litigates his own public record cases despite considerable resistance.

His recent reporting includes the award-winning investigative story, “What Really Happened to Michael Carney,” an in-depth report on the secrecy surrounding two deaths in the Monadnock region. Fisher’s use of the Right to Know Law last year also resulted in stories about a police chief accused of falsifying records, a corrections officer being reinstated after a questionable use of force and the hiding of evidence by the state’s Department of Corrections.

Samson Cournane’s advocacy began five years ago when his mother was fired from a local hospital after raising safety concerns in the workplace. Cournane began combing through public records to find the hospital’s patient safety ratings and prior incidents. A University of Maine student at the time, Cournane published his findings and concerns in the campus student newspaper. He also created an online petition demanding the hospital change its practices and provide more transparency to the public. The hospital responded by suing Cournane’s mother for defamation and claiming that she was the one authoring the communication. The hospital eventually relented and Cournane’s free speech rights were vindicated. The case also encouraged lawmakers to pass a law to strengthen the state’s anti-SLAPP statute.

Cournane is now developing a website — epieme.com — to bring more transparency to the healthcare industry. The site intends to help members of the public to track, understand, and act on patient safety and healthcare accountability issues.