David A. French

David A. French
Personal details
Born	David Austin French (1969-01-24) January 24, 1969 Georgetown, Kentucky, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Nancy French
Children	3
Alma mater	Lipscomb University Harvard University
Occupation	Lawyer, writer
Religion	Presbyterianism
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Army
Rank	Major
Unit	United States Army Reserve
Awards	Bronze Star

David Austin French (born January 24, 1969) is an American lawyer, right-of-center neoconservative commentator, and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. He is a major in the United States Army Reserve and a veteran of the Iraq War, where he served as a military lawyer in a combat zone. He is a past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. A staff writer for National Review, he has also written several nonfiction books.

Early life and education

French earned a bachelor's degree in 1991 from David Lipscomb University. He then began studies at Harvard Law School in the fall of 1991, earning a law degree in 1994.

Career

French served as the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and as a lecturer at Cornell Law School. French has also served as a senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defending Freedom.

French retired as president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education in 2005, citing plans to serve in the United States Army Reserve as an officer. French was deployed to Iraq with JAG in 2007 with the Army Reserve during the Iraq War, serving in the Diyala Province as Squadron Judge Advocate. He was awarded a Bronze Star.

French has called for young men of all backgrounds and races to become physically strong again.

Potential 2016 U.S. presidential campaign

In January 2016, French said that he would vote for Donald Trump if he became the Republican nominee; he later changed his mind and began to oppose Trump.

On May 31, 2016, Bill Kristol, a supporter of the Stop Trump movement, named French as his pick to run for U.S. President as an independent candidate to defeat Trump. On June 5, French announced that he had considered running, but ultimately decided not to. In a June 18, 2016, interview with The Daily Herald, French revealed that he had strongly considered entering the presidential race, but ultimately decided that he did not have the name recognition and financial support to mount a viable campaign.

Political positions

Politically, French favors limited immigration restrictions from areas with terrorist activity, but these restrictions can not be race-based or religion-based. Anyone who feels affinity for the American way of life and its constitutional principles should be eligible to immigrate, though there have to be numerical restrictions. The proper response to Islamist terrorism is to attack terrorist bases in the Middle East. Later these areas should be pacified if possible.

He has criticized part of the white working class for causing many of its own problems, as "self-destructive moral failures", and their communities as "negative assets" that "deserve to die." Later, he was criticized for continuing to use male pronouns when discussing Chelsea Manning, after the latter had started gender reassignment.

Personal life

French is married to author Nancy French, with whom he has three children, the youngest of whom was adopted from Ethiopia. He has praised interracial adoption in the evangelical community, which has become noticeably less white as a result. French claimed that the strongest criticism of this trend comes from the political left, though there has also been white nationalist criticism.

Bibliography

• with Nancy French
• with Jay Sekulow, Jordan Sekulow and Robert Ash

External links

• David French at National Review
• David French at Ballotpedia