Is the Internet under threat? Do we need heavy government regulation to protect the Internet, or is regulation itself the real threat? “Net neutrality” and government regulation of the Internet is such a controversial topic that this summer well over 8 million citizens filed comments on government regulation with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

At this timely moment when the FCC is attempting to roll back the Obama administration’s Title II federal regulation of the Internet, the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) is bringing FCC Chairman Ajit Pai outside the Beltway to Dallas to keynote our next Hatton W. Sumners Distinguished Lecture Series luncheon.

Please join IPI on September 7 to hear Chairman Pai share how the FCC is “Preserving a Free, Open & Innovative Internet.” General admission, table sponsorships, and student tickets are available.

This program is underwritten by:

ABOUT CHAIRMAN AJIT PAI

Ajit Pai was designated Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission by President Donald J. Trump in January 2017. He had previously served as Commissioner at the FCC, appointed by then-President Barack Obama and confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate in May 2012.

The son of immigrants from India, Chairman Pai was born in Buffalo, New York, and grew up in Parsons, Kansas. He earned a B.A. from Harvard University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago. Following law school, Pai clerked for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, and then in 1998 worked for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division as an Honors Program trial attorney on the Telecommunications Task Force. In February 2001, he joined Verizon Communications, Inc. to serve as Associate General Counsel.

In 2003, he was hired as Deputy Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts. A year later, he returned to the Department of Justice to serve as Senior Counsel in the Office of Legal Policy where he served until February 2005 when he was hired as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights.

Between 2007 and 2011, Pai held several positions in the FCC's Office of General Counsel, ultimately serving as Deputy General Counsel. Pai returned to the private sector in April 2011, working in the Washington, D.C. office of law firm Jenner & Block where he was a Partner in the Communications Practice.