Nico Perrino

Nico Perrino is a senior at Indiana University at Bloomington (IU). He discovered FIRE when, serving as president of the IU chapter of Young Americans for Liberty, he tried to bring a speaker to campus and was declined due to the content of the proposed speech.

“The denial rubbed me the wrong way so I checked FIRE's Guides to Student Rights on Campus to see what possible recourse we as a chapter had,” Nico explains. “It was after a thorough reading of the Guides and a visit to FIRE's website that I learned about their internship program and soon after applied.”

During Nico’s internship at FIRE in the summer of 2010, he discovered the wide array and variety of cases that come through the FIRE office on a daily basis, motivating him to ensure that similar situations did not occur on his campus. “Armed at the end of the summer with the philosophical, legal, moral, and practical knowledge necessary to articulate the free speech message, I approached the student government at Indiana University and asked to chair a committee that would look into our campus's speech codes,” Nico remembers. “After many hours of research as a committee and with a faculty advisor, and many more hours of meetings with administrators and university committees, we soon realized we were being given the runaround and still today, with the help of FIRE, are in the process of pushing through our reforms with the hope that early next year many of IU's yellow-light policies will be erased or corrected.”

Nico has also brought FIRE’s Greg Lukianoff to speak at IU, recruited new members for the Campus Freedom Network, advertised FIRE online, and written articles for campus publications about the importance of free speech. In addition to defending liberty, Nico has served as editor-in-chief for campus publication The Indiana Standard, held multiple positions in IU’s chapter of Young Americans for Liberty, and was a member of the IU Track and Field team. He enjoys working out, writing, traveling, taking naps and reading non-fiction.

As far as post-collegiate plans, Nico is undecided. He is currently enrolled in an immersion program at the University of Bologna, and is considering either pursuing an advanced degree in publishing or history, or working with a libertarian-leaning think tank.