Voices of Freedom - Interview with Karin Lips

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

An Interview with Karin Lips, Founder and President, Network of enlightened Women (NeW) College should be a place where young people wrestle with big ideas and discover who they are. Yet for many conservative women, campus can feel so isolating that they just decide to keep their views to themselves before they even arrive. In the fall of 2004, a University of Virginia student returned from an internship in Washington, DC, looking for a place where college women could talk about public policy, including conservative ideas. When she asked the campus Women's Center to co-sponsor a group for conservative women, she was essentially laughed at and told, "not here." So she started a book club. Within a year, women on other campuses wanted chapters of their own. Today, the Network of enlightened Women is on more than 40 college campuses, with professional and alumnae chapters that carry its mission beyond graduation: to educate, equip, and empower women to be principled leaders for a free society. That student is our guest on this episode of Voices of Freedom. Karin Lips is the Founder and President of NeW. A graduate of the University of Virginia and its School of Law, she practiced law at Wiley Rein and was a Resident Fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics. She is the author of You're Not Alone: The Conservative Woman's Guide to College and editor of She's Conservative: Stories of Trials and Triumphs on America's College Campuses. Topics Discussed on this Episode: How a rejected request at UVA sparked a book club that grew into a national network What NeW's mission to educate, equip, and empower looks like in practice How conservative women on campus are finding their voice What Karin is seeing in higher education today — and what university leaders should do differently What gives Karin hope about the next generation of young women

Hello and welcome to Voices of Freedom, a Bradley Foundation podcast. I'm Rick Graber, president and CEO of the Bradley Foundation. On the podcast, we'll explore issues that affect our freedoms with a focus on free enterprise, free speech, and educational freedom. So let's get started. College should be a place where young people wrestle with big ideas and discover who they are. Yet for many conservative women, college campuses can feel so isolating that, sadly, they just decide to keep their views to themselves before they even arrive. In the fall of 2004, a University

of Virginia student returned from an internship in Washington, D.C., looking for a place where college women could talk about public policy, including amazingly enough, conservative ideas. When she asked the campus women's center to co-sponsor a group for conservative women, she was essentially laughed at and told, not here. So she started a book clip. Within a year, women on other campuses wanted chapters of their own, and today the network of enlightened women are new is on more than 40 college campuses, with professional and alumni chapters that carry its mission beyond graduation to educate, equip, and empower women to be principled leaders for a free society.

That student is our guest today. Karen Lips is the founder and president of New, graduate of the University of Virginia and at its school of law. She practiced law at the law firm of Wiley Rine and was a resident fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics. She's the author of You're Not Alone, The Conservative Woman's Guide to College, an editor of She's Conservative, Stories of Trials and Triumphs on America's College campuses. Welcome to Voices of Freedom, Karen. It is wonderful to have you. Well, thank you for having me.

I look forward to our discussion. Well, let's start with you. What first drew you to public policy and conservative ideas? And what exactly happened when you returned to UVA in 2004 looking for a place to talk about those ideas? Growing up, I was really interested in history and policy and politics. and at some point knew I wanted to spend some time in Washington, D.C. As I imagine, lots of young people with those interests want to. So before my third year of college at the University of Virginia,

I had the pleasure of interning for my home state senator, Senator Lugar, from Indiana. And we were not only in his office, but also he was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at that time. And so got to do some committee internship work as well. And I very much enjoyed the internship and my time in Washington. And one of the big lessons that came from that is that everything wasn't just kind of Republican, Democrat. There were shades of Republicans, different versions of Democrats. And there was a lot more nuance behind it all. And so when I returned to the University of Virginia, I wanted to continue some of those deeper, more nuanced conversations that we were having in.

DC talking about policies and how people who maybe had some similar views might disagree. And as a young woman, also had a lot of conversations about how things coming out of DC were going to affect what my hopes and dreams were, which included not just some success in my career, but also family life. And so wanted that to color some of the conversation. And unfortunately, as you mentioned in the introduction, when I went back to UVA, a state-funded institution, I will add. I sought out an environment like what I found in D.C. and really came up empty-handed. There were plenty of women's groups and women's organizations. You know, they've got women in the title, yet they weren't really including women like me who identified as conservative. I even went to our

Women's Center, which again, women in the title, state-funded university, and ask if they co-sponsor a group for conservative women, and they just laughed. And at that point, I had the choice. of, you know, should I just hang this up and see that, oh, women's groups believe this way, or should I provide an alternative? And so I decided, let's test this market. I believed in supply and demand. And so started an organization called the Network of Enlightened Women or New as an alternative to modern feminism, campus feminism, where we talked about books and ideas and people

who were too often left off college syllabi. And luckily there really was demand for it. And so we had a lot of success at UVA and then continued to grow. So they just said no. Yeah, with a chuckle, just got to laugh and said no. Yes. And, you know, I had gone for a tour. They were trying to get me, you know, organizations are always desperate to try to get students involved.

So they were desperate to get me involved in all these things, telling me about their magazine, this and that. And then as soon as I asked if they'd co-sponsor it, a new grip for consultants. conservative women, the conversation changed very quickly. Wow. Wow. Well, good for you. I mean, as you said, this idea just began as a book club. And again, as you just said, you were reading books that are too often left off college syllabi. But it quickly spread to other campuses. I'd like to learn more about how that happened. And exactly what did that early demand tell you about what conservative women were experiencing on campus? Within six months, some students at William and Mary were interested in getting a chapter started.

How'd they find out? Through friends. So a lot of our early growth was someone was involved in it and then they'd hear about it, you know, someone from their hometown and they'd hear about it, go to their campus. Or we did get some media attention and so some of the media attention spread and got the word out. A few of our women ended up getting involved because their fathers heard about the organization and shared it with them. And I remember feeling really good early on that this is something that when their fathers are sending their daughters to college, they could have this to know that they're going to have

a community for these young women. Because we see too much. Young women go off to campus and are just bombarded from the women's centers, women's studies departments, kind of popular feminists on campus, and don't even realize that shift that's happening left. And that's what makes new and so important is it provides that community for these young women so they don't feel like they're the outliers. It provides kind of that social normalizing force that their views are valid as well. So we got started at William and Mary. We shared our documents, shared our plans, and then it just continued to spread one chapter at a time. And what fascinated me then, and it still does, these are women who come to it with different experiences. Sometimes, you know, they have stood up for

something in class and have been completely shot down, right? And that's been happening now for the life of the organization over 20 years. And those women decide, okay, I'm not just going to sit down. I'm going to do something about it. And some of them come at it from like the friendship angle of their feeling socially ostracized and want to have a community. And so they just come at it and we provide them, Speakers Bureau, book recommendation articles, and then encourage them to take the organization and make it as impactful as they can on their campus. But in those early days, there was obviously no advertising budget. It truly was a for sure bottoms up grassroots civil society effort. That's really neat. Thank you. Yes,

I definitely remember those early days of typing out newsletters when I was in college and I went straight through to law school. So doing that stuff in the evenings. But it was always very rewarding to see that something that I've created was getting interest and was making a difference in the lives of these young women. Fantastic. Let's talk a little bit more about the opportunities that your organization provides. The mission is to educate, equip, and empower. What's that look like in practice for a young woman who wants to get involved? From her campus chapter, but more broadly than that, to the national programs that you offer, like the Leadership Retreat, like the Capitol Hill Interns Summit. Talk about that a little bit. As we've grown, we've realized that it is important not only for us to support

the women on campus, but also provide them opportunities beyond campus. So oftentimes, a young woman gets involved with a campus chapter that might involve bringing a speaker to their campus, reading a book together, running the social media account for their campus, and just, you know, being part of that community. But then we also provide a suite of national programs that they can participate in. So a young woman might come to our Capitol Hill Intern Summit. We host it in the fall in the spring in D.C. We invite our current leaders and also use that as an outreach tool for women who have self-identified as being interested in policy by coming to Washington to intern, and we invite interns from Capitol Hill offices to come to it. We just had one in

September. So it's an opportunity for them to come for a program where they get to hear about some policy and also some professional development. Because one of our unique value ads is that we're talking about policy, but we're also talking about how young women can take what they learn and be successful in building the lives they want, both in their careers and beyond. So they might come to that Capitol Hill intern summit. Our top leaders are invited to our summer leadership retreat. This year, it was held in Nashville, Tennessee.

and we had an amazing lineup of speakers come to them and talk to them again about policy, professional development, and it's a chance for them to speak with their campus program representative on our team and plan for this fall semester so that they can hit the ground running when they get back. And it's also a chance for them to get to know the leaders all over the country. It's really fun. We've had some situations where some of the women from leadership retreat then after being involved in new and graduating, come to D.C. and live together and room together. And for me, I consider that a big success because that's community building right there. And we've had something get involved in our professional programming in D.C.

So it's really a dynamic community of women. After leadership retreat, some of them in the fall might come to our advocacy day where we bring, again, some of our top leaders to D.C. to come meet with leaders on the hill. We recently held that. And I know a couple of our students mentioned how much they enjoyed meeting with representatives. of Kat Kamak, so they get the chance to meet with elected officials and also policy leaders up in D.C. And then we encourage them to stay involved in our online community because that's where, especially young women, are getting so much information. So we have a very robust social media

and an active podcast that they can listen to us talk about, important issues of the day, and get to hear the other side that they might not otherwise hear because so much from the left comes through very passively. You're just scrolling on Instagram. It just feeds it to you. So we want to make sure they're getting those different voices, the conservative voices. I'm sure those DC events are really, really valuable. Our son's worked on Capitol Hill for more than 10 years now. And he tells me that those jobs pop up in congressional offices, Senate offices, not online, but through networks. Yes, we had one of our alums who came to a,

a professional network dinner and a senator was hiring at the time and she got the job in two weeks. That seems to be how it works. Fantastic. Karen, when she's conservative was first published in 2018, a common theme at that time was that, and we talked about it at the top, that many conservative women just keep their views quiet before they even arrive at campus, which is tragic. Talk about how that's evolved in the eight years since and how your organization new helps young women find their voices. It's a sad state of affair that right now women across the country will go to campus and decide in a way that feels very much like an individual choice to keep their views

quiet because they're conservative. Yet, if so many of them are doing it, it signals it's not just, you know, kind of their individual choice, but the real pressure that they're feeling to stay quiet. As you mentioned, I wrote that book, and in writing that book, I talked to a lot of our young women, and I was struck by how many of them told me that very similar story, that they went off to campus, they knew their beliefs, but they decided they wanted to keep them quiet, not so much because they were afraid of their grades, suffering, or the administration, but they were really worried about the social stigma, that they wouldn't have friends,

they wouldn't have bridesmaids in their future wedding, that they were just going to be all alone. And that is so powerful to hear because it just shows that pressure is something they're all facing, you know, in many cases very silently. And so we tried to give that a lot of attention in the book. Even one of our students was going to Harvard and she said she was quiet until her roommate finally figured it out. And her roommate basically said, oh, you're from West Virginia. You must be a little backwards. She just attributed it to where she was from. It's ridiculous. But that's, you know, your listeners, I hope this comes through. That is the real pressure that young women face is that they're constantly told that their views aren't valid and don't matter.

And so that's why I think New plays such an important role of giving them the community, giving them the confidence to hold on and speak up for their convictions. Great. Your most recent book, You're Not Alone. It's targeted. It is written for conservative young women preparing for college. What's the key takeaway there? What's the most important thing you want them to know? Pressure's on with that question. Most important thing. I guess I'd say the most important thing to come from, you're not alone, is that I encourage young women to be intentional with their choices on campus.

And what I mean by that is often the easy thing is to just go to the popular clubs, read the campus newspaper, take whatever classes are at good times and just get through. But if conservative women want to stay strong in their beliefs and want to come out on the other end in a better position to build the happy and fulfilling lives that they want, encourage them to be intentional. For example, before they get to campus, they should research what are the conservative clubs on their campus

and then get involved. Reach out. Follow those clubs on social media. Sign up for their email list. Get involved with that community. out the professors that are known for being conservative, but also just fair-minded professors. And I don't want to say avoid some professors, but there are some stories of things that are women have faced where their professors are not fair-minded at all. And so I encourage them

to really be thoughtful of, you know, their education, which includes what professors they're learning from. And then things like, make sure you're getting other voices. So if you're reading your campus newspaper, also check out other publications like the college fix, join conservative clubs like New or other groups that are focused on reaching young people, so that you are not just getting kind of indoctrinated by the left at all times so that you are part of a larger community. That not only will help you and be good for your beliefs, but also for the opportunities these after college. I am so thankful that I got to know some of the professors at UVA who then have helped me in my career. One of particular, Stephen Rhodes had written, Take Sex Differences

seriously before I was at UVA. And before I even had him as a professor, I'd heard about him and went to his class and went to his office. And he ended up becoming a board member of our organization and getting involved. So, you know, these professors can help lead to internship opportunities, career opportunities, they can write letters of recommendation. So you can really benefit if you're intentional and seek out publications, organizations, professors during your time at college. But there are stories of certain professors. I think your word was being unfair to conservative women probably through grades, through other means. I mean, that's terrible. It's awful. And I think if you don't know it's there and Arna's versed into it,

Sometimes you don't realize it until it's too late and you're stuck in a class. You need a grade and it's really rough. So finding some mentors a few years above you, it's one of the pieces of advice I give in the book. Great advice. You can help steer you, right? And I don't want people to build an echo chamber where you're only just going to the conservative professors. When you're taking from the liberal professors, just find the fair-minded ones. Find the ones who enjoy the conversation.

I had one at UVA. It was very, very much a liberal, a progressive, outspoken. And she acknowledged her bias so much that she used to give her spiel at the beginning. And then she would invite me to give a counter to what she said, which the first time she did it, I felt an immense amount of pressure. But man, did I prepare for that class more than any other class? Because I wanted to make sure my views came across as effective as they could. And I applaud her now, you know, two decades later. I remember that class. I remember her doing that. And that's what I would like to see more of on campus.

Well, let's stay with higher education. What are you seeing in higher education today? What do you think university leaders can be doing differently? Or maybe put it another way, there's been a very concerted effort to push back against DEI and other such things. Is it had an effect? Do you see a difference on college campuses today as opposed to, say, 10 or 15 years ago? Is it easier to form a chapter today than it was when you tried? You mentioned forming a chapter, and that's been a fascinating kind of case study of what's happening on campuses. Because one of the challenges we're seeing more of in the last few years is that it's not so much the bias of some of the professors, and we still face that. But culturally, a lot of the students are becoming the censors.

And I think that's tremendously dangerous on college campuses and beyond. What I mean by that is some of our women have wanted to start a chapter and the student councils, which are student run, will reject them for kind of silly reasons. And really, it's because they're a conservative group for women. And the fact that these students want to censor another group is alarming. So that's one of the things I'm watching closely and I'm very worried about when it comes to higher education is you can have really good free speech policies, which friends at other organizations have done a lot to push for on campus. Yes, they have.

Yes. And I'm tremendously thankful for that. Yet it can only go so far if culturally the students are censoring and applying social. pressure to each other. So it's very much, I'd say a cultural problem on campus, and a lot of it's coming from fellow students. I mean, this is a long slog for sure. This is not going to be easy to change the culture on most college campuses in this country. My colleague on the Bradley Foundation board, Robbie George, is actually more encouraged, more enthusiastic than he's ever been with the centers that you see at places like North Carolina or Tennessee, Ohio State, Arizona, other places. But this is a difficult slog. So thankful that organizations like yours are playing your

role in that process. Oh, thank you. It's definitely a group effort and what Robbie George is doing is so important. And our students benefit from these centers because then they've got that community. They've got those resources, those professors they can go to. And then when things happen on campus, they can get wisdom from those professors. So even beyond just some of the, them teaching classes and fostering that intellectual environment, just having good mentors on campus, good guides, is tremendously beneficial for these students. I mean, your work continues after graduation, too. It's not just during those college years, and you do it through your professional and alumni chapters. Share a few stories of women who

have participated whose paths capture the impact of that work post-college. One of the best parts of my job is getting to see our alums just thrive in various ways and to see them reconnect with the organization or stay connected with it. One of my favorite stories is one of our alums, Nitu Arnold, was at Cornell. And she was featured in our first book. She's conservative and shared her story of the pressure. Historically a tough place, right, for conservatives? Very much a tough place. And she very much felt the effects of that.

she faced a lot of social pressure when she was there. I enjoyed working with her and when she graduated, she was looking for a job and I connected her with the National Association of Scholars. And so she went there, did some writing for them. And now is at the Manhattan Institute writing on higher education and is getting published and is really making a difference on that space. So we kept her, it's great to have her still involved in the organization. She's run a professional network chapter. She's one of our success stories. Michaela Hebner, she did our student media fellows where we train students on how to write their first op-ed, how to speak up if they get interviewed on a podcast. And she's now at Hannity and is a

producer there and got some of our chapter women to a taping of their show. So she stayed connected to the organization. We've got women on the hill that we often reach out to like when we had our advocacy day, Adeline Sandridge, who was part of our UVA chapter and led that. She spoke to the women at dinner about how to get Hill jobs. So it's awesome for our college women, not only to hear from successful policy experts, you know, 20 years post-college, but they also really enjoy those conversations with our alums that are just a few years ahead of them and learn from them. And then those are the ones who often can lead them to different jobs and internships. And one more story I might share is an alum, Cameron Teal. She actually brought Christina Sanifer

from the Goldwater Institute to her campus in Arizona, one. while she was a student. After she graduated, she came out to D.C., worked at AEI, and then wanted to move back home and is now back at the Goldwater Institute. Great organization. Fantastic. Yeah, so just bringing Christina to campus through her chapter has now led to her job and her opportunity to get back to her in the home state where she wanted to be. So these national organizations, you know, could really help you locally and to get back to the state you want to be in if you want to be there. Well, there really are more opportunities in conservative world than there've ever been.

All of the state-based organizations that really have proliferated around the country, the public interest law firms that when I was coming out of law school didn't even exist, it just provides great opportunities. So in that sense, there are more opportunities than there used to be to continue with public policy, law, and so forth. Karen, last question. You've built new one chapter at a time, and we always try to end on a positive note. What gives you hope about the next generation of young women, and where do you see the greatest opportunities ahead?

I see hope, and I feel like the women are, with the proliferation of social media, are seeing more options out there, that it's not just the left pushing them one way, that there's, I'm hopeful that they can find us, find other conservative groups, then can help guide them, For too long, I felt like when young people went to campus, there was kind of a monopoly of thought there in many instances. And so now with more social media, easy access to alternative publications, they can make their choices themselves. I also see among young women more interests in building the lives they want and taking that into their hands early. It doesn't have to just be pushing women to be girl bosses, which we've seen a lot from the left. but really talking openly about wanting to be wives and mothers and caring about their families

and their communities and locally. And so I love seeing that and seeing some of our women set up alternative work arrangements or embrace the idea of part-time work. You know, there's a lot more options out there. And so we've been as an organization trying to talk about those so that these women can build the fulfilling lives as they see fit. I talk about opportunity feminism. Let's support policies that encourage women to look at what they want in their lives and build their lives.

Let's look at policies through the lens of freedom. Do they maximize freedom for women to build the lives they want? And those are the types of policies we should be supporting. So we're giving young women alternative language to embrace an empowered version of feminism because it truly is about giving women opportunity and freedom. And that's what I think young women want today. Karen Lutz, thanks so much for spending some time with us today. And thanks for the work that you have done and will continue to do.

You've been a pioneer in this very important and fundamental area. So thank you. Well, thank you for having me on. And thank you for the foundation support. It makes such a difference. Indeed. And as always, thanks to all of you for joining us on this episode of Voices of Freedom. Join us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts for our next conversation

on issues impacting our freedom and America's foundational principles. And make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. I'm Rick Graber, and this is a Bradley Foundation podcast.