Anya Bidwell

Listen to Anya, Adam Liptak, and John Malcolm discuss qualified immunity on Open to Debate.  

Listen to Anya discuss policing on the New Yorker Radio Hour.  

Read George Will’s Washington Post column mentioning Anya and her work.

Anya Bidwell (née Cherkasova) leads IJ’s Project on Immunity and Accountability. Through this project, Anya works to keep the judiciary a meaningful check on government overreach. In 2026, she was elected to the American Law Institute, where she advises on its forthcoming Restatement of the Law of Constitutional Torts.

Anya’s most pressing priority is holding federal officials to the same level of accountability as their state and local counterparts. Unlike those counterparts, federal officials generally cannot be sued when they violate constitutional rights. Anya is working with Congress and local legislatures to close this loophole. She also litigates the issue in federal court.

Anya’s other area of expertise is First Amendment retaliation. In a single year, she got the U.S. Supreme Court to undo two adverse circuit-court rulings, making it easier for victims of retaliatory arrests to sue their tormentors and restore their good name. Anya personally argued the first case, Gonzalez v. Trevino, before the Court. In the second case, Murphy v. Schmitt, the Court granted the petition, vacated the Eighth Circuit’s denial of the retaliation claim, and remanded for reconsideration in light of Gonzalez.

Anya appeared before the Supreme Court three additional times. She second-chaired Martin v. United States (a wrong-house raid), Brownback v. King (excessive force), and Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association v. Thomas (the Commerce Clause). The Court heard the most recent of these, Martin, in April 2025 and ruled unanimously for the family that June, returning the case to the Eleventh Circuit.

Anya spent her childhood in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan and came to this country alone at 16 on a university scholarship. That upbringing drove her to study law and defend an independent judiciary. She also holds a Master’s from the University of Texas, where she wrote a thesis on asymmetric warfare and, in 2008, co-authored a study on whether Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz in a conflict with the United States.

Anya’s work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among others. She hosts live recordings of IJ’s Short Circuit podcast and co-produces its documentary-style podcast Bound by Oath.