A White House radio news correspondent who has covered the administrations of four presidents. A former Republican Congressman who represented Oklahoma for 16 years. The executive director of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh. The executive director of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. An award-winning freelance journalist who writes about Native Americans and indigenous rights. This is just a sampling from the roster of 24 speakers and panelists contributing to “The First Amendment for the Twenty-First Century: Current Threats and Community Responses,” a regional conference co-hosted by The Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments, June 21–22. The foundations’ two presidents cited the conference as a public response to alarming signs that First Amendment basic freedoms —  of religion, expression, the press, public assembly and government petition — are being eroded, and that the country’s democratic institutions could be threatened. “To be strong, our democratic system must be anchored by citizens who understand their rights and recognize that those rights also apply to others who do not share their views,” Maxwell King of The Pittsburgh Foundation and Grant Oliphant of The Endowments wrote PHILANTHROPY ANDTHE FIRSTAMENDMENT