U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was selected as this year’s speaker for Class Day ceremonies at Harvard Law School. Class Day will take place on Wednesday May 23, 2012.
The 82nd Attorney General of the United States, Holder was nominated to the position by President Barack Obama ’91 in 2008 and he was by sworn in on Feb. 3, 2009, by Vice President Joe Biden.
In 1997, Holder was named by President Clinton to be the deputy attorney general, the first African-American named to that post. Prior to that he served as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. In 1988, Mr. Holder was nominated by President Reagan as associate judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
A native of New York City, Holder graduated from Stuyvesant High School, where he earned a Regents Scholarship. He attended Columbia College, majored in American History, and graduated in 1973. He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1976.
While in law school, Holder clerked at the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund and the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division. He later moved to Washington and joined the Department of Justice as part of the Attorney General’s Honors Program. He was assigned to the newly formed Public Integrity Section in 1976 and was tasked to investigate and prosecute official corruption on the local, state and federal levels.
Prior to becoming Attorney General, Holder was a litigation partner at Covington & Burling, in Washington, D.C.