U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) will be the speaker for the Class Day ceremonies at Harvard Law School on Wednesday, May 23, 2018. Flake was chosen by representatives of this year’s graduating class. Watch live at 2:30pm.
After serving six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Flake has represented Arizona in the U.S. Senate for the past six years. He holds degrees in International Relations and Political Science from Brigham Young University, and has served as executive director of the Goldwater Institute in Arizona and the Foundation for Democracy in Namibia. He currently chairs the Africa Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Flake was the lead House Republican in the effort to prohibit spending earmarks and the lead Senate Republican in the effort to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba. Throughout his time in congress, he has worked for comprehensive immigration reform and, most recently, introduced a bipartisan bill to confirm the legal status of DACA recipients.
In 2017, Flake published the New York Times best seller “Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle,” a book referred to by The Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson as “the single largest act of political bravery in the Trump era.”
For more information on Harvard Law School’s 2018 Commencement, visit the HLS website.