HLS Professor Laurence Tribe ’66, an expert on constitutional law who has argued 35 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, served on the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships, which selects participants for one of the country’s most prestigious programs for leadership and public service. Appointed by president Barack Obama ’91, the 28-member commission also included HLS graduates George Muñoz ’77, co-founder of Muñoz Group Investment Banking, and Paul Sarbanes ’60, former U.S. senator from Maryland. “The men and women of this commission embody what makes the White House Fellows program so special,” said President Obama. “These leaders are diverse, non-partisan, and committed to mentoring our next generation of public servants.”
On June 25, the White House announced the 15 Fellows for 2009-2010, representing a cross-section of professions including medicine, business, media, education, non-profit and state government, as well as two branches of the U.S. military. The participants will receive experience at the highest levels of federal government, in the hopes, in the words of President Johnson—who established the program in 1964—that they will “repay that privilege” by contributing to the nation as future leaders or by “continuing to work as private citizens on their public agendas.”
Past Fellows include Admiral Dennis Blair, director of National Intelligence; former Secretary of State Colin Powell; retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark; and Pulitzer-Prize winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin.