U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison Spring Commencement Speaker at A&M International
New U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison will serve as Spring Commencement Speaker for graduation exercises scheduled Saturday, May 13 at Texas A&M International University's Kinesiology-Convocation Building. Ceremonies will begin at 9 a.m.
Approximately 200 students are candidates for undergraduate or graduate degrees.
Judge Ellison is a graduate of the Yale Law School and also holds a B.A. from Oxford University and a B.A. from Harvard University.
While at Yale, he was editor of the Yale Law Journal and a Rhodes Scholar. He won first prize in the Williams Essay Competition in Law at Oxford, the Phillip Washburn Prize for the best senior thesis submitted in the Harvard History Department and the Charles Warren Research Fellowship in American History.
His career in law has included private practice in Oklahoma and Texas, service as a law clerk to Judge J. Skelley Wright, US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and to Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the US Supreme Court.
His nomination to the new Federal District Court judgeship was forward by President Clinton to the US Senate in January 1999.
Ellison is a member of both Texas and New York Bars, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Houston Committee on Foreign Relations and president-elect and member of the board of directors of the Gulf Coast Legal Foundation.
He is district secretary for the Rhodes Scholarship selections and the Executive Committee of the Yale Law School Association and is a volunteer for the Houston Refugee Pro Bono Project. He is a member of the board of directors of the American-South African Scholarship Association and the Harry A. Blackmun Scholarship Foundation and advisory director of Houston Achievement Place, a non-profit treatment facility for troubled teens.
Ellison is married to Kathleen R. Ellison, partner in the Houston office of Fulbright and Jaworski.
A reception for graduates and their family hosted by the Student Government Association will follow commencement exercises in front of the Kinesiology-Convocation Building.
For additional information on Spring Commencement Exercises at Texas A&M International University, please contact the Office of Public Affairs and Information Services at 326.2180.
University office hours are from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Monday-Friday.
Journalists who need additional information or help with media requests and interviews should contact the Office of Public Affairs and Information Services at pais@tamiu.edu