NYU Law announces 2015 convocation speakers Preet Bharara and Anthony Appiah

NYU School of Law will hold JD and LLM/JSD Convocation ceremonies on May 21 at the Beacon Theatre. Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, will address graduating JD students during the morning ceremony, and Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy and Law, will speak to LLM and JSD graduands in the afternoon.

Preet Bharara

Since 2009, Bharara has overseen the investigation and litigation of all criminal and civil cases brought on behalf of the United States in the Southern District of New York. He supervises an office of more than 220 assistant US attorneys, who handle a high volume of cases that include domestic and international terrorism, narcotics and arms trafficking, white collar crime, public corruption, gang violence, organized crime, and civil rights violations. Since his appointment, the office has extradited and prosecuted Viktor Bout, one of the most notorious arms traffickers in the world, who is now serving a 25-year sentence. The office also obtained a life sentence for Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, and for one of the Al Qaeda plotters of the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa. Prior to becoming a US attorney, Bharara served as chief counsel and staff director of the US Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, and as an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York.

Anthony Appiah

In January 2014, Appiah joined NYU School of Law with a dual appointment in the Department of Philosophy. He teaches in New York, Abu Dhabi, and other NYU global centers. His current work relates to the social and psychological presuppositions of democracy, focusing on the roles of idealization and ideals in psychology, ethics, and politics. Appiah’s recent books include Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity (2014) and The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen (2010). Educated at schools in Ghana and England, he has taught at Yale, Cornell, Duke, Harvard, and Princeton universities and lectured for institutions around the world, including Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, New Zealand, and Qatar.

University Commencement will take place on Wednesday, May 20, at Yankee Stadium.

Posted March 13, 2015