Ben Jealous, Columbia College Class Day Speaker, Columbia Commencement 2010

While a student at Columbia, Ben Jealous sought the guidance of acclaimed civil rights lawyer Jack Greenberg (CC45, L48), who served as dean of Columbia College from 1989-93 and is currently a professor and Vice Dean at Columbia Law School. With Greenbergs help, Jealous secured an internship with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), for which he later served as a community organizer in Harlem. On campus, Jealous led movements in support of homeless rights, full-need financial aid and need-blind admissions. A battle over environmental justice eventually led to his suspension from Columbia University. After returning to Columbia College and earning a bachelors degree in political science in 1994, Jealous went on to earn a masters degree in comparative social research from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He has served as president of the Rosenberg Foundation, director of the U.S. Human Rights Program at Amnesty International, and executive director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), an organization made up of more than 200 independent historically black and black-owned newspapers.