Distinguished Speakers

John Sexton

President Emeritus, NYU
Dean Emeritus, NYU School of Law
CEO of the Catalyst Foundation for Universal Education
Vice President, Board of Trustees, Advantage Testing Foundation
J.D., magna cum laude, Harvard Law School
Ph.D., Fordham University
M.A., Fordham University
B.A., Fordham College

John Edward Sexton, vice president of the Advantage Testing Foundation, is the president emeritus of New York University, as well as the Benjamin Butler Professor of Law and NYU Law School’s dean emeritus. 

John is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Association of American University Presidents and the Council on Foreign Relations. He also serves on the boards of the New York State Commission on Higher Education, the American Council on Education, the Institute of International Education, and the Association for a Better New York. While dean of the Law School, he was president of the Association of American Law Schools. 

In July 2008, John was named as Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, the national order of the Legion of Honor of France. In March 2015, he received the TIAA-CREF Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence, recognizing outstanding leadership on the part of a college or university president or chancellor. In 2012, he received the NASPA President’s Award, which is given annually to a college or university leader who has, over a sustained period of time, advanced the quality of student life on campus by supporting student affairs staff and programs. In 2014, the Institute for International Education awarded him its Dugan Prize for “distinguished work in education.”

John received a B.A. in History from Fordham College, an M.A. in Comparative Religion and a Ph.D. in History of American Religion from Fordham University, and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School. At Harvard, he served as the Supreme Court editor for the Harvard Law Review.

Before joining NYU, he served as law clerk to Chief Justice Warren Burger of the United States Supreme Court and to Judges David Bazelon and Harold Leventhal of the United States Court of Appeals.