U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md., 8th) will be the 2025 commencement speaker for St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM). The commencement ceremony will be held on the College’s Townhouse Green on Saturday, May 10, starting at 10 a.m.
"A liberal arts education, regardless of the chosen academic major, should prepare every student for success across multiple careers during their lifetime. And, as an honors college, that educational experience should inspire in each of our students a high level of responsibility for humankind and the world in which they live. Congressman Raskin's life is the manifestation of all of this and represents an aspirational model for all our students," said St. Mary's College President Tuajuanda C. Jordan, PhD.
Raskin will be presented with an honorary Doctor of Human Letters degree and joins approximately 380 students getting a degree in the SMCM class of 2025 including the College’s first-ever NCAA Division III national champion and one Fulbright semi-finalist.
Raskin is in his fifth term representing Maryland's 8th Congressional District in the House of Representatives. He is the Ranking Member on the House Committee on the Judiciary and was appointed to the Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
He began serving Marylanders as a three-term state senator from 2007 to 2016, rising to majority whip from 2012-2016. While in the Maryland Senate, Raskin earned a reputation for building coalitions in Annapolis to deliver a series of landmark legislative accomplishments, including marriage equality, abolition of the death penalty, passage of the first benefit corporation law in America and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Raskin was a professor of law at American University's Washington College of Law for over 25 years.
He has authored several books, including “We the Students: Supreme Court Cases for and About America’s Students” and "Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court vs. the American People,” a Washington Post bestseller. Most recently, he penned the New York Times #1 best-seller "Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth and the Trials of American Democracy."
The 2025 commencement ceremony marks the final class Jordan will preside over as president of St. Mary’s College. Jordan retires on June 30 after eleven years leading the National Public Honors College.
