Joseph Patrick Kennedy III

Doctor of Laws

A dedicated diplomat and public servant, Joseph Patrick Kennedy III has built his career on a foundation of faith-driven service, justice, and global citizenship.

As U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs, Kennedy is working to promote peace, prosperity, and stability throughout the region. Before assuming this role in 2022, he was a four-term member of Congress who represented the 4th Congressional District in his home state of Massachusetts.

Kennedy’s passion for public service was nurtured during his childhood in Boston and his education at Stanford University and Harvard Law School. He spent two years in the Dominican Republic as a member of the Peace Corps, the U.S. agency founded in 1961 by his great-uncle President John F. Kennedy. He has said that his time in the Peace Corps taught him the importance of asking the most basic questions: “What do you need? How can I help?” And it helped him see “the impact that simple acts of service can have across borders, generations, and time.”

After law school, he worked as an assistant district attorney in Massachusetts before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012. In Congress, he championed efforts to make health care more accessible and affordable for all Americans, and as a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, he was a vocal advocate for addressing climate change locally and globally.

Kennedy remains committed to building a more sustainable future. As president of the nonprofit Citizens Energy, he has worked to lower the cost of green power to make it more accessible to households traditionally priced out of renewable energy. In 2021, he founded Groundwork Project, an advocacy group that supports community organizing in historically disenfranchised areas. And he is a board member of the Woodwell Climate Research Center, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, Harvard Institute of Politics, and the Massachusetts Association of Mental Health. His efforts to strengthen democracy and build shared prosperity are a vital source of hope and inspiration.

For his commitment to advancing human dignity and embodying Catholic social teachings, we, the President and Trustees of Fordham University, in solemn convocation assembled and in accord with the chartered authority bestowed on us by the Regents of the University of the State of New York, declare Joseph Patrick Kennedy III Doctor of Laws, honoris causa. That he may enjoy all rights and privileges of this, our highest honor, we have issued these letters patent under our hand and the corporate seal of the University on this, the 18th day of May in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Twenty-Four.