Keith M. Harper

Keith Harper
United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council
In office June 5, 2014 – January 20, 2017
President	Barack Obama
Preceded by	Eileen Donahoe
Succeeded by	Theodore Allegra, Chargé d'Affaires a.i
Personal details
Born	1965 (age 51–52)
Political party	Democratic
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley New York University

Keith M. Harper is an American attorney and diplomat who was the first Native American to ever receive the rank of a U.S. ambassador. He is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and as a lawyer he is known for working on behalf of Native Americans. He was, from June 2014 to January 2017, the U.S. representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Although a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Harper did not grow up in Oklahoma, due to his father being in the military and posted elsewhere. Harper's forebears include David Rowe, an Assistant Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation who was elected as a judge of the Northern Judicial Circuit shortly after the Civil War.

Harper attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated in 1990 with a B.A. in sociology and psychology. He then went to the New York University School of Law, where he graduated with a J.D. in the class of 1994. There he served as an editor on the New York University Journal of International Law and Politics. He was admitted to the New York bar the following year.

After law school, Harper served as a law clerk to Judge Lawrence W. Pierce of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He considered it a formative experience with Pierce becoming one of his role models. He also worked early in his career for the New York firm of Davis, Polk & Wardwell.

Harper was a litigator at the Native American Rights Fund for eleven years spanning from 1995 to 2006. He is most known for his work in the Cobell v. Kempthorne, a large class-action lawsuit brought by Native American representatives against two departments of the United States government. The case was brought in 1996 on behalf of upwards of 500,000 Native Americans, and was resolved in 2009 with the Obama administration agreeing to a $3.4 billion settlement.

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