US Vice President Joe Biden will be awarded an honorary degree from the University of Dublin in a ceremony in Trinity on Friday, it has been announced. He will join Nobel laureate Peter Higgs and the writer of The Ginger Man, JP Donleavy, among others.
Serving under US President Barack Obama, Biden has been Vice President since 2009. Prior to his election as Vice President, he had represented the US state of Delaware as a US Senator since 1973.
Having formed a close working relationship with Obama, Biden has been described as one of the most powerful Vice Presidents in US history, and oversaw the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq in 2011. He also oversaw the passing of one of the administration’s central responses to the economic downturn, the Recovery Act.
Biden, during much of his second term as Vice President, was said to be considering running for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, something which would have placed him in competition with the now-presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton. Last October, however, he announced that he would not be running for President. Biden endorsed Clinton earlier this month.
A few days ago, he criticised the presumptive Republic nominee, Donald Trump, regarding his proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States, and said that Trump’s suggestion that family members of terrorists could either be tortured or killed was damaging to US values.
Biden will also be presented with the Gold Medal of Honorary Patronage by the University Philosophical Society (the Phil).
Lawyer and civil activist Hina Jilani, novelist and campaigner Lia Mills, and Trinity’s oldest student, 97-year-old Josef Veselsky, will also be awarded honorary degrees on Friday.
Biden, whose great-great grandfather emigrated to the United States from Ireland, is on a six-day visit here. He has already been welcomed by the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, and President Michael D Higgins.
