36 Facts About Brad Carson

Brad Rogers Carson was born on March 11,1967 and is an American lawyer and politician who is the 21st president of the University of Tulsa.

Brad Carson is the only person to have voted on the authorization of the Iraq War in Congress and to have subsequently fought in it.

Brad Carson served as Under Secretary of the Army from 2014 to 2015 and as General Counsel of the Army from 2012 to 2014.

In 2024, Brad Carson launched Americans for Responsible Innovation, a new policy group dedicated to artificial intelligence.

Brad Carson's father worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Brad Carson studied at Jenks High School and Baylor University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Brad Carson became the first student at Baylor in 55 years to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship.

Brad Carson attended the University of Oklahoma College of Law, graduating at the top of his class in 1994.

Brad Carson's firm was awarded the Exceptional Contribution to Legal Services Award by Legal Services of Eastern Oklahoma in 1996, and in 1997, Carson was selected as a White House Fellow, where he was assigned to The Pentagon as a special assistant to the Secretary of Defense.

Brad Carson was a member of the conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, and served on the Transportation Committee, the Natural Resources Committee, and the Small Business Committee.

On October 10,2002, Brad Carson was among the 81 House Democrats who voted in favor of authorizing the invasion of Iraq.

In 2004, Brad Carson did not seek reelection to the House and ran for the open US Senate seat that was being vacated by retiring Republican Don Nickles.

Brad Carson easily won the Democratic primary, and after a tough campaign, lost the election to Republican Tom Coburn, his predecessor in the House.

Brad Carson was succeeded in the House by fellow Democrat Dan Boren.

Brad Carson indicated that he had no immediate plans to seek political office, and, in January 2005, he accepted a semester-long teaching fellowship specializing in US politics at Harvard University.

In December 2008, Brad Carson left his post at Cherokee Nation Businesses to deploy to Iraq as an intelligence officer in the US Navy.

Brad Carson was officer-in-charge of weapons intelligence teams embedded with the US Army's 84th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Battalion in the nine southern provinces of Iraq; the teams worked with EOD teams at seven bases and investigated bomb sites, caches, smuggling routes, and other activities related to improvised explosive devices.

In January 2010, Brad Carson assumed a position as professor of business and law at the University of Tulsa, and as director of the National Energy Policy Institute, a non-profit energy policy organization funded by billionaire George Kaiser's family foundation.

Brad Carson has contributed journalism to The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, Blueprint, and Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

In 2010, Brad Carson contributed to a symposium issue of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, in which he was one of ten writers discussing the future of progressive political thought and politics.

Brad Carson is the author of several other works, including a guide to federal appellate practice, a work co-authored with judge Robert Bacharach.

Brad Carson had met Barack Obama in 2004 when they were both nominees of the Democratic Party for open seats in the United States Senate.

Brad Carson endorsed Obama in 2006 for the 2008 presidential election.

Brad Carson served as Obama's personal representative in the approval of candidates for delegates from Oklahoma to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

On September 14,2011, President Barack Obama nominated Brad Carson to serve as the General Counsel of the United States Department of the Army.

On January 6,2014, President Obama nominated Carson to be Under Secretary of the Army, to replace Joseph W Westphal, whom the president had nominated to be the United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

On February 12,2014, Brad Carson was confirmed by the United States Senate and he was sworn in as the 31st Under Secretary of the Army on March 27,2014.

Brad Carson supervised the development and submission of the Army's budget, which exceeded $150 billion.

Brad Carson served as the acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness from April 2015 until April 2016, resigning while still awaiting Senate formal approval.

From 2017 to 2021, Brad Carson taught courses related to national security and public sector innovation at the University of Virginia's Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

Brad Carson was sworn in as president of the University of Tulsa in July 2021.

Brad Carson succeeded Gerard Clancy, who left office after a vote of no-confidence.

In July 2023, Brad Carson was president when the university launched a new Honors College, focusing on literature and philosophy.

In 2023, Brad Carson pushed for the organizing of more concerts at Chapman Stadium, seeing the university hold the first major concert in the venue since 1990 with the performance of Def Leppard, Motley Crue, and Alice Cooper.

In late 2023, Brad Carson announced he would be the co-founder and president of a new policy group, Americans for Responsible Innovation, dedicated to artificial intelligence.

In 2017, Brad Carson completed the Marathon des Sables, a 250-km ultramarathon in the Sahara Desert often called the world's toughest footrace.