Leon Howard, the Interim Executive Director of the ACLU of New Mexico, was the 2025 MPP Commencement Speaker. His speech was a powerful reminder that small actions can make a big difference and that what you do today in policy can literally change the course of someone else's life. 

"Congratulations 2025 Masters of Public Policy Program Grads! let me say I am honored to be invited to be a part of your special moment to put a cap on all of your hard work. I am Leon Howard, and I am a civil rights attorney and interim executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of NM. 

Before I begin, I just want to say, look, I know this is an intimate environment, I don’t know when I’ll ever get invited to give a commencement speech again. So yes… I’m going to lean a little bit and hit you with a theme and try to make this as commencement as a possible. That theme is the public policy butterfly effect, Just stick with me. I hope it all lands eventually, gently, like a butterfly. 

So the we al know the butterfly effect concept -- Have you ever seen a butterfly cause a hurricane? 

Of course, you haven’t. But you’ve probably heard of the idea that a small change in one place can create enormous consequences somewhere else. The flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil, they say, could set off a chain of atmospheric shifts that contribute to a storm here in NM (or something like that). 

Now, I’m not here to give a lecture on chaos theory. But I am here to talk about something just as powerful: the public policy butterfly effect. 

As graduates of this master’s program, you’re stepping into a world where policies, some crafted with the best of intentions, others driven by less noble motives, ripple out into the lives of millions of people. A minor amendment, a well-placed phrase in a statute, the structuring of a funding formula, these small flaps of a policymaker’s wings can set off waves of prosperity or storms of injustice. The policies you shape will either lift people up or hold them down, either protect the vulnerable or leave them exposed. 

So, the question I leave with you today is not whether you will create an impact, you will. The question is: Will your wings create a storm that devastates or a breeze that carries people toward justice? 

Ethical Obligation 

Let’s be honest, policy work is often slow, tedious, and frustrating. You will spend hours debating over language, haggling over numbers, and working within systems that weren’t always designed with justice in mind. But in the middle of all that, remember this guiding principle: Do the most good possible while causing the least harm possible. 

Not the perfect solution. Not the most politically convenient solution. But the policy that helps as many people as possible while harming as few as possible. 

Because for every policy that prioritizes profit over people, that strips away protections instead of strengthening them, that turns a blind eye to suffering, there are real lives at stake. Your job is to be the one who never forgets that. 

Policy Work Nobody Sees 

You are stepping into a world of invisible victories. The type of change that doesn’t always come with applause. The kind of work where success might mean people don’t end up homeless, incarcerated, sick, or forgotten, but they’ll never know your name. 

If you need credit, this might not be your path (or you better start running a campaign real soon so you can get up on a podium like the one I am on and take all of the credit for the behind the scenes work of your classmates) . But, seriously if you are willing to do the right thing even when no one’s watching, even when you’re told you’re too inexperienced, too quiet, too radical, too unpolished, then you just might change the world. 

Let me tell you about someone most people outside New Mexico, and frankly, many people in New Mexico, have never heard of: 

George W. Malone. 

He was a Black educator, civil rights leader, and the first Black attorney to sign the official roll of attorneys in New Mexico in 1919. And the city he listed when he signed? Blackdom, an all-Black settlement founded in the early 1900s by African Americans fleeing racial violence and chasing freedom. 

Malone pushed for desegregation, and property rights policies long before there were headlines to support him. He worked in quiet rooms and made powerful ripples. And today, I stand here, able to do this work, able to carry these responsibilities, because of people like him. 

He flapped his wings, and I get to breathe that air. 

So will you. 

Closing: Be the Butterfly 

So flap your wings. 

Make the small change in a policy draft that protects someone. Ask the inconvenient question in the budget meeting. Write the line of code, the clause in a bill, the footnote in the memo, that shifts things, just a little. 

Because that’s how it works. You may never see the full effect of what you set in motion, you may not even get the credit. But George Malone didn’t either. He was just a Black man fleeing violence to this beautiful landscape in NM, insisting on his dignity. 

And his wings created a better NM. 

Congratulations, graduates! And I wouldn’t be a true institutionalist having been anchored to this school all of my educational professional life if I didn’t at least drop one…Go Lobos and Go Flap wisely!"