Donna Shalala - WikiHQ

Donna Edna Shalala ( ; born February 14, 1941) is an American retired politician and academic. She served in the Carter and Clinton administrations. From 2019 to 2021, she served in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing for a single term before losing re-election. She is a member of the Democratic Party.

Shalala received a bachelor's degree in 1962 and served in the Peace Corps before earning a PhD from Syracuse University in 1970. She subsequently held faculty positions at Baruch College and Columbia University, and was appointed Assistant Secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Jimmy Carter. She served as president of Hunter College from 1980 to 1988, then as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. From 1993 to 2001, she served as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton — the longest tenure in that role — and was the first Lebanese-American to hold a Cabinet position. She subsequently served as president of the University of Miami (2001–2015) and the Clinton Foundation (2015–2017). In 2008, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Shalala was first elected to Congress in 2018. She served one term before losing re-election in 2020 to María Elvira Salazar in an upset. Shalala was interim president of The New School in New York City from 2023 to 2024.

Early life and education

Shalala was born in Cleveland, Ohio, of Maronite Catholic Lebanese descent. Her father sold real estate; was a teacher who worked two jobs and attended law school at night. From 1962 to 1964, she was among the first volunteers to serve in the Peace Corps. Her placement took her to a rural farming village in southern Iran where she worked with other volunteers to construct an agricultural college. In 1970, she earned a Ph.D. <!-- & a master's degree per

Career

Teaching and Carter administration (1970–1988)

Shalala began her teaching career as a political science professor at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York, where she also was a member of the American Federation of Teachers union.

In 1972, Shalala became a professor of politics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, a post she held until 1979. Shalala became the only woman on the Municipal Assistance Corporation, a group tasked with saving the city during the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis. Concurrently, from 1977 to 1980, she served as the assistant secretary for policy development and research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Carter administration.

Shalala's first experience with academic administration came on October 8, 1980, when she became the tenth president of Hunter College, serving in this capacity until 1988.

University of Wisconsin–Madison chancellorship (1988–1993)

Shalala served as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1988 to 1993. At the time of her chancellorship, the university included 42,000 students, employed 16,500 people, and had an annual budget of $1 billion.

Under Shalala's chancellorship and with her support, the university adopted a broad speech code subjecting students to disciplinary action for communications that were perceived as hate speech. That speech code was later found unconstitutional by a federal judge. Also while chancellor, Shalala supported passage of a revised faculty speech code broadly restricting "harmful" speech in both "noninstructional" and "instructional" settings. The faculty speech code was abolished ten years later, after a number of professors were investigated for alleged or suspected violations.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (1993–2001)

Following a year serving as chair of the Children's Defense Fund (1992–1993), Shalala was nominated in 1992 by then President-elect Bill Clinton for the position of United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. and the Senate voted to confirm her on January 22, 1993. At the start of Shalala's tenure, the Department of Health and Human Services employed 125,000 people and had a budget of $539 billion. In 1996, Shalala was the designated survivor during Clinton's State of the Union address. She is the first Lebanese-American to serve in a cabinet position.

Corporate boards (2001–2012)

In 2001, Shalala joined the boards of UnitedHealth and Lennar, where over the following decade she earned millions of dollars. Shalala was paid almost a half-million dollars in 2010 to serve on the boards of three companies, two of which were run by University of Miami trustees.

When she left Lennar in 2012, the company reported it was to avoid a "conflict of interest". Lennar's CEO, Stuart Miller, had joined the University of Miami Board of Trustees in 2002. Shalala rejoined Lennar in 2017 after she was no longer President of the University. She has also been member of the advisory board of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

University of Miami presidency (2001–2015)

thumb|Shalala with President [[George W. Bush and former Senator Bob Dole prior to co-chairing the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors, 2007]]

In 2001, Shalala became president of the University of Miami. She created a University of Miami fundraising campaign, Momentum, designed to raise the university's endowment from approximately $750 million to $1 billion; the goal was later increased to $1.25 billion by the end of 2007.

Shalala faced criticism for her response to a nationally publicized custodial workers' strike at the University of Miami, which lasted from February 28, 2006, until May 1, 2006. Critics called the University of Miami's custodial workers among the lowest paid university-based custodians in the nation and alleged they were not earning a living wage. The strike prompted Shalala to raise wages. Shalala was also criticized for living in luxury while the custodians did not have health insurance. Shalala criticized union organizer's tactics, including a sit-in that she said prevented students from attending classes.

Clinton Foundation (2015–2017)

In 2015, Shalala took a leave of absence from her tenured professorship at the University of Miami to volunteer for the Clinton Foundation. She followed her tenure as president of the University of Miami by being named chief executive officer of the Foundation, serving in that capacity from 2015 to 2017.

According to The New York Times, Chelsea Clinton helped persuade Shalala to leave the University of Miami, move to New York and head the foundation. Shalala maintained a home in Miami and taught part-time at the University of Miami while heading the foundation in New York. Shalala oversaw the termination of the Clinton Global Initiative during her tenure as CEO, She resisted calls by The Washington Post and USA Today to shut down the foundation entirely, arguing that "there are human beings around the world who would be affected by these decisions." Shalala left the Clinton Foundation in April 2017 and returned to her full-time teaching position at the University of Miami, replacing her former HHS deputy Kevin Thurm. In early 2018, she said she had recovered.

U.S. House of Representatives (2019–2021)

thumb|Shalala meeting [[Juan Guaidó supporters in Miami, 2019]]

Elections

In March 2018, Shalala declared her candidacy in the Democratic primary for Florida's 27th congressional district. The district included just over half of Miami as well as some of its eastern suburbs. The district voted for Clinton by a comfortable margin in the 2016 presidential election, but its House seat was held by 30-year incumbent Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, On August 28, 2018, Shalala won the Democratic five-candidate primary over state Representative David Richardson. The outcome of the race was substantially closer than polling predicted, which had her leading consistently by double digits. She won with 31.9 percent of the vote, vs. 27.5% for Richardson.

Shalala ran against Republican candidate María Elvira Salazar, an anchorwoman for Miami Telemundo outlet WSCV, in the general election. Shalala's campaign emphasized her experience and sought to tie Salazar to President Donald Trump, who was unpopular in the district. However, Shalala won the election at the age of 77, making her the third-oldest freshman Representative in history after William Lewis of Kentucky who was elected at the age of 79 in 1948 and James B. Bowler of Illinois who was elected at the age of 78 in 1953.

In the 2020 general election, Shalala ran against Republican Salazar again. On November 3, 2020, Shalala was defeated by Salazar. Salazar received 51.4% (176,141 votes) of the vote to Shalala's 48.6% (166,758 votes).

Tenure

Shalala was sworn in as a member of the 116th United States Congress on January 3, 2019.

On December 18, 2019, Shalala voted to impeach President Donald Trump.

On April 17, 2020, Shalala was appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve on the COVID-19 Congressional Oversight Commission to oversee the implementation of the CARES Act. The appointment was met with criticism; the Miami Herald reported that Shalala had violated the STOCK Act by failing to disclose more than 500 stock trades, but Shalala remained on the commission and paid a $1,200 fine to the United States House Committee on Ethics.

On September 28, 2020, the Miami Herald reported that Shalala failed to publicly report two additional stock trades in violation of the STOCK Act disclosure rules.

Shalala was named a vice-chair of the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

Committee assignments

Committee on Education and Labor
Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education
United States House Education Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions
Committee on Rules

Caucus memberships

Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus
Congressional Solar Caucus

Interim presidency at the New School (2023–2024)

Following the departure of Dwight A. McBride, Shalala was appointed as interim president of the New School, becoming the first female president of the university. Following student demands, Shalala's administration listed the property assigned to the president for $20 million. On October 9, 2023, Shalala came under harsh criticism from pro-Palestinian faculty and student groups after emailing a statement about the October 7 attacks that did not acknowledge lives lost in Gaza. The following morning, she issued another statement that included Palestinian recognition as well as an apology for her previous exclusion.

Board memberships

Shalala served on the board of directors of the United States Soccer Federation. Shalala served as a member of the board of directors of Lennar. She served on the board of directors of Gannett Company from 2001 to 2011, retiring because of age limits.

In January 2012, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported on a potential conflict of interest involving Shalala's service on the boards of property development companies.

Civic activities

thumb|[[United States Secretary of Health and Human Services|U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius (right), Shalala (left), former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and former HHS Secretary Louis Wade Sullivan (background) in June 2010]]

In 1985, Shalala became a founding member of EMILY's List, a political action committee that seeks to elect pro-choice Democratic women to office. Shalala served from 2001 to 2007 on the board of the Albert Shanker Institute, a small, three-member staff organization named for the former head of the American Federation of Teachers. She is an honorary board member of the American Iranian Council, an organization that seeks to improve Iran–United States relations.

Shalala serves as a co-leader of the Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center. She serves as a distinguished senior fellow in the Economic Studies Program and the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution. She is also a member of Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington D.C.–based think tank.

Shalala also served as a panelist on the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, a working group of former high-ranking government officials and academic experts that put together a set of recommendations regarding the United States' defense capabilities against biological threats.

Honors and awards

thumb|Shalala receiving the [[Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008]]

At the University of Miami, Shalala was inducted the Iron Arrow Honor Society, the highest honor bestowed by the University of Miami. In 2002, she was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa.

On June 19, 2008, Shalala was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. In 2010, she received the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York in 2011. In 2014, she was recognized by the Harry S Truman Library and Museum with the Harry S Truman Legacy of Leadership Award. In 2019, Shalala was announced as one of the members of the inaugural class of the Government Hall of Fame.

Shalala has been awarded more than 50 honorary degrees.

Notes

References

External links

President Donna E. Shalala Biography, University of Miami.
"America's Best Leaders: Q&A with Donna Shalala, President of the University of Miami, U.S. News & World Report, October 22, 2005.
President Donna E. Shalala Collection, 1980–1988, Hunter College Archives and Special Collections