With the intellectual skills of a Political Economy major and the personal adroitness of a J.A., you have built from your Mead Summer Internship in Washington a singular career in the application of analytical horsepower to the improvement of people’s lives. Bridging the worlds of the academy, advocacy, and government, you have served as Chair of Howard University’s Department of Economics, Director of Research and Public Policy at The National Urban League, Staff Leader of the National Commission for Employment Policy, Senior Economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, and now Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor. In all these roles, you have been an economist with a conscience, arguing, always with data, for the elimination of unfairness and the expansion of opportunity. Your persistent, if uncomfortable, rallying cry is that “poverty … is the result of policy choices and moral conviction, or its absence.” And you have advanced that cause even more broadly through your presentations in countries around the world and your engagement with the U.N. Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia, and Other Forms of Intolerance. Few have been so able at combining the roles of public intellectual and public servant. In recognition of your distinguished achievement in public policy, Williams College is proud to honor you with its Bicentennial Medal.
Megamenu Social