Headline: Vice President Kamala Harris is Officially the Highest Ranking Woman Elected in the U.S. Government

Author: Alex Bowser

On January 20th, Vice President Kamala Devi Harris was sworn in as the new Vice President of the United States, which makes her the highest ranking woman in the American governmental system, not to mention the first black, and the first South Asian American to become Vice President.

Prior to her title as Vice President, Harris had already made many firsts, starting with her time as a U.S. senator for California as the first South Asian American, as well as the second black woman, to serve in the upper chamber. Before this, she had also spent over three decades in law enforcement, from being a local prosecutor to becoming the first woman, first African American, and first South Asian American acting as Attorney General of California.

Harris’ education consists of a bachelor’s in political science and economics from Howard University, a historically black college located in Washington D.C. During her time at Howard, she also joined a sorority called Alpha Kappa Alpha, the nation’s oldest historically black sorority.

When she graduated in 1986, Harris went to the University of California to attend law school at the Hastings College of the Law. Before graduating with a Juris Doctor in 1989, she served as President of the Black Law Students Association there.

During Harris’ time as the District Attorney of San Francisco, she created multiple programs and numerous initiatives, such as forming an environmental crimes unit, leading an effort to combat truancy in San Francisco for elementary school students, and creating the San Francisco Reentry Division as a way to rehabilitate young nonviolent offenders, all in her first two years alone.

As the Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2017, Harris was more focused on consumer protection, aiming to protect privacy rights. Harris had mandated apps sold in stores of companies such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft to prominently display privacy policies. In addition, she also created the Privacy Enforcement and Protection Unit.

Harris also worked in fraud and relief for Californians with insurance companies, creating the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force after the foreclosure crisis in the U.S. and worked on negotiating over 18 billion in debt relief for homeowners after mortgage firms were convicted of illegally foreclosing on homeowners.

Public safety was also prominent for Harris, where she continued to stand for environmental protection and began work within law enforcement regarding implicit biases in policing. She had conducted investigations in some of what was said to be the “deadliest police departments in America,” the Bakersfield Police Department and the Kern County’s Sheriff’s Department, in order to ensure civil rights in California.

With her term as vice president just beginning, many who had hoped for the election of Hillary Clinton back in 2016 have gained a new kind of hope; not only can Harris represent women, but advocate against the systemic racism and incidences of police brutality in the U.S. government.

Even after ending her own campaign in the 2020 Democratic presidential race, Harris drew much attention, especially after the spark of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and her past criticism of President Joe Biden for his position on the issue of systemic racism in the past. Biden later announced his pick for Vice President on August 11th.

Together, Biden and Harris have announced their concern and plans for dealing with the current situation of America, which is plagued with an uncontrollable virus and severely divided by partisan politics after former President Donald Trump’s fueling of the Republican party.

Both Biden and Harris recognize and are trying to effect change in the economic crisis, especially affecting African, Latino, and Asian Americans, from their unemployment rates rapidly increasing to their businesses being forced to close their doors.

According to the Biden Campaign website, Biden and Harris plan to “remove barriers to participation in our economy.” Their goal for all Americans in the next four years is to “expand access to opportunity.”

To name a few efforts towards empowering specifically black communities and other Americans, Biden and Harris are focused on making college affordable by forgiving federal student debt, reforming the criminal justice system starting with ending incarnation for drug use and investing in an infrastructure built on clean energy that will simultaneously act as an effort to offer more high-paying jobs that will reach black communities.

Though neither Biden nor Harris believes that their administration during the next four years will be able to completely eliminate racial injustices in the government, they believe in doing anything and everything in their power to address the issue, with their term being the beginning of the battle to end systemic racism.