With about six weeks to go before President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris take office, their incoming administration is likely to be the most diverse in the nation’s history, according to experts.
Though civil rights groups are jockeying to ensure that African Americans, Hispanics and Asians are in key posts — Dr. Melanye T. Price, who holds an endowed professorship in political science at Prairie View A&M University said it’s so far, so good.
“Biden’s choices for key roles in his administration include several high profile and history-making appoints,” said Price, the author of The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the Political Uses of Race. “Appointing an African American Secretary of Defense and Ambassador to the U.N. are huge steps. We anticipate that he will appoint a Native American to lead the Department of the Interior. The number of women appointed is also impressive. All of this indicates that the Biden administration is taking seriously the need to have his administration reflect the diversity of voters who put him in office.”
If retired Army four-staff general Lloyd Austin is confirmed, he will be the first African American U.S. Secretary of Defense. Biden has also nominated Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and has nominated Susan Rice — who served as the ambassador to the United Nations during the Obama Administration — to run the White House Domestic Policy Council.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a career diplomat who served as ambassador to Liberia and as director-general of the Foreign Service as well as assistant secretary for African affairs, was nominated to serve as the ambassador to the United Nations.
Biden, however, has received pressure from Black, Hispanic and Asian groups who want him to diversity even more. Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez called last week for at least five Latinxs to be appointed to Cabinet-level positions.
So far, Biden has nominated Alejandro Mayorkas, a Cuban American, to head the government agency that oversees immigration issues, the Department of Homeland Security. He has also tapped California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a former House Democratic leader, as Health and Human Services secretary, a key role as the Biden administration responds to the coronavirus pandemic.
