Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Names and faces
▪ Doug Emhoff, the incoming second gentleman, has landed a new job at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., school officials announced. The husband of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is leaving his Los Angeles law firm to spend the next part of his career teaching. His appointment — along with incoming first lady Jill Biden’s decision to return to teaching — represents a modernization of the roles typically played by first and second spouses. Emhoff will serve as a distinguished visitor from practice when he joins the faculty in January, school officials said, bringing nearly three decades of expertise in intellectual property, entertainment and media law. “I’ve long wanted to teach and serve the next generation of young lawyers,” Emhoff said. “I couldn’t be more excited to join the Georgetown community.” William Treanor, dean of the law school, said he was “delighted” to have Emhoff join the staff. “Doug is one of the nation’s leading intellectual property and business litigators, and he has a strong commitment to social justice,” Treanor said. “I know our students will greatly benefit from his experience and insight, and I am eagerly looking forward to his arrival.” Naomi Mezey, a law professor who teaches subjects including gender and sexuality, said many colleagues are excited about the addition. “Georgetown has a long history of having access to really interesting legal scholars and practitioners because they come through Washington,” Mezey said. “We have this really wonderful, diverse group of distinguished visitors who come for a while and enrich the faculty, but also enrich the education that our students get.”
▪ “Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin and Nobel laureate and “Beloved” author Toni Morrison were inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in a virtual ceremony last week as part of a posthumous class of Black honorees that also includes Henrietta Lacks, whose cells were widely used in biomedical research; Barbara Hillary, the first Black woman to travel to both the North and South Poles, and civil-rights activists Barbara Rose Johns Powell and Mary Church Terrell. Franklin had dozens of hits over a half-century, and her signature song, “Respect,” has stood as a cultural icon. She won 18 Grammy awards and in 1987 became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She died in 2018 at age 76. Morrison helped raise American multiculturalism to the world stage. She was nearly 40 when her first novel, “The Bluest Eye,” was published. After just six novels, in 1993 she became the first Black woman to receive the Nobel literature prize, earning praise from the Swedish academy for her “visionary force.” In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded Morrison a Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was 88 when she died last year.