Morgan Made

Taking Leadership in Educational and Workforce Equity

Khalilah Harris

Soon after taking her second highranking federal government post during the Obama presidency, in 2016, Khalilah Harris, Ed.D., J.D., posted this message on Facebook: “Attending an HBCU cultivated my passion to serve others & build community. I’m glad I went to Morgan State and am honored to serve w/ OPM (the U.S. Office of Personnel Management)!”

Dr. Harris exemplifies Morgan’s motto of “growing the future” and “leading the world.” After graduating from the University with a Bachelor of Arts in political science, in 1998, she earned her law degree at the University of Maryland, practiced family law for a short time then answered her calling to the field Americans; Senior Advisor to the Director of OPM; and Managing Director of K12 Education Policy for the Center for American Progress. She has also shared her knowledge and expertise in the media, as a regular contributor to MSNBC and Forbes and as a producer and show host for The Real News Network.

In April, she began her second tenure at OPM, as Deputy Chief of Staff of the Office of the Director, where her work includes “helping initiatives that ensure young people, particularly those attending Minority Serving Institutions, are able to consider the federal government as a place they can work and use their talents,” Harris explains.

The Real Hillman Khalilah Harris, then Khalilah Nugent, came to Morgan as a first-year student when she was 16 and credits her Morgan professors with lifting her and her classmates to high standards of cultural and political awareness, community service and Black excellence. For Harris, that meant completing the job her extended family of Caribbean and Afro Latinx immigrants had begun earlier in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York. At the Philippa Schuyler Middle School for the Gifted and Talented, she recalls, her classmates included many students who went on to great success, among them hip hop artist and actor Yasiin Bey, better known as Mos Def.

“The professors at Morgan were raising us. Similar to my vice principal in middle school, we were part of their extended family…. They would not allow us to fudge our work or half-step.”

— Khalilah Harris, Ed.D., J.D., Morgan State University Class of 1998 of education, where she has worked for, advocated for and demanded excellence in service to students in grades K–12 and college for more than 20 years. Excerpts of her resume include service as Director of Advancement for Baltimore City Public Schools; Executive Director of BFA Foundation, Inc., in support of a public charter school named Baltimore Freedom Academy; Deputy Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African

“My hero was Claire Huxtable, and I thought for many years that I was going to Hillman College,” says Harris, who is a firstgeneration U.S. citizen and first-generation college attendee. “…So early in life I knew I wanted to go to an HBCU.”

Having learned the fictional Hillman was not a real option, Harris applied to Morgan State, Howard and Hampton Universities when she was a senior in high school, was accepted to all and quickly decided on MSU. She arrived on campus in August 1994 with little money but very high expectations. Morgan, she says, exceeded her hopes.

“My mom brought me to Morgan on a charter bus. She didn’t drive, and we didn’t have that kind of money,” Harris recalls. “We took cabs to campus. She got back in a cab and went back home. She gave me $80 a month to survive. Again, I was 16, so the prospect of getting a job without a car was not really a possibility. So that’s how I came to Morgan, and I’m so grateful.”

“…The professors at Morgan were raising us,” Harris explains. “Similar to my vice principal in middle school, we were part of their extended family. Their expectation of us was like we were children in their own home. And that was very palpable, that they would not allow us to make excuses. They would not allow us to fudge our work or half-step. And I needed that as a 16-year-old.”

Those surrogate Morgan parents included, among others, political science professor Michael Kamara, who steered her to enrollment at the University of Maryland School of Law; English professor Lois McMillan; and history professor Brenda Brown, who demanded knowledge of the continent of Africa. Equally respected was Ms. Singleton, the no-nonsense resident director of her dormitory, HarperTubman House. And then there were her supportive elders and peers in Alpha Kappa Sorority, Inc., Alpha Delta Chapter, with whom she still has invaluable bonds today. Timeless Bonds

Morgan also gave her ample opportunities to continue serving the local community, as she had since her early teens.

“When I first got to Morgan, I began volunteering, true to form, at a school named Lexington Terrace Elementary, which doesn’t exist anymore. At Lexington Terrace, I saw these young people who were brilliant: smart, funny, but they could not read. And it struck me immediately that something was wrong, that the adults were failing the children. And even now in my career, I don’t permit people to use words like ‘at-risk youth’ or ‘low-income kids.’ Using labels that hide what adults are supposed to do is not acceptable to me. And that connects back to my first experiences volunteering at Morgan. I also volunteered in Kuumba, with (Morgan’s Director of Community Service) Deanna Ikhinmwin, during the Kwanzaa programming.” Today, Harris’ timeless bond to Morgan extends to many students of her generation. She has served as president of the NeXtGen MSU Alumni Chapter since 2018, leading the chapter’s virtual networking, its advocacy of continuing education programs geared toward Generation X Morganites and its fundraising for the University.

A leader in multiple areas of her life, Harris names motherhood as her most important position. And like other talented young people, her three daughters — an 8th grader, a 12th grader and a college sophomore — help keep her optimistic about the future and her work in diversity, equity and inclusion.

Regarding her current work with OPM, she says, “I enjoy it a lot, coming back into a more senior role and being able to help this organization; building morale and making sure that the largest workforce in the country is treated well and that we’re recruiting a diverse workforce that reflects the American public in all its richness.” n