Everything about Joycelyn Elders totally explained
Minnie Joycelyn Elders (born
August 13,
1933) was the 15
th Surgeon General of the United States and a former
vice admiral in the
Public Health Service Commissioned Corps from
September 8,
1993 to
December 31,
1994. Dr. Elders is most famous for her outspokenness on sensitive issues of public health.
Elders earned a B.S. in biology, an M.D. degree, an M.S. in biochemisty, and, after her term as Surgeon General, a Doctor of Science degree. Starting in 1967, she was a professor at the University of Arkansas Medical Center. In 1987,
Governor Bill Clinton appointed Elders as Director of the Arkansas Department of Health. In 1993, as president, he appointed her U.S. Surgeon General. She was the first
African American to hold the position. Controversy followed her comments about drug legalization, contraceptives, and masturbation. As a result, Clinton fired her in 1994, and she returned to her career as a professor.
Early life
Elders was born
Minnie Lee Jones in
Schaal, Arkansas. In college, she changed her name to
Minnie Joycelyn Lee (later she used just Joycelyn). In 1952, she received her B.S. in
biology from
Philander Smith College in
Little Rock, Arkansas. After working as a
nurse's aide in a
Veterans Administration hospital in
Milwaukee for a period, she joined the
United States Army in May, 1953. During her 3 years in the Army, she was trained as a
physical therapist. She then attended the
University of Arkansas Medical School, where she obtained her
M.D. degree in 1960. After completing an internship at the
University of Minnesota Hospital and a residency in pediatrics at the University of Arkansas Medical Center, Elders earned an
M.S. in Biochemistry in 1967.
Elders then received a
National Institutes of Health career development award, also serving as assistant professor in
pediatrics at the University of Arkansas Medical Center from 1967. She was promoted to associate professor in 1971 and
professor in 1976. Her research interests focused on
endocrinology, and she received certification as a
pediatric endocrinologist in 1978. She became an expert on childhood sexual development. Elders received a
D.Sc. from
Bates College in 2002.
Surgeon General
In 1987,
Governor Bill Clinton appointed Elders as Director of the Arkansas Department of Health. Her accomplishments in this position included a tenfold increase in the number of early childhood screenings annually and almost a doubling of the immunization rate for two-year-olds in Arkansas. In 1992, she was elected President of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers.
In 1993 after Clinton was elected president, he appointed her United States Surgeon General, making her the first
African American, and the second woman, to hold the position (
Antonia Novello was the first). She was a strong backer of the
Clinton health care plan. As surgeon general, Elders quickly established a reputation for controversy. Like many of the surgeons general before her, she was an outspoken advocate of a variety of health-related causes. She argued for an exploration of the possibility of
drug legalization and backed the distribution of
contraceptives in schools. President Clinton stood by Elders, saying that she was misunderstood.
Life after government
Since leaving her post as surgeon general, she's returned to the
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences as professor of
pediatrics. She is also a regular on the lecture circuit, speaking on issues related to AIDS and teen
pregnancy.
Elders wrote a book in an attempt to present her side of the controversies that surrounded her during her 18-month tenure as surgeon general. Already reviled by conservatives for advocating abortion rights and condom distribution in schools, Elders drew fire — and censure from the Clinton administration — when she suggested that legalizing drugs might help reduce crime and that the idea should be studied. Almost immediately afterward, her son Kevin was arrested for cocaine possession, in what she still believes was a frame-up designed to embarrass her and the president.
Quotations
- "How do you get rid of the trash? It's out there in society, it's going on every day...You can educate children an awful lot easier than you can get rid of the trash." —Los Angeles Times interview
- "We must stop this love affair with the fetus." —Austin, Texas, Jan. 21, 1994
- "The number of Down's Syndrome infants in Washington state in 1976 was 64% lower than it would have been without legal abortion." —Testimony before Congress in 1990.
- "Education, education, education. The only way we're going to get around [AIDS] is with education. We have no vaccine, we've no magic drug. All we've got is education."
- "As long as I was in Washington I never met anybody that I thought was good enough, who knew enough, or who loved enough to make sexual decisions for anybody else."
- "We know that more than 70 to 80% of women masturbate, and 90% of men masturbate, and the rest lie."
- "We've tried ignorance for a thousand years. It's time to try education."
- "I'm against Abstinence programs, because I really consider Abstinence Only to be child abuse."
References in pop culture
Elders was identified as the President of the United States in an alternate-reality universe, in the episode "The Luck of the Draw" of the 1995-2000 TV show Sliders.Further Information
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