Dr. Mary Frances Berry has been chairperson of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission since 1993. As Assistant Secretary for Education in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare during the Carter administration, she coordinated and supervised federal education program budgets that totaled nearly thirteen billion dollars. She has received twenty-eight honorary doctoral degrees and numerous awards for her public service, including the NAACP's Roy Wilkins Award and the Rosa Parks Award of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought at the University of Pennsylvania.