Kamala Harris: A look back at 10 UCLA moments with the presidential candidate

As Vice President Kamala Harris kicks off her presidential campaign, UCLA Newsroom takes a look back at her appearances at UCLA over the years - covering her time as San Francisco's district attorney, as California's attorney general, as a U.S. senator and as vice president - and highlights some UCLA-related coverage of Harris, both in the media and by faculty experts on campus.

1. UCLA champions feted at White House by Kamala Harris

(June 12, 2023) In a banner year for UCLA Athletics, UCLA's newly minted NCAA champions - the women's soccer team and men's volleyball team - where honored at the White House during College Athlete Day. The event, attended by both teams and by Chancellor Gene Block and Carol Block, honored 47 title-winning teams across 19 sports and featured remarks by Vice President Kamala Harris (watch the video).

Read more on UCLA Newsroom.

2. Kamala Harris speaks at 'get out the vote' rally at UCLA

(Nov. 7, 2022) Vice President Kamala Harris, speaking at UCLA's Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center, stumped for Los Angeles mayoral candidate Karen Bass and called on Bruins and members of the Southern California community to vote in the 2022 midterm elections. The event was hosted by the California Democratic Party in coordination with the Bruin Democrats. Read the full text of Harris' speech.

3. UCLA Newsroom: The election of Kamala Harris invites Americans to consider identity

(Dec. 1, 2020) Kamala Harris, only the second multiracial person and first woman to take office as vice president, is a groundbreaker, already seen as an example for young women and people of color all across the United States. Harris, who is the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant father and an Indian immigrant mother, represents an American demographic that has long desired fulsome representation in American politics.

"In terms of long-term impact, I hope this opens opportunities for women leaders," UCLA's Natalie Masuokasaid. "The other long-term effect is seeing the power of voters of color."

Read more on UCLA Newsroom.

4. UCLA opinion: Of course Kamala Harris is articulate

(Sept. 14, 2020) In a New York Times op-ed on vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, UCLA anthropology professor H. Sami Alim and Geneva Smitherman, authors of the book "Ariculate While Black," look at why non-Black people so frequently refer to high-achieving Black people - and particularly Black political candidates - as "articulate" - and why it so offensive.

"This year has started to feel a lot like 2007, when Joe Biden apologized to Barack Obama after public criticism for calling him 'the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.'"

Read more on the New York Times website.

5. UCLA opinion: What Kamala Harris brings to the Democratic ticket

Who is Kamala Harris? US Correspondent @AmeliaAdams9 looks at the rise of the US Senator before she formally accepts her Vice Presidential nomination at the Democratic convention. #9Newspic.twitter.com/XZpsKWxDik

(Aug. 26, 2020) Jim Newton, lecturer and editor of UCLA's Blueprint magazine, spoke with Australian news media about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's selection of Sen. Kamala Harris as a running mate. Biden and Harris "come from different backgrounds and different parts of the country," Newton said. "I think her presence on the ticket makes the ticket feel much bigger and much more appealing to a bigger section of the country."

Newton, who has tracked Harris' career for two decades, called her a tough political figure who has sparred with critics from both the left and right. He added that the selection of the first Black woman on the presidential ticket of a major party shows that Biden is open to "a new idea of America, rather than this country fighting to retain a white-majority establishment political culture."

6. UCLA Newsroom: Faculty share insights on selection of Kamala Harris as first Black and Asian American woman VP candidate

Read more on UCLA Newsroom.

7. Sen. Kamala Harris hosts DACA roundtable at UCLA

(Aug. 29, 2017) U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris held a roundtable at the UCLA Labor Center with immigrant youth who are under the protection of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. Since its enactment in 2012, the program has changed the lives of thousands of young people who have lived in the U.S. since they were children. The roundtable was held in partnership with Sen. Harris' team, FWD.us, the Coaltion for Humane Immigrant Rights and the Korean Resource Center to bring attention to the issue and hear from the people who are directly impacted.

Read more and see photos on the UCLA Labor Center website.

8. UCLA Blueprint: Kamala Harris is California's 'top cop'

(Spring 2015) As California's attorney general, Kamala Harris is the top law enforcement officer of the nation's most populous state, and she's a formidable presence. Smart, assertive and ambitious, Harris first won elected office by knocking off an incumbent district attorney in San Francisco - where politics is a blood sport - and then winning a squeaker against Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley in the 2010 race for attorney general. That made her, as she likes to put it, California's "top cop."

She is the first woman, the first African American and the first Asian American to hold that office, which has been occupied by Earl Warren and Jerry Brown, among others.

Read more in UCLA's Blueprint magazine.

9. Kamala Harris addresses human trafficking at UCLA symposium

(Feb. 2, 2015) California Attorney General Kamala Harris drew links between human trafficking and the state's broken foster care in her keynote address at the two-day symposium "Examining the Roots of Human Trafficking and Exploitation," organized by UCLA School of Law. The event took place at the Ackerman Grand Ballroom.

Read more on the Los Angeles Times website.

10. Kamala Harris delivers UCLA School of Law commencement address

(May 13, 2009) "You graduates not only represent one of the finest collections of legal talent anywhere. You are part of the generation that changed the history of our country and the history of the world by making Barack Obama President of the United States," San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris told the UCLA Law class of 2009. "I can't wait to see what you do for an encore!"

Read the full text of the speech and watch Part 2 of the video.