U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to Receive Radcliffe Medal Tomorrow

U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno will be the 1998 recipient of the Radcliffe Medal from the Radcliffe College Alumnae Association (RCAA). The annual award honors individuals whose lives and work have had a significant impact on society. Reno will receive the medal from RCAA President Jane Tewksbury tomorrow during the RCAA annual luncheon.

Reno, the first woman to serve as United States attorney general, was appointed to her current position by President Clinton on March 12, 1993. She began her legal career in private practice in Florida. After serving as assistant state attorney and staff director of the Florida House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, she became a partner in the firm of Steel, Hector & Davis. In 1978, she was appointed state attorney in Miami, Fla., and subsequently elected to that position five times.

A native of Miami, Reno earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Cornell University in 1960 and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School in 1963.

The former president of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, Reno has been a member of the American Bar Association's Task Force on Minorities and the Justice System and the Special Committee on Criminal Justice in a Free Society.

Reno's work in the criminal justice system has been honored with the Herbert Harley Award from the American Judicature Society in 1981, the Medal of Honor award from The Florida Bar Association in 1990, and the Public Administrator of the Year award from the South Florida Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration in 1983.

Previous recipients of the Radcliffe Medal include entertainer Lena Horne (1987), television journalist Jane Pauley (1988), Radcliffe College President Emerita Matina Souretis Horner (1989), Children's Defense Fund founder and president Marian Wright Edelman (1989), marine scientist Sylvia Alice Earle (1990), Harvard University President Emeritus Derek C. Bok (1991), writer Alice Walker (1992), American Red Cross president Elizabeth H. Dole (1993), former Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham (1994), national correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault (1995), historian Doris Kearns Goodwin (1996), and concert and opera singer Jessye Norman (1997).