Vice President Kamala Harris briefly mentioned her father, Donald J. Harris, during her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago. This rare reference to her father has drawn attention to his background as a "combative Marxist economist," a description given by the Economist.
According to a Fox News report, Donald J. Harris is a retired Stanford University professor of economics with a career steeped in Marxist theory.
Born in Jamaica in 1938, Donald J. Harris immigrated to the United States to pursue his doctorate in economics at the University of California, Berkeley. It was there that he met Shyamala Gopalan, Kamala Harris' mother, who had immigrated from India. The couple married and had two daughters, Kamala and Maya, before divorcing when Kamala was 7 years old.
Donald Harris' academic journey took him through various prestigious institutions, including Northwestern University and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In 1972, he joined Stanford University as a professor of economics, where he notably became the first Black scholar to receive tenure within the university's economic school.
The Stanford Daily, the university's student newspaper, described Harris as teaching "radical political economics" and referred to him as a "Marxian economist" in 1974. His approach to economics was characterized by its foundation in Marxist theory, which has led to some controversy and criticism.
After retiring from teaching in 1998, Harris continued to pursue his interests in developing public policies to promote economic growth and social equity. He has since served as an expert on economic growth strategies for his home country of Jamaica.
Throughout her political career, Kamala Harris has rarely mentioned her father. In 2003, she stated, "My father is a good guy, but we are not close." However, in 2021, she told the Washington Post that she and her father were on "good terms."
In her 2019 memoir "The Truths We Hold," Harris only mentioned her father a handful of times, noting that "it was mostly my mother who raised us." During her DNC acceptance speech, she briefly touched on her early memories of her parents, saying:
Donald Harris, in a recent essay, addressed the challenges he faced in maintaining a relationship with his daughters following his divorce from their mother.
He wrote:
After a hard-fought custody battle in the family court of Oakland, California, the context of the relationship was placed within arbitrary limits imposed by a court-ordered divorce settlement based on the false assumption by the State of California that fathers cannot handle parenting. Nevertheless, I persisted, never giving up on my love for my children or reneging on my responsibilities as their father.
In 2019, Donald Harris made a rare public statement in response to his daughter's comments about smoking marijuana. Kamala Harris had joked about her Jamaican heritage when asked about marijuana use, saying, "Half my family's from Jamaica. Are you kidding me?"
Her father took issue with this comment, writing in an essay for a Jamaican media outlet that his parents would be "turning in their grave" over the remark. He stated:
My dear departed grandmothers... as well as my deceased parents, must be turning in their grave right now to see their family's name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics.
Donald J. Harris, the father of Vice President Kamala Harris, is a retired Stanford University professor with a background in Marxist economic theory. While his relationship with his daughter has been described as complicated, he has maintained a low public profile throughout her political career. His academic contributions and occasional public statements have provided insight into the complex family dynamics of one of America's most prominent political figures.
