Who is Donald Harris? Kamala Harris’s Father is a Noted Former Stanford Economics Professor.

Katie Dupere
·6 min read

From Men's Health

With Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden recently announcing California senator Kamala Harris as his running mate for the 2020 election, many voters are curious to learn more about Harris’ background. This includes curiosity around her upbringing and influential people in her life, including her successful mother and father.

Harris often talks about her progressive immigrant parents in broad terms to reinforce her views on public policy and social issues. While she often talks about her mother’s influence on her life, the vice presidential nominee is a little more mum when it comes to dedicating campaign time specifically to her father, Donald Harris. Media reports on their father-daughter relationship suggest things are complicated and a bit strained between them. But Donald Harris is a noted figure in his own right, with a history of civil rights activism and advocacy for economic equity. And these values, by Kamala Harris' own admission, influenced her views of the world and politics.

Here are seven things to know about Kamala Harris' father, Donald Harris, and his influence on the VP hopeful.

He immigrated to the United States from Jamaica.

Donald Harris was born in Jamaica, and spent his formative years in the country. He graduated with an undergraduate degree from The University of the West Indies in Jamaica, which is a University of London school, in 1960. He then moved to the United States to pursue a PhD in economics at University of California-Berkley, which he completed in 1966.

Donald Harris is a former economics professor at Stanford.

Donald joined Stanford’s staff in 1972 to teach economics. He had previously taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison prior to settling at Stanford. He was at the university for more than two decades, becoming a leader in the development of Stanford’s economics program.

Donald retired from Stanford in 1998 to “pursue more actively and practically his long-standing interest in developing public policies to promote economic growth and advance social equity,” according to his bio.

He has been a key advisor to improving Jamaica’s economy.

Donald currently holds both Jamaican and United States citizenship. Though he has spent the majority of his life living in the United States, Donald Harris has been deeply involved in the economic development of Jamaica, using his education and immense knowledge to advise the nation’s top officials.

“Throughout his career, he has had a continuing engagement with work on the economy of Jamaica, his native country,” his Stanford bio reads. “He served there, at various times, as economic consultant to the Government of Jamaica and as economic adviser to successive prime ministers.”

Donald is said to be particularly invested in the economic growth of developing nations, which goes along with his long history of activism on behalf of marginalized communities.

He was involved in the Civil Rights movement along with Kamala Harris’s mother.

Donald met Shyamala Gopalan in the early 1960s while both were students at UC Berkley. The pair met outside of the classroom at a group created to discuss “Black writers overlooked by the university curriculum and debate about politics, decolonization and activism,” according to The Mercury News. The pair were also active in the Civil Rights Movement, which Kamala Harris names as integral to her story.

"My parents marched and shouted in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. It’s because of them and the folks who also took to the streets to fight for justice that I am where I am," Harris wrote on Instagram on June 10. "They laid the path for me, as only the second Black woman ever elected to the United States Senate."

Donald and Shyamala married while still in school, and remained active in racial justice activism, particularly her mother. They reportedly used to push Kamala in a stroller at protests for racial justice and Black freedom.

Kamala Harris’ father and mother divorced during her childhood.

Shymala filed for divorce from Donald in 1971, when Kamala was seven years old. The divorce was finalized in 1973. During divorce proceedings, Shymala was granted custody of Kamala and her sister, Maya. In an essay in Jamaica Global Online, which is now removed from the web, Donald said his interactions with his daughters "came to an abrupt halt in 1972" after he lost "hard-fought custody battle.”

Regardless, he also wrote that he never gave up on “my love for my children or reneging on my responsibilities as their father." Kamala and Maya would visit their father during the summers and on holidays, but were largely raised by their mother from that point forward. Shymala Gopalan died in 2009 of colon cancer.

Kamala Harris and her father are reported to have a strained relationship.

Though Kamala has openly and proudly talked about her mother and her Jamacian heritage on the campaign trail, she rarely directly references her father. Many have taken this, and other comments made by Donald which are outlined below, to mean that the two have a rocky relationship. It’s unclear what exactly caused this reportedly “strained relationship,” or if the two are currently in contact. However, some family matters deserve to remain private and respected, even among public political candidates.

Donald has said he does not plan to give media interviews in relationship to his daughter’s campaign.

He has openly criticized a joke Kamala Harris made during her presidential campaign.


Perhaps the most cited example of the pair’s strained relationship comes from Donald’s reaction to a joke Kamala made during her own presidential campaign. In February 2019, while being interviewed by radio show The Breakfast Club, Harris was asked if she ever smoked marijuana in her younger years.

“Half my family’s from Jamaica,” she responded. “Are you kidding me?”

That joke didn’t go over well with Donald, who sent a scathing statement to Jamaica Global Online. He wrote: “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.”

Later in the essay, he added, “Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty.”

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