Karine Jean-Pierre MPA ’03 Will Become White House Press Secretary

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SIPA alumna Karine Jean-Pierre MPA ’03 will become President Biden’s press secretary on May 13, the White House announced yesterday. Jean-Pierre will be the first Black person and the first LGBTQ person to hold what the New York Times called “one of the most high-profile jobs in American politics.”



Jean-Pierre currently serves as principal deputy press secretary. During the 2020 campaign she was a senior advisor to Biden and chief of staff to now Vice President Kamala Harris. She will replace Jen Psaki, who has been press secretary since Biden took office in January 2021.

The president said that Jean-Pierre “not only brings the experience, talent and integrity needed for this difficult job, but she will continue to lead the way in communicating about the work of the Biden-Harris administration on behalf of the American people.”

Before she joined the Biden campaign in 2020, Jean-Pierre was the senior adviser and national spokesperson for MoveOn. She had previously been a political analyst for MSNBC and had also worked in the Obama White House.

Jean-Pierre grew up in Queens as the child of Haitian immigrants. During her time at SIPA she served as co-president of SIPASA, the SIPA student government; she later rejoined the School as an adjunct professor, teaching the course Campaign Management each spring from 2014 through 2020.

Jean-Pierre visited SIPA in December 2019 to discuss her then recent memoir, Moving Forward. Among other things, she said that she entered politics in part because of the mentorship provided by SIPA professors Ester Fuchs and the late David Dinkins.



“It matters to have mentors, it matters to have people who care about you, and they were not just invested in me while I was at SIPA, they were invested in me after SIPA,” she told the audience.

“Don't Lose the Idealism That You Have”

recorded December 2019 — read transcript