1. Minnie Joycelyn Elders was born on Minnie Lee Jones; August 13,1933 and is an American pediatrician and public health administrator who served as Surgeon General of the United States from 1993 to 1994.
23 Facts About Joycelyn Elders
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Joycelyn Elders was forced to resign in December 1994 amidst controversy as a result of her views.
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Joycelyn Elders is currently a professor emerita of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
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Joycelyn Elders was born Minnie Lee Jones in Schaal, Arkansas, to a poor, farm sharecropping family, and was the eldest of eight children, and valedictorian of her school class.
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Joycelyn Elders married briefly to Cornelius Reynolds, a Federal employee, and later to Oliver Elders, a basketball coach.
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Joycelyn Elders criticized older textbooks that said only white females had naturally regular periods, because white females were on birth control to regulate their periods.
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Joycelyn Elders has received a National Institutes of Health career development award, serving as assistant professor in pediatrics at the University of Arkansas Medical Center from 1967.
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Joycelyn Elders was promoted to associate professor in 1971 and professor in 1976.
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At her confirmation hearing, Joycelyn Elders responded to criticism over an incident in which she decided not to notify the public that condoms her department had been distributing in Arkansas had been found to be defective, with a failure rate ten times the allowed rate.
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Joycelyn Elders said that "I don't know" whether the decision had been correct, but she had believed at the time that public disclosure could lead to a public loss of faith in the efficacy of condoms, which would have been the greater danger.
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Joycelyn Elders was a controversial choice and a strong backer of the Clinton health care plan, so she was not confirmed until September 7,1993.
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Joycelyn Elders argued for an exploration of the possibility of drug legalization, and backed the distribution of contraceptives in schools.
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President Clinton stood by Joycelyn Elders, saying that she was misunderstood.
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Joycelyn Elders drew fire, as well as censure from the Clinton administration, when she suggested that legalizing drugs might help reduce crime and that the idea should be studied.
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Joycelyn Elders believes the incident was a frame-up and the timing of the charges was designed to embarrass her and the president.
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Kevin Joycelyn Elders was convicted, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, of which he served four months.
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Joycelyn Elders appealed his conviction to the Arkansas Supreme Court, and that court affirmed the conviction.
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The court held that Joycelyn Elders failed to show that he was entrapped into making the narcotics sale.
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Since leaving her post as Surgeon General, Joycelyn Elders has returned to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences as professor of pediatrics, and is currently professor emerita at UAMS.
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Joycelyn Elders is a regular on the lecture circuit, speaking against teen pregnancy.
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Joycelyn Elders was inducted into the Arkansas Women's Hall of Fame in 2016.
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Joycelyn Elders received a Candace Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1991.
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Joycelyn Elders was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa as an honoris causa initiate at SUNY Plattsburgh in 1996.