Former UT-Brownsville President Juliet García to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom

Then-UT Brownsville President Juliet García at a University of Texas System Board of Regents meeting in 2013. (Credit: Callie Richmond for The Texas Tribune)

Juliet García had just finished gardening in her backyard in Brownsville when she saw she had two missed calls from a Washington, D.C., number.

She returned the calls, and a White House staffer told her that President Joe Biden wanted to award her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. García is the former president of the University of Texas at Brownsville and the first Latina to become the president of a college or university in the United States. She joins the ranks of previous recipients of the medal including the late John Lewis, Meryl Streep, Maya Angelou and Babe Ruth.