CHICAGO — On the March morning she officially became the chair of the board of directors of the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation, Martha Minow sat on a couch in the handsomely appointed apartment of her father and remembered the past.
“In the summer after my freshman year at college, I worked as a copy clerk for the Sun-Times and Daily News,” she says, talking about the building that housed both newspapers, now the site of Trump Tower. “It was fascinating, carrying papers, learning layout. I was able to write a couple of obituaries. And I met so many great people, Lois Wille among them. And I used to get coffee for Mike Royko. He was fine but I think I did hear him growl once.”
That summer job, though it did help fire an early if short-lived passion for becoming a journalist, is not on her resume. Among the many details on its 31 pages packed with accomplishments is undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan; a master’s degree in education from Harvard University and a law degree from Yale; clerking for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall; teaching at Harvard Law since 1981 and replacing Elena Kagan as dean in 2009; becoming in 2018 the 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard; writing a number of books and dozens of articles ... and on and on.
