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Gideon de Graft
20th President of Columbia University
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 July 2023
Preceded by	Lee Bollinger
30th United States Ambassador to the United Nations
In office January 5, 2019 – January 10, 2021
Deputy	Jonathan Cohen Richard M. Mills Jr.
Preceded by	Nikki Haley
Succeeded by	Linda Thomas-Greenfield
United States Deputy Representative to the United Nations Acting
In office February 21, 2018 – June 20, 2018
Preceded by	Michele J. Sison
Succeeded by	Jonathan Cohen
United States Ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform
In office August 19, 2017 – June 20, 2018
President	Donald Trump
Preceded by	Isobel Coleman
Succeeded by	Maura Connelly
Deputy Mayor of New York City for Intergovernmental and International Affairs
In office January 26, 2010 – December 31, 2013
Mayor	Michael Bloomberg
Preceded by	Kevin Sheekey
Succeeded by	Position abolished
New York City Commissioner for International Affairs
In office January 1, 2010 – December 31, 2013
Mayor	Michael Bloomberg
Preceded by	Marjorie Tiven
Succeeded by	Penny Abeywardena
Personal details
Born	Gideon Nana Kwabena de Graft (1974-03-29) March 29, 1974 Montefiore Medical Center, The Bronx, New York City, New York
Political party	Republican (until 2011) Independent (since 2011)
Spouse	Andrea Donovan ​ (m. 2006)​
Children	3
Education	Columbia University (BA, MIA) University of Cambridge (PhD)

Gideon Nana Kwabena de Graft (born March 29, 1974) is an American academic, public official, and diplomat who was the 30th United States Ambassador to the United Nations. A former top official in the Michael Bloomberg mayoral administration in New York City, de Graft taught at Columbia University before being appointed to serve in a senior ambassadorial-level post under Nikki Haley at the United States Mission to the United Nations in 2017, spearheading the U.S. push for the reform of the United Nations and serving as Haley's acting deputy.

Following Haley's appointment as Secretary of State, de Graft was nominated by President to Donald Trump to replace her as Ambassador to the United Nations and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent on June 2, 2018.

Early life and career

Gideon de Graft was born at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx on September 29, 1977, the first of three children of Arthur Kweku de Graft and Sarah Efua de Graft (neé Agyemang), both Ghanaian immigrants. Arthur de Graft is a lawyer and professor at New York University Law School who holds LL. B. from the University of Ghana and an LL.M. in taxation law from Georgetown University, while Sarah de Graft is a hospital administrator and former nurse. In de Graft's youth the family lived in Riverdale, Bronx before moving to the New Jersey suburb of Upper Saddle River in Bergen County. De Graft attended the Dwight-Englewood School for elementary and middle school.

De Graft attended Columbia University, graduating in 1996 with a B.A. with honors in economics and political science, including a year abroad at Pembroke College, Cambridge. At Columbia he was a student of realist scholars, including Kenneth Waltz, Jack Snyder, Richard Betts, and Robert Jervis, who would prove formative on his views on foreign policy. Having received a Truman Scholarship for graduate study, he received a master's degree in international affairs from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs in 1997, and interned at the United States Mission to the United Nations as personal assistant to then-ambassador Madeleine Albright. That year he succeeded in being selected for a Marshall Scholarship, electing to pursue doctoral-level study in political economy at the University of Cambridge.

At Cambridge de Graft's doctoral adviser was the heterodox economist Ha-Joon Chang. As he would later recall, he often had fierce disagreements with Chang over their wildly divergent academic approaches to development issues, but they he worked well as both valued independent thinking. De Graft received his doctorate in 2000, having written his thesis on urbanization without structural transformation in Africa, for which he conducted research in Cote d'Ivoire on a Fulbright Award grant. In 2002 an edited version was published by Palgrave Macmillan as Running Towards the Horizon: The Paradox of African Urbanization.

After completing his PhD, de Graft was selected for a year-long fellowship on international political economy at the Council on Foreign Relations in 2000.

Bloomberg administration

While at the Council on Foreign Relations, de Graft met Patricia Harris, then a senior executive at Bloomberg L.P. and a close advisor to its founder and chief executive, Michael Bloomberg, to whom she introduced de Graft. At the time Bloomberg was considering mounting a mayoral bid, which Harris and close advisor Kevin Sheekey argued against, but of which de Graft quickly became an enthusiastic proponent. After Bloomberg launched his campaign, de Graft joined as a senior adviser for Transport, Housing, and Budget policy.

Policy planning chief

After Bloomberg's victory de Graft was appointed deputy Chief of Staff for Policy in the Office of the Mayor, with a broad portfolio of directing long-term planning and policy innovation. During Bloomberg's first term de Graft worked closely with Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Dan Doctoroff, particularly on rezoning proposals.

In July 2005 de Graft was promoted to Chief Advisor and Director of the new Office of Policy and Strategic Planning, with an even broader mandate of centralized policy planning for the entire municipal government. Aided by a "virtually unlimited" budget that enabled "generous" salaries, de Graft's policy planning staff was soon distinguished by both its size and its members' credentials; he was accused by some of elitism for hiring "almost exclusively" from the top policy schools, with a distinct preference for those with Ivy League backgrounds. Gawker alleged the promotion was in part motivated by a desire to impress his future in-laws, both senior academics.

De Graft's wide-ranging interests and connections to policy experts in the academic world enabled his office to play a significant role in a number of initiatives. Along with Doctoroff, De Graft conceived of and oversaw the team that developed PlaNYC, the 127-point plan that brought together more than 25 City agencies to make New York City more environmentally sustainable, hiring Rohit Aggarwala, whom he had met while at Columbia to lead the initiative. In December 2012, he argued the changes made as a result of PlaNYC helped prevent further damage to the city from Hurricane Sandy, particularly in areas designated as flood zones.

Having encouraged the appointment of Janette Sadik-Khan as transit commissioner, de Graft was a driving force in the planning of the Select Bus Service. One of the 127 points of the PlaNYC was the introduction of congestion pricing proposal. Supporters, including de Graft, anticipated that the fees would help finance mass transit system improvements, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% citywide by 2030 and reduce traffic congestion. A study conducted by the NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority in 2007, however, revealed that subway lines were at capacity and could not accommodate an increase in new riders using the system. Congestion pricing was eventually dismissed by New York state legislators in April 2008, claiming the fee was unfair to middle-class commuters who did not have access to mass transit.

Deputy mayor

In 2010 de Graft was promoted to deputy mayor for intergovernmental and international affairs, in addition to assuming the new post of Director of the Office of International Affairs (previously the Commission for the United Nations, Consular Corps and Protocol). This followed Bloomberg's successful re-election campaign in 2009, on which de Graft had served as director of policy and for whose work he had earned a $400,000 bonus. De Graft's role as a foreign policy advisor to the mayor had grown over the years, particularly as a result of his having opposed the Iraq War, on realist grounds, whereas the mayor had been an strong supporter of the invasion; Bloomberg put it bluntly, saying "Gideon was right, and I was wrong, which is why I trust him."

Described as New York City's "de facto foreign minister"

De Graft also spearheaded the Young Men's Initiative, a municipal program funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Open Society Foundations, aimed at reducing ethnic disparities in education, health outcomes, employment, and incarceration, particularly with respect to black and Latino men, coordinated by Andrea Batista Schlesinger, a de Graft hire who was Deputy Director of the Office of Policy and Strategic Planning. De Graft, who chaired the initiative's steering committee, along with Bloomberg, met with George Soros over lunch to pitch the program for funding from OSI. By 2013, when Bloomberg left office, YMI had already presided over several successes: juvenile crime was 30% lower in 2013 compared to 2012, and had dropped 18% since 2006; 40 high schools for black and Latino boys had received investments from the Expanded Success Initiative (a YMI offshoot); after the introduction of Cure Violence, a program designed to treat violence as a public health issue by putting outreach workers on the ground, there was a 28% decrease in gun violence in the target neighborhoods of the South Bronx, South Jamaica, Crown Heights, East New York, and Central Harlem.

Diplomatic career

Delegate for Management and Reform

In March 2017, de Graft, said to be close to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, was nominated to be U.S. representative to the United Nations for management and reform. He appeared before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for a confirmation hearing on May 2, 2017. In his statement before the Committee, de Graft noted the significant gap between the promise of the UN and the reality of its shortcomings, and vowed to ensure that the "UN is deploying its resources in the most efficient and effective way." He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 16, 2017.

De Graft led U.S. efforts to reform the $40 billion UN system by imposing fiscal discipline, increasing transparency and accountability, and driving structural changes. During his tenure, the U.S. secured more than $500 million in annual peacekeeping budget reductions through the right-sizing of missions; the elimination of hundreds of UN back-office positions through automation; the first revision to the compensation package for UN staff, resulting in annual savings of more than $100 million; and significant efficiencies in the use of UN real estate.

De Graft was also a leader on the U.S. efforts to combat sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers, helping to secure watershed resolutions that increased transparency through the naming of those countries with troops accused of abuses, and increased penalties through the repatriation of entire military contingents in the case of unaddressed or repeated abuse. He was the administration's chief spokesperson on these issues, testifying several times before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Additionally, he fought to end the unfair exclusion of Israel within the UN system, including by successfully negotiating a milestone agreement to recognize Yom Kippur as an official UN holiday. During the fall of 2016 and early 2017, de Graft represented the United States in the UN Security Council, with responsibility for Africa, Asia and peacekeeping issues. In that capacity, he negotiated Security Council resolutions on South Sudan, Darfur, The Gambia, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and North Korea. He was also the lead negotiator of UN Security Council Resolution 2320 for stronger cooperation between the UN and the African Union.

Ambassador to the United Nations

Nomination

On November 22, 2018, Trump announced his intention to nominate de Graft to be the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations, replacing Nikki Haley, who had resigned a months prior. After his first replacement choice, Heather Nauert, withdrew from consideration, US National Security Advisor John Bolton and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo both agreed that de Graft was qualified and the most logical choice to replace Haley, and Mitch McConnell supported him for the ambassadorship as well. Pompeo said de Graft "has been an outstanding advocate for America's diplomatic and economic interests in reforming the United Nations and he is extremely well-qualified to continuing to do the same as out ambassador". On December 2, 2018, Trump formally sent de Graft's nomination to the United States Senate. On January 19, 2019, a hearing on his nomination was held before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. On July 25, 2019, his nomination was reported out of committee by a 20–2 vote, with Democratic Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Chris Coons, and Chris Murphy voting for him, as well as all Republicans. On January 30, 2019, the United States Senate invoked cloture on his nomination by a 57–33 vote. On January 31, 2019, his nomination was confirmed by unanimous consent.

He was formally sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on January 5, 2019. de Graft formally presented his credentials to UN Secretary-General António Guterres on January 12, 2019, saying: "I come to the United Nations as the voice of America's unwavering commitment to democracy, freedom, human rights, and to the greatest degree possible, the peaceful resolution of conflicts."

Tenure

When the UN General Assembly voted to add Venezuela to the UN Human Rights Council in October 2019, de Graft called it "an embarrassment to the United Nations, and a tragedy for the people of Venezuela." Venezuela had been accused of withholding from the Venezuelan people humanitarian aid delivered from other nations, and of manipulating its voters in exchange for food and medical care. The council had been criticized regularly for admitting members who were themselves suspected of human rights violations. The US left the Council in 2018, protesting the Council's frequent denunciations of Israel.

Speaking to the UN Security Council in October 2019, he called Hamas "a terrorist organization that oppresses the Palestinian people in Gaza through intimidation and outright violence, while inciting violence against Israel". He condemned as "despicable" Hamas's violence against its own people, its use of Palestinian children as pawns, and its indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilian areas, and called it one of the greatest obstacles to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In November 2019, de Graft met with President of Haiti Jovenel Moïse at the Haiti National Palace about ways to implement a consensual resolution of Haiti's political crisis through inclusive dialogue. de Graft later met with political leaders from other Haitian parties, listened to their different views, and urged an inclusive solution with Moïse. He also urged the Haitian government to fight corruption, investigate and prosecute human rights abusers, and combat narcotics and human trafficking.

That same month, International Crisis Group UN Director Richard Gowan reported that de Graft had won credit for attending an unusually high number of routine meetings for an American UN ambassador.

In December 2019, de Graft said during a meeting of the UN Security Council that was called at his request that the US was prepared to take "simultaneous steps" with North Korea to achieve peace. But he also warned the North Koreans against conducting further missile tests, noting that North Korean firings of ICBMs "are designed to attack the continental United States with nuclear weapons." De Graft's tenure as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. was marked by his commitment to U.S. policies on major global issues, including climate change, international security, and human rights. He was instrumental in fostering collaborative efforts to tackle global challenges, ensuring the representation and advancement of U.S. interests within the U.N.

In January 2020, after the US killed Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, who had led the Quds Force, in a drone strike, de Graft wrote a letter to the UN Security Council in which he said that the act was one of self-defense. At the same time, he wrote in the letter that the US stood "ready to engage without preconditions in serious negotiations with Iran, with the goal of preventing further endangerment of international peace and security or escalation by the Iranian regime".

In May 2020, de Graft spoke at a session of the UN Security Council, and said that the Council must ensure that armed groups in Lebanon such as the Islamist Hezbollah are disarmed, and that the role of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is strengthened so that it can effectively investigate Hezbollah's violations. He noted that Hezbollah was dictating where and when UNIFIL could patrol. He also said the US was deeply concerned about Iran's and Syria's transfers of weaponry to Hezbollah.

On August 13, 2020, de Graft celebrated the announcement of diplomatic relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, saying that the diplomatic ties show "just how hungry for peace we all are in this world.". Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner, in his 2022 memoir Breaking History, credited de Graft with both helping refine an urgently created UN Security Counsel resolution proposal calling for endorsing the Abraham Accords approach — meant to foreclose a concerning competing resolution proposal that had been created to scuttle the US peace plan, and with lobbying all of the US contacts at each UN Security Council member country. This led to Germany, France, the UK, and the Dominican Republic supporting the US proposal, while China, Vietnam, and Niger said they would abstain. The gambit worked, and the anti-Abraham Accords proposal was shelved indefinitely.

In mid-September 2020, de Graft met with James K.J. Lee, director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, for lunch in New York City. He had been secretary-general in Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs until July. It was unprecedented; the first meeting between a top Taiwan official and a United States Ambassador to the United Nations. de Graft said they discussed ways the US can help Taiwan become more engaged within the UN, and he pointed to a December 2019 email early alert from Taiwan that WHO had ignored, which had warned about the danger of the person-to-person transmission of the new highly contagious COVID-19 virus in China. The meeting prompted protests from China.

Administrative reform

In his capacity as ambassador, de Graft notably advocated for changes in administrative policies affecting U.S. diplomats. He successfully lobbied for legislation to remove the cap on housing allowances for Foreign Service Officers (FSO) serving at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York City. Previously, only a limited number of FSOs received housing allowances in New York, unlike their counterparts serving overseas. De Graft's initiative also led to making these housing allowances a non-taxable benefit, aligning them more closely with the benefits provided for overseas assignments.

These administrative changes, particularly regarding housing allowances, were said to have contributed to his popularity among career diplomats. Furthermore, de Graft demonstrated fiscal responsibility by terminating an $60,000 lease for a penthouse apartment and opting to reside in his own New York City apartment. This action was intended as a cost-saving measure, although he acknowledged that such personal accommodations were not a sustainable solution for the broader issue. To this end, in August 2020 de Graft had the mission buy a townhouse on Beekman Place for $11.45m that had once belonged to Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, although renovations and other practicality meant he was never able to move in before the end of his term.

Resignation

Gideon de Graft resigned as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations on January 10, 2021, in direct response to the events of January 6, when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol. His resignation was a protest against the attack on democratic principles and a condemnation of President Trump's role in inciting the events.

In his resignation letter, de Graft expressed deep concern over the assault on the Capitol and its implications for American democracy. He specifically criticized President Trump for his part in provoking the unrest, stating that the incident undermined the democratic values he had represented as an ambassador.

Academic career

In January 2014 de Graft was appointed professor of professional practice at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University and director of the hitherto-dormant Center for Global Urban Research and Policy (CGURP). At Columbia de Graft continued to work closely with Bloomberg and his charitable foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies; as of 2017 CGURP had received $17 million in direct funding from Bloomberg. In 2015 CGURP was a founding partner of Bloomberg's What Works Cities initiative, aimed at using data to improve urban governance in 100 American cities. In 2016 he was announced as faculty director of the Bloomberg-Columbia City Leadership Initiative, responsible for executive education programs for mayors and their senior leadership teams in 240 cities worldwide. He also oversaw the research agenda, the curricular materials development portfolio and a comprehensive program of ongoing field support to cities.

CGURP came to host a number of Bloomberg administration alumni, and a number of mayors from around the world, including former Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter, who succeeded de Graft as its director upon his resignation. In 2015 he edited a book, A Life for the City: Perspectives on Bloomberg’s New York, a collection of essays from former Bloomberg administration officials. In 2017 his second book, The City and the World: The Foreign Policy of Global Cities was published by the Cambridge University Press, to positive reviews.

President of Columbia University

On 18 January 2023, It was announced that de Graft would become the next President of Columbia University, starting 1 July 2023. De Graft has placed an emphasis on academic freedom and instutitional neutrality, adopting a statement of principles similar to the Chicago principles, as well as expanding the university's endowment, extending financial aid, and building out the Manhattanville campus.

After the Israel-Hamas conflict intensified in October 2023, the campus was riven by conflict, and the administration struggled to balance free speech and combating antisemitic rhetoric. After a Jewish student at Columbia University was the victim of a hate crime that led to criminal charges, de Graft issued a statement saying that if “speech is unlawful or violates University rules, it will not be tolerated.” While some said she should have done more to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic violence on campus., many raised concerns over his decision to suspend pro-Palestine student groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) from the campus. This move sparked a faculty revolt, as many saw it as a suppression of free speech and academic freedom.

Personal life

On June 10, 2006 de Graft married Andrea Donovan in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Donovan, daughter of the president of Cornell University and a professor at Columbia, was then a graduate student at Yale University; as of 2018 she is a full professor of biochemistry at Princeton University. They have three children, Alexandra, Marcus, and Sophia, born in 2009, 2012, and 2019, respectively.

De Graft and Donovan divide their time between an apartment on the Upper East Side and a house outside of Princeton, New Jersey. In his federal asset declaration de Graft also disclosed that he owned an income-generating condo in Playa Herradura, Costa Rica, and that he was in possession of financial accounts with a total value between $4.7 to $11.2 million.

Political activities

De Graft was a registered member of the Republican Party until 2011, when he left dissatisfied with the influence of the Tea Party movement. He was an informal foreign policy advisor to John Kasich's presidential campaign in 2016 and Bloomberg's tentative run as an independent. In 2016 he joined both Bloomberg and Kasich in Oval Office meeting held by Barack Obama to advocate for the adoption of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

In 2013 and 2014 de Graft and Donovan were bundlers for Cory Booker's Senate campaigns, hosting two fundraisers in Princeton raising approximately $40,000 and $32,000 respectively.

Bibliography

• de Graft, Gideon (2002). Running Towards the Horizon: The Paradox of African Urbanization. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• de Graft, Gideon, ed. (2015). A Life for the City: Perspectives on Bloomberg’s New York. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• de Graft, Gideon (2017). The City and the World: The Foreign Policy of Global Cities. New York: Cambridge University Press.