Full Biography for John J. Gilligan

Candidate for
Board Member; Cincinnati City School District

JOHN J. GILLIGAN

University of Cincinnati College of Law Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0040 (513) 556-0106

Personal History

• Born, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 22, 1921, eldest son of Blanche Joyce and Harry J. Gilligan.
• Educated in Summit Country Day School, St. Xavier High School; University of Notre Dame (A.B., 1943), University of Cincinnati (M.A., 1947).
• Served in WWII as a destroyer gunnery officer in Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific theaters; Silver Star for gallantry at Okinawa.
• Married the late Mary Kathryn Dixon, June 28, 1945. Two sons and two daughters, all married; eight grandchildren.

• 1948-53 Taught English Literature at Xavier University, Cincinnati.
• 1953 Elected to first of six terms in Cincinnati City Council.
• 1964 Elected to U.S. House of Representatives from First District, Ohio.
• 1967 Fellow at the Adlai Stevenson Institute, * 1968 Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.
• 1969 Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard.
• 1970 Elected 62nd Governor of Ohio.
• 1975 Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
• 1977 Appointed by President Carter to be Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
• 1979 Appointed Thomas J. White Professor of Law and Government, and Director of the White Institute, University of Notre Dame.
• 1983 Appointed Frank O'Malley Professor of Literature.
• 1987 Appointed George N. Schuster University Professor, and founding Director of the Institute for International Peace Studies.
• 1989 Appointed to Advisory Committee on Foreign Policy, U.S. Catholic Bishops' Conference.
• 1991 Retired from the faculty of the University of Notre Dame and from the Institute for International Peace Studies.
• 1992 Appointed the Vance Visiting Lecturer at the College of Law at the University of Cincinnati, and established the Civic Seminar.

Mr. Gilligan has been awarded doctoral degrees, honoris causa, by the University of Notre Dame, and by Akron, Central State, Dayton, DePaul, Dominican, Miami, Toledo, Wilberforce, and Xavier Universities.

1979 - Given the Annual Award as the Outstanding Catholic Layman of the Year by the National Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

1990 - Awarded the Reinhold Niebuhr Award by the University of Notre Dame as the faculty member whose life and writings best exemplify the lifelong philosophical and theological concerns of Niebuhr, especially in the realm of social justice in modern life.