Less than a week before she leads the U.S. Olympics delegation to Sochi, Russia, University of California President Janet Napolitano sat down with me Thursday for a wide-ranging discussion. We touched on security at the Games, NSA leaker Edward Snowden, undocumented students at UC, LGBT rights and her youthful memories of Billie Jean King defeating Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes.”
This is the first time in more than a decade that the U.S. Olympics delegation does not include the U.S. president, vice president or a member of the first family.
When President Barack Obama named the 10-member delegation, the White House noted it included two openly gay athletes, tennis icon Billie Jean King and ice hockey player Caitlin Cahow. (not to excluded from the gaiety, figure skater Brian Boitano belatedly “came out”).
Napolitano, who last year left her job as secretary of Homeland Security to take the UC position, acknowledged she was “a little bit” surprised that Obama asked her to lead the delegation.
“As the leader of the nation’s largest public research university, where openness and tolerance and intellectual achievement are celebrated and practiced every day,” Napolitano said, “I think that’s a huge set of American values that the university represents (and) that I will be able to represent.