Sharee Freeman ’76 is director of the Community Relations Service of the U.S. Department of Justice, an agency that works to resolve community conflict based on race, nationality and ethnic origin.  The cultural competency skills she developed at St. Lawrence have been essential to her success, says the St. Lawrence trustee.

“Coursework in American government, American history, and speech, plus (the late) Professor Joan Donovan’s encouragement in speech competitions were solid cornerstones in both my graduate legal education and my career,” says Sharee.  “While I was an undergraduate, I took advantage of extracurricular opportunities at the University, which helped me develop leadership skills and taught me how to ‘work and play well with others,’ as the saying goes.”

Sharee attended the Georgetown University Law Center, clerked at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, served as a prosecutor for the District Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia, and worked at the Department of the Interior, where she developed an expertise in Native American law. “My exposure to the St. Regis Reservation as a student was a most powerful influence on my career at the Department of the Interior as an Indian Affairs attorney,” she says. Later she was Full Committee Counsel for the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, and a staff member of Rep. Henry J. Hyde’s personal office.

In 2000, and again in 2006, the U.S. Senate confirmed Sharee as the director of the U.S. Department of Justice Community Relations Service (CRS), a specialized free federal mediation service available to state and local officials to help resolve and prevent racial and ethnic conflict, violence and civil disorder.  CRS helps local communities tailor local resolutions when conflict and violence threaten community safety and stability. 

Sharee has received numerous awards for her work and recently participated as a member of the United States delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Tolerance Implementation Meeting on Promoting Inter-Cultural, Inter-Religious and Inter-Ethnic Understanding in Almaty, Kazakhstan..