American government official and the third woman in US history to hold a cabinet office. She has served as the 5th Chairwoman of the Council on Foreign Relations since 2007.
Raised in an affluent atmosphere, she attended private schools and received her law degree in 1959. A workaholic, outspoken, no-nonsense administrator, she was appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on 2/20/1975. By 1978, she was a partner in a Washington, DC law firm.
Carla Anderson Hills was the younger of the two children of Carl and Edith (Hume) Anderson. Her mother, (now Mrs. Edith Wagner), came from a socially prominent family. Her father, who died in 1965, was from a rural Missouri family of modest means. In California, he worked his way from a salesman’s job to his own multimillion-dollar building supplies business called Modern Materials. Later, he became president of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.
The house Carla grew up in was used for exterior scenes in the motion picture “Sunset Boulevard.” She was educated at the exclusive Marlborough School for girls. Her interests included showing five-gaited horses, sailing, tennis, and summering at the 25-acre family estate in Burbank. She was inspired to pursue a career in law by reading historical biographies – especially those of the Founding Fathers. By age 12 she knew she wanted to become a lawyer.
Rather than the expected debut after graduating high school in 1951, Carla chose to travel to Europe. She then entered Stanford University, where she majored in history and was captain of the women’s tennis team. With her partner, she was a six-time winner of the university women’s doubles title. In the summer of 1954, she went to England to study at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford University. She earned her B.A. degree cum laude from Stanford in 1955.
Carla met with opposition from her father when she announced her plan to attend law school. Although her mother supported this venture, her father wanted her to enter the family business. He refused to pay her tuition. With determination that earned her the family nickname “Butch,” she paid her own way through law school. During summers she worked at various jobs including selling eggs to her neighbors. She graduated from Yale with an LL.B. degree in 1958, ranking twentieth in her class of 167.
During her last year of law school, Carla met Roderick Maltman Hills, whom she married after graduation, on 9/27/1958. She was admitted to the California bar in 1959, and worked for the next two years in the Civil Division of the Department of Justice as an assistant U.S. Attorney. In 1962, she and her husband and other partners established the law firm of Munger, Tolles, Hills & Rickershauser in Los Angeles. The firm specialized in federal trial law and in antitrust law and securities law. Hills also taught antitrust law as an adjunct professor at U.C.L.A. during the spring semester of 1972.
In the spring of 1973, Elliot L. Richardson, Secretary of Defense, came to Los Angeles to try to convince Roderick Hills to take a position as an assistant secretary in Washington. Mr. Hills declined due to business commitments. Richardson, who was impressed with Mrs. Hills when they met during this trip, later invited her to be an assistant attorney general. She accepted and flew to Washington to prepare for moving.
Unfortunately, on 10/20/1973, the day that Hills arrived back in Los Angeles, Richardson resigned in what became known as the “Saturday night massacre,” when he refused to follow President Richard Nixon’s order to dismiss the special Watergate prosecutor, Archibald Cox. Hills later recalled, “I landed at the airport, got into my car that was parked there, and turned on the radio. The big news was Richardson’s resignation. So that was that.”
However, Hills’ hopes for a Justice Department post were not denied. Richardson’s successor as Attorney General, William B. Saxbe, was also impressed with her credentials. He invited her to head the Justice Department’s Civil Division as an assistant attorney general. Hills was nominated on 2/18/1974 and confirmed by the Senate on 3/7/1974. In April she succeeded Harlington Wood, Jr. in the $38,000-a-year job once held by Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. The highest-ranking woman in the Justice Department, Mrs. Hills was also the first female assistant attorney general since the 1920’s.
President Ford was pleased with her work and nominated her to succeed James T. Lynn as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on 1/13/1975. In spite of intense opposition, she was confirmed by the Senate on 3/05/1975 and was sworn in as Secretary of HUD on 3/10/1975. She became the first woman cabinet member in 20 years. In April 1975 Hills’ “first significant act” as Secretary of HUD was to abolish rent ceilings in federal housing.
Hills was president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Federal Bar Association in 1963 and of the National Association of Women lawyers in 1965. She is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a member of the American Law Institute. She has been a vice-president and director of the Yale Club of Los Angeles. Hills collaborated on the book Federal Civil Practice, 1961 and was editor and co-author of Antitrust Adviser, McGraw-Hill, 1971. Pepperdine College in Los Angeles awarded her an honorary LL.D. degree in 1975.
Carla Anderson Hills was succeeded as Secretary of HUD by Patricia Roberts Harris in 1977 during the Carter administration.
Hills and her husband have four children, Laura Hume, Roderick Maltman Jr. (Ricky), Megan Elizabeth and Allison MacBeth. At 5’ 5″ tall, Mrs. Hills has brown eyes and brown hair and is described as attractive, self-confident and hard-working. Outspoken to the point of bluntness, she has the respect and cooperation of her staff members. She has a reputation for maintaining her poise in most situations. Her interests include playing tennis, listening to Bach, leisure reading, giving dinner parties and spending an occasional “family day” with her children. Hills is an Episcopalian and describes herself as an “enlightened” Republican.
Link to Wikipedia biography