New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and Lieutenant Governor Sheila Y. Oliver
In the age of performative, often dysfunctional leadership that we witness daily in the current administration and in the halls of Congress, Sheila Y. Oliver’s life provides a superb example of serious, capable leadership during her years in New Jersey’s government. We will gather at the Columbia School of Social Work on Thursday, March 12, 2026, fittingly during Women’s History Month, to be reminded that every so often, a leader appears on the scene who exemplifies the character and acumen needed to inspire others while getting the job done. Jesse Jackson was one, and so was Sheila Oliver.
I knew of her “ceiling-breaking” achievements as a social worker in the legislative arena. She made history as the first African American woman elected speaker of the New Jersey Assembly and the second ever to lead a state legislative body, following in the path of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who served as speaker of the California State Assembly from May 13, 2008, until March 1, 2010. Oliver served as New Jersey speaker from January 12, 2010, until January 12, 2014.
When Oliver became Speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly in 2010, she assumed the gavel amid fiscal stress and public unease. The Great Recession had left state budgets strained and families destabilized. Housing foreclosures were not abstractions; they were lived trauma. Her speakership was not ornamental. It was operational. Colleagues often described her as disciplined and procedural. She read the briefing books. She respected the rules. She insisted that the debate move through established channels.
Her undergraduate studies at Lincoln University and subsequent graduate studies at Columbia University School of Social Work permitted her to move comfortably between the historically Black intellectual tradition and elite policy training. That dual formation allowed her to translate lived experience into legislative action. It also positioned her to navigate systems that were not built with her in mind.
In 2018, she broke another ceiling, becoming lieutenant governor under Phil Murphy. In New Jersey, the lieutenant governor also leads a cabinet agency. Oliver was appointed Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, placing housing, community development, and local government oversight within her portfolio.
New Jersey’s long-contested affordable housing obligations under the Mount Laurel doctrine had been mired in litigation and delay for decades. During Oliver’s tenure, the state accelerated municipal settlements and compliance processes, unlocking the production of affordable units across communities. Housing policy is often treated as technocratic. Oliver understood it as moral infrastructure. Stable housing shapes educational outcomes, workforce participation, health, and civic engagement. Breaking ceilings in the office meant strengthening foundations on the ground.
Thursday’s discussion, for which I have the honor of moderating, is sponsored by the Sheila Y. Oliver Foundation and will feature three women who have devoted much of their livelihoods to public service. Ashanti D. Jones, a juvenile justice policy analyst, and Emily Ball Jabbour, who was recently elected mayor of Hoboken, NJ, are MSW alums from Columbia University. Mathylde Frontus, who represented the 46th District in the New York State Assembly from 2018 until 2022, graduated from Columbia University’s Teachers College and Harvard Divinity School and earned her Ph.D. at Columbia University School of Social Work.
Sheila Oliver’s niece, Renee Oliver, a communications professional, serves as the foundation’s president and feels blessed to have had her aunt as a role model. She says shadowing her aunt’s events and often being on stage with her made her feel special, but it was her aunt’s down-to-earth persona that she is most fond of. She said the lieutenant governor saw herself as a proud “Jersey girl.” Renee says that while her aunt was breaking ceilings, she was as concerned about helping other black women break ceilings and find their place at the table.
Shelia Y. Oliver was serving as acting governor during a family vacation that took Governor Murphy out of the country when she fell ill and passed away on August 1, 2023.
“When I selected her to be my running mate in 2017, Lieutenant Governor Oliver was already a trailblazer in every sense of the word. She had already made history as the first Black woman to serve as Speaker of the General Assembly, and just the second Black woman in the nation’s history to lead a house of a state legislature,” Murphy said in a statement. “I knew then that her decades of public service made her the ideal partner for me to lead the State of New Jersey. It was the best decision I ever made.”