Joseph Rhodes, Jr.

Joseph Rhodes Jr. (August 14, 1947 – November 7, 2013) was an American politician and activist. From 1972–1980, he served four 2-year terms as a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He was a commissioner of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission from 1988–1995. He served as a member of several public panels, including the President's Commission on Campus Unrest that investigated the fatal shootings of unarmed student protesters by soldiers and police in 1970 at Kent State and Jackson State Universities. He was in residence at Harvard University from 1969–1972 as a junior fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows, where he researched racism in Victorian England. and a consultant to the President Nixon's Counsel from 1969–1970. He was a member of President Nixon's Committee on Voluntary Service, 1969. He also served on the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary's Committee on New Structures in Higher Education (The Newman Committee) (1969–1972), and he was on the Advisory Panel of the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1971.

Rhodes' service on the President's Commission on Campus Unrest in 1970 brought him to nationwide attention. This Commission was established specifically to investigate two incidents in 1970 in which unarmed student protesters were shot and killed by soldiers and policemen, one at Kent State University in Ohio and a second at Jackson State University in Mississippi. Rhodes was the youngest and least known member of the committee, and its only current student; his selection for the commission is attributed to his longstanding relationship with John Ehrlichman, who was a prominent member of then President Richard Nixon's staff. Shortly after his appointment, Rhodes gave a controversial interview to Robert Reinhold of The New York Times in which he said "If the President's and Vice-President's statements are killing people, I want to know that" and that California Governor Ronald Reagan was "bent on killing people for his political gain."

He was cited by Time Magazine as one of 200 new leaders in America and received the Americans for Democratic Action National Youth Award in 1971. He was named on the master list of Nixon political opponents during his service to the Nixon administration, and included this as an award on his resume.