O'Leary was sworn in as the 7th U.S. Secretary of Energy, becoming the first woman and first African American to hold the position.
On January 21, 1993, Hazel R. O'Leary was sworn in as the 7th United States Secretary of Energy under President Bill Clinton, becoming the first woman and the first African American to hold this Cabinet-level position. She was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, a notable show of bipartisan support.
O'Leary was also the first Secretary of Energy to have prior professional experience working directly for an energy company and electric utilities, having served as an executive at Northern States Power Company before her appointment. This background gave her a practical understanding of the energy sector that distinguished her from many of her predecessors.
Her appointment represented a historic breakthrough in a Cabinet department that had never before been led by a woman or a person of color, at a time when the Department of Energy oversaw critical national priorities including nuclear weapons stewardship, energy policy, and environmental cleanup of Cold War-era nuclear sites. O'Leary's tenure would become known for her Openness Initiative, which declassified vast amounts of government information related to nuclear testing and radiation experiments conducted on American citizens.
Her swearing-in remains a landmark moment in the history of American women in government and in the broader civil rights narrative of Black Americans achieving positions of significant federal power.