What do former President Bill Clinton, Paralympian Bonnie St. John, astronomer Edwin Hubble, and musician Kris Kristofferson have in common? All were Rhodes Scholars.
One of the world’s oldest and most prestigious scholarship programs, the Rhodes scholarship selects scholars based on their academic achievements and character. To date, four Whittier College alumni have received the distinguished scholarship, which annually sends 32 students from the U.S. to Oxford University to study for two years. Thanks to research by Erle Collins ’82 and the Whittier College Black Alumni Association, more information about the three Black recipients has come to light.
J. Stanley Sanders ’63, J.D.
On Dec. 15, 1962, Sanders became the first Rhodes scholar from Whittier College and the second Black student in the program’s history. Now an attorney and former Los Angeles mayoral candidate, Sanders was the student body president, an outstanding political science student, and an All-American football player at Whittier. After graduating from Yale Law School, he returned to Whittier to serve on the Board of Trustees. He credits his impressive career trajectory to attending Whittier during the Civil Rights Movement.
Darrell Walker ’76, J.D.
Walker was the second Rhodes scholar in the College’s history and earned a master’s degree in economics at Oxford University after studying political science at Whittier. He went on to earn a J.D. at Stanford Law School and was a member of the California Bar Association. As an undergraduate, Walker played football for three years, edited the Quaker Campus, and was active in the Black Student Union. In 2016, he joined the Whittier College Board of Trustees. He died in 2019 at the age of 65.
Malaika (Williams) Amneus ’96, M.D.
Amneus is Whittier’s most recent Rhodes scholar and the second Whittier woman to receive the scholarship, following Pamela (Hill) Park ’89. Originally from Las Vegas, Nevada, Amneus always knew she wanted to be a physician. After studying at Oxford, she attended medical school at the University of California, Los Angeles, and found her calling in gynecologic oncology. She served as the director of the gynecology division at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center before joining Kaiser Permanente.