Tom Foley (Pennsylvania politician)

Thomas Patrick Foley (born December 31, 1953) has served as a Belfast peace and justice advocate, state and federal government official, political candidate, state NGO chief executive, and college president. He currently serves as president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Pennsylvania.

Previously, he served as president of Mount Aloysius College, president of the United Way of Pennsylvania and CEO of the Red Cross of Southeastern Pennsylvania. He was the Pennsylvania Secretary of Labor and Industry under Gov. Robert P. Casey, and served as a White House appointee in the Clinton administration Department of Labor. Prior to that he worked on Capitol Hill, in the US Senate as chief speech writer and legislative aide on Irish issues for Sen. Joseph R. Biden, in the US House as a legislative aide to Rep. James Shannon.

Foley grew up in Ambler and Flourtown, Pennsylvania, one of 12 children of Jack and Angela Foley. His grandparents emigrated from Ireland and settled in Philadelphia.  He attended St. Genevieve's parish grade school and Bishop McDevitt High School.  He received scholarships to Dartmouth College (BA, Summa Cum Laude) and to Yale Law School (JD), where he was an editor of Yale's international law journal.  He also studied at University College Dublin as a post-graduate fellow and later completed non-degree programs in executive leadership at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Business School, and Harvard Graduate School of Education. Foley is the recipient of two honorary degrees.

Foley spent his year on a graduate fellowship at University College Dublin studying American-Irish diplomatic history.  He spent part of that time in 1975–76 with Voluntary Service Belfast (VSB), working to reclaim bombed-out buildings and organizing cross-community youth activities.  He later took a two-year leave from Yale Law School in 1979–81 to serve as a full-time volunteer with the Nobel Prize-winning organization Peace People in Belfast. He later worked with two US Speakers of the House, Tip O'Neill and Tom Foley (no relation), and for Senator Joe Biden on Irish issues in Washington. He hosted Irish Nobel Peace Prize winners Mairead Corrigan Maguire and John Hume on visits to the US, and has spoken and written often on the situation in Northern Ireland.

Foley's two years as a fulltime volunteer in Belfast occurred during the height of the Troubles and the hunger strikes of that period.  He organized integrated youth programs, served as counsel to Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, and was the first American elected to its board, serving as Executive Member for Justice Issues. In that role, Foley authored the Peace People's proposals to resolve the Hunger Strikes at the Long Kesh prison and other Parliamentary submissions. With Corrigan-Maguire, he presented those proposals to top officials in the British, Irish and US Governments, as well as to leaders in Provisional Sinn Féin and in community and paramilitary groups across Northern Ireland.

His monograph Rights and Responsibilities: A Young Person's Guide to the Law and Emergency Legislation in Northern Ireland was adopted and reprinted by national youth organizations in Northern Ireland as their primary educational tool about the emergency laws. His 1982 article Public Security and Individual Freedom: The Dilemma of Northern Ireland discussed the line between private liberty and public safety (Yale Journal of International Law) in the context of Northern Ireland and implications elsewhere. Foley was also a prime mover in the creation of the non-partisan Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), which later won the Reebok Human Rights Prize and the Council of Europe Human Rights Prize. He and civil rights lawyer Tom Hadden served as co-chairs of CAJ's first public assembly, and he was the author and editor of several of its initial publications.

Foley organized the first cross-community boys and girls youth soccer and basketball programs in Northern Ireland during the Troubles—putting hundreds of children into communities whose lines they had never before crossed. He also worked closely with leaders of the Corrymeela Community, a peace and reconciliation group dedicated to bringing all sides of the political conflict to the table.

In 1982, after Foley and Corrigan-Maguire met in Washington with the Friends of Ireland, a bi-partisan group in the US Congress committed to peace in Northern Ireland, Speaker Tip O'Neill arranged for him to join the staff of Congressman James Shannon. Two years later, Foley joined Senator Joe Biden's team as chief speechwriter and legislative aide for Irish issues. During that time, Senator Biden led the debate over the US/UK Extradition Treaty, and played a lead role (with Speaker O'Neill, and Senators Kennedy and Dodd) in the creation of the International Fund for Ireland, the first US economic development fund for Northern Ireland.