Nika Soon-Shiong

Nika Soon-Shiong (born February 26, 1993) is an American politician and activist who served as a Public Safety Commissioner of West Hollywood from 2021 to 2022. She is the founder and Executive Director of the Fund for Guaranteed Income and was also part of the Compton Pledge and Long Beach Pledge guaranteed income programs.^[1][2] She is currently on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).^[3]

Nika Soon-Shiong
Soon-Shiong in 2022
Public Safety Commissioner of West Hollywood
In office September 13, 2021 – October 11, 2022
Personal details
Born	(1993-02-26) February 26, 1993 (age 32)
Parent(s)	Patrick Soon-Shiong (father) Michele B. Chan (mother)
Education	Stanford University (BA, MA) University of Oxford (DPhil, attending)

Early life and career

Soon-Shiong was born on February 26, 1993, to Patrick Soon-Shiong and Michele B. Chan; she has a brother.^[4] She graduated from Marymount High School in 2011.^[5] In 2015, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a Master's in African Studies, Bachelor's in International Relations, and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford.^[6]

Career

After graduation, Soon-Shiong worked for a few years at Equal Education, an activist movement in South Africa, before moving to work in the office of the President of the World Bank Group, focusing on technology and development (especially Benin) and where she continues to be associated as a consultant. In 2019, she started her PhD degree at the University of Oxford.^[7]

In August 2020, Soon-Shiong founded the non-profit organization 'Fund for Guaranteed Income' (F4GI) and became the co-director of the 'Compton Pledge', an initiative by F4GI to trial a guaranteed income program in Compton, California.^[8][9] The organization later expanded to Long Beach, California forming the 'Long Beach Pledge', and is now running 7 such initiatives.

In media

Soon-Shiong has been involved in news media, especially the Los Angeles Times (her father purchased the paper in 2018), since June 2020, when she criticized the Los Angeles Times for their use of the term "looting" in their headlines during the George Floyd protests.^[10] The next month, when there were fears of layoffs, Soon-Shiong urged her father to meet with Black and Latino employees; the layoffs didn't go through.^{[citation needed]} In February 2021, when the Wall Street Journal speculated that Patrick Soon-Shiong was looking to sell the Los Angeles Times, Soon-Shiong responded stating that they were "100% wrong".^[11][12] On June 25, 2021, it was announced that Soon-Shiong joined the Committee to Protect Journalists's board of directors.^[13] She is also on the boards of One Fair Wage and the Compton Development Corporation.

In politics

On September 13, 2021, Soon-Shiong was appointed to the Public Safety Commission by West Hollywood council member Lindsey Horvath. As a commissioner representing concerns of the citizens, she questioned policing in the city.^[14][15] Soon-Shiong was met with backlash for this, with Horvath responding to the backlash against Soon-Shiong saying it was "rooted in racism".^[16] In June 2022, the West Hollywood City Council voted to reduce the number of sheriffs in the city and replace them with unarmed security guards, a move which Soon-Shiong called "pragmatic and fiscally responsible", but said it "could have gone further."^[17]

In July 2022, Soon-Shiong announced that she would be stepping down from her role as a Public Safety Commissioner in August 2022 to continue her studies at the University of Oxford where she had been remotely enrolled during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[18][19]

In October 2024, Soon-Shiong claimed the Los Angeles Times refusal to endorse Kamala Harris in the 2024 United States presidential election was motivated by Harris' continued support for Israel during the ongoing war in Gaza.^[20] Her father later disputed that statement.^[21]

Publications

• Sidimba, Luzuko; Soon-Shiong, Nika (June 7, 2017). "Withholding keys to education, literally!". DispatchLIVE (Opinion article). East London, South Africa: Arena Holdings.
• Sidimba, Luzuko; Soon-Shiong, Nika (November 3, 2017). "Equalisers fight for schools not built". Mail & Guardian (Opinion article). Johannesburg: Newtrust Company Botswana Limited.
• Soon-Shiong, Nika (October 31, 2018). Implementing agents: The middlemen in charge of school infrastructure (PDF) (Report). Khayelitsha, South Africa: Equal Education.
• Soon-Shiong, Nika; Qhotsokoane, Tebello; Phillips, Toby (May 12, 2020). Using digital technologies to re-imagine cash transfers during the Covid-19 crisis (PDF) (Report). Digital Pathways Paper Series. Vol. 2. Oxford, UK: Blavatnik School of Government.
• Soon-Shiong, Nika (June 2020). "Public procurement and implementing agents: The middlemen in charge of school infrastructure delivery in the Eastern Cape of South Africa". In Quinot, Geo; Williams-Elegbe, Sope (eds.). Public procurement regulation in Africa: Development in uncertain times. Durban, South Africa: LexisNexis South Africa. pp. 229–248. ISBN 978-0-6390-1060-1. OCLC 1201544773.
• Soon-Shiong, Nika (April 28, 2022). "Contract cities in LA County are overpaying for LASD services". Knock LA (Opinion article). Los Angeles: Ground Game LA.
• Soon-Shiong, Nika (May 14, 2022). "LASD-run inmate welfare fund: Another black hole of taxpayer dollars". Knock LA (Opinion article). Los Angeles: Ground Game LA.
• Soon-Shiong, Nika (August 26, 2024). "Police can't house Californians. Cash can". The Appeal (Opinion article).
• Howard, Neil; Langridge, Nick; Mathur, Vibhor; Hamilton, Leah; Westlake, David; Soon-Shiong, Nika; Laker-Oketta, Miriam; Davala, Sarath; Tinaut, Aida Martinez; Laín, Bru; Franchi, Maria; Morrow, Virginia (October 2024). Doing radical things right: Ethical good practice for basic income experiments (PDF) (Report). Centre for Development Studies Report Series. Bath, Somerset, England: University of Bath. ISSN 2977-392X.