News Archive

Two IU McKinney Law alumni received IU’s Distinguished Alumni Service Award on October 6 during Homecoming weekend on the Bloomington campus. The award is the highest bestowed on an IU alumna or alumnus by the university.

IU President Pamela Whitten presented awards to 2022 honorees Rev. Franklin E. Breckenridge Sr. and Pamela L. Carter.

Recipients of the award are chosen for service and achievement in their fields, and for significant contributions to the community, state, nation, or university. With the addition of these recipients, IU has honored nearly 350 alumni since the award’s inception in 1953.

The following are brief biographies for each award recipient:

Rev. Franklin E. Breckenridge Sr., BS’63, JD’68

Rev. Franklin E. Breckenridge Sr. has devoted a lifetime of service to furthering civil rights, a mission that led him to become a lawyer and work within the legal system. He enrolled at the McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis around the time of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty Program.

In addition to working as a lawyer and a pastor, Breckenridge also served as a Head Start teacher in Kokomo, Ind. He has held memberships in many professional, legal, business, civic, and social organizations, including the NAACP, which he continues to serve since his retirement from the practice of law. Breckenridge was instrumental in helping form the Indiana Coalition for Black Judicial Officials, which resulted in the appointment of the first African American justices to the Indiana Court of Appeals and Indiana Supreme Court, respectively.

For his outstanding civil rights work, Breckenridge has been the recipient of many awards and accolades, and he has twice received the highest award bestowed by the state of Indiana for community service, the Sagamore of the Wabash. In 2010, he received the Distinguished Alumni Service Award from the McKinney School of Law in recognition of his notable services and achievements in the law, in Indiana, and the nation.

In 1998, Breckenridge and his wife Cora (Smith) Breckenridge, BS’59, MS’63—who became the first African American to join the IU Board of Trustees and who received the Distinguished Alumni Service Award in 2012—established an endowed scholarship to be given to an entering freshman student at IU Kokomo.

Pamela L. Carter, JD’84, LLD’99

Pamela L. Carter has been a social worker, a corporate executive, an attorney, an elected official, and a director of for-profit and nonprofit boards. Her career is varied but connected by a common thread—service to others and the pursuit of excellence. Inspired by a childhood meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she has sought, throughout her career, to advance people’s rights in ways that strengthened the community overall.

Carter was elected attorney general of Indiana in 1992, making her the first African American woman to be elected state attorney general in the U.S., as well as the first woman attorney general in Indiana’s history. She joined Cummins Inc. in 1997 as the company’s vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary, and held numerous business positions there, including overseeing the region of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa as vice president and general manager. She later became president of Cummins Distribution, which has a presence in 190 countries, with over 13,000 employees, and revenues of $6 billion. She was the first woman to hold the position. In 2015, she retired from Cummins.

Carter was named the IU McKinney School of Law Outstanding Alumna of the Year in 2004 and received the McKinney Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2015. She also received the Bicentennial Medal for distinguished service from Indiana University in 2020. Recent awards include the 2018 Sandra Day O’Connor Board Excellence Award, the 2018 National Association of Corporate Directors Directorship 100, and Savoy magazine’s Most Influential Black Corporate Directors in the U.S. in 2021. Carter holds four honorary degrees.