Independent Women’s Forum is delighted to announce that Janice Dean, Fox News meteorologist and the woman who almost single-handedly launched the effort to make former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s treatment of COVID patients and nursing homes an issue, as the latest in our popular series of Champion Women profiles.

Ms. Dean will accept IWF’s Woman of Valor award at our gala November 17 at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C.

Dean was galvanized to take on Cuomo by grief over the deaths of her in-laws, Michael—Mickey—and Delores—Dee—Newman, parents of Dean’s husband, Sean Newman, like Mickey a New York firefighter. Both died of COVID and Sean and Janice were shocked when they realized that Cuomo ordered nursing and rehabilitation facilities to accept COVID patients.

Though devastated, Dean did not immediately go public. It was the full-of-themselves Cuomo brothers clowning about Andrew Cuomo’s COVID tests on CNN that triggered her activism. CNN anchor Chris Cuomo waved around a series of giant Q-tips—just right for the governor’s big nose, Chris hilariously observed.

It didn’t seem remotely funny to the grieving Dean. "That is truly what made my grief turn to rage and that is one of the biggest reasons that I decided it was time for me to speak out. I was so disgusted," Dean said later. She broke her silence on Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Dean attributes the calm with which she weathered the Cuomo storm partly to a previous job: working for late shock jock Don Imus.

We know you’ll be fascinated to learn how this Woman of Valor has weathered the storms in her life and come out as one of the most inspiring figures on TV. Janice Dean is truly a Woman of Valor.