As the first African American to hold the position at the esteemed university, Harvard named Claudine Gay, a dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, as its new president on Thursday. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gay, 52, is only the second woman to be elected to lead the institution. (https://firework.com/) Gay, a Haitian immigrant’s daughter, will become Harvard’s 30th president on July 1st, 2023, according to Harvard.
“Claudine is a remarkable leader who is profoundly devoted to sustaining and enhancing academic excellence”
“Claudine is a remarkable leader who is profoundly devoted to sustaining and enhancing Harvard’s academic excellence,” said Penny Pritzker, chair of Harvard’s presidential search committee. In 2018, Gay was appointed dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, leading it through the challenging Covid-19 pandemic.
“Today, we are in a moment of remarkable and accelerating change — socially, politically, economically, and technologically,” Gay said after the announcement. “So many fundamental assumptions about how the world works and how we should relate to one another are being tested,” she added.
Affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina have been the target of lawsuits
The institution may face a Supreme Court ruling in July that may require it to change its long-standing admissions procedures, according to the New York Times, which noted that one of these exams will occur right when she begins the leadership position. Affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina have been the target of lawsuits.
In order to redress the history of discrimination against African Americans in higher education, that policy was developed during the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960s. A group called Students for Fair Admissions filed lawsuits against Harvard and UNC, claiming that racial admissions procedures discriminate against similarly qualified applicants of Asian American descent.