Claudine Gay: 5 things to know about Harvard’s first Black president

Harvard University announced Thursday that Claudine Gay will become its next president. Gay, who is currently the dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, will be the school’s first Black leader and the second woman ever to hold the position when she takes over next year.

Here are five things to know about the history-making choice.

She’s the daughter of Haitian immigrants

Gay, 52, was born in New York City, where her parents, Haitian immigrants to the U.S., met as students (her mother was a registered nurse, her father a civil engineer). Gay spent much of her childhood first in New York and then in Saudi Arabia, where her father worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“My parents believed that education opens every door, but of course they gave me three options: I could become an engineer, a doctor or a lawyer, which I’m sure that other kids of immigrant parents could relate to,” Gay said at an announcement ceremony on Thursday. “Becoming an academic was not what my parents had in mind.”

Her ties to Harvard run deep

After receiving her bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford in 1992, Gay enrolled in graduate school at Harvard, receiving her Ph.D. in government. She became a professor at Stanford before being recruited to Harvard in 2006 as a professor of government. Gay was also appointed professor of African and African American Studies the following year. In 2015, she became dean of social science at Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). In 2018, she was named dean of FAS.

According to Gay’s bio on Harvard’s website, she has “explored such topics as how the election of minority officeholders affects citizens’ perceptions of their government and their interest in politics and public affairs; how neighborhood environments shape racial and political attitudes among Black Americans; the roots of competition and cooperation between minority groups, with a particular focus on relations between Black Americans and Latinos; and the consequences of housing mobility programs for political participation among the poor.” In 2017, she founded the Inequality in America Initiative, a “multidisciplinary effort to elevate and energize teaching and research on social and economic inequality.”

Gay is lauded by many of her colleagues...

“She is a scholar of uncommon creativity and rigor, with a strong working knowledge of the opportunities and challenges facing the FAS,” current Harvard President Larry Bacow said in 2018 when Gay became dean. “She radiates a concern for others, and for how what we do here can help improve lives far beyond our walls.”

“Claudine has proven herself a first-class academic leader as well as a rigorous scholar in her own right,” Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, said Thursday. “And under her leadership, Harvard will continue to be a model in upholding the highest standards of academic excellence, advancing the frontiers of knowledge while also advancing strategies of inclusion.”

When Gay was introduced at Thursday’s announcement ceremony, she received a standing ovation.

... but her tenure as dean has not been without controversy

Earlier this year, more than three dozen Harvard professors signed an open letter to Gay criticizing her decision to place a professor on unpaid leave following allegations of sexual misconduct. She was then criticized by students for allowing the professor to return to teaching.

Gay was also at the center of a controversy over the 2019 decision to deny tenure to a professor who is Black and Latina. According to the New York Times, the decision “led more than 100 faculty members to write letters of protest, citing concerns that professors of color … were discriminated against in tenure cases.”

Her appointment comes at a critical time

When Gay formally takes over on July 1, the U.S. Supreme Court will likely have ruled in two cases involving the use of race in college admissions at the University of North Carolina and Harvard.

In both cases — which were consolidated by the high court — a group called Students for Fair Admissions is seeking to overturn decades-old Supreme Court precedents that allow universities to consider race in admissions to help create a diverse student body.

During oral arguments in October, members of the high court’s conservative majority indicated that they are willing to end the explicit consideration of race in college admissions, questioning the legal rationale for allowing the practice. Liberal justices defended the practice, citing the importance of diversity on campus and the difficulty of achieving it without any consideration of race.