Dec. 16 (UPI) -- In a historic first for people of color, Harvard University has named a Black woman to serve as its next president.
Claudine Gay, who has served as dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences since 2018, becomes the 30th president of the school and only the second woman to hold the position. She is also the first person of African-American heritage to ever lead the school in its 386-year history.
The 52-year-old has taught at the university since 2006 as a professor of government who is specialized in African and African-American studies. Before that she was an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University, where she received her bachelor's in economics in 1992.
She will take the helm at Harvard next July, and lead the school where she received her doctorate in government in 1998.
On Thursday, Gay received a standing ovation during a ceremony to announce her as the college's new president. In a speech, she recalled the time she first came to Harvard as a young, impressionable graduate student 30 years ago.
"That Claudine could have not possibly imagined her path would lead here," she said, while emphasizing her commitment to inclusiveness and her desire to engage the university with the global community.
"The idea of the ivory tower, that is the past, not the future, of academia," she said. "We don't exist outside of society, but as part of it, and that means that Harvard has a duty to lean in and engage and be in service to the world."
The timing of the monumental hire was notable as a current case before the U.S. Supreme Court stands to upend a long history of race-based college admission practices that have been known to favor White applicants and a select number of minorities as required under federal affirmative action programs.
In October, the high court heard arguments for both Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions vs. University of North Carolina. The two filings challenge the use of race in college admissions and reference the Supreme Court's 1954 decision outlawing segregation in public schools.
In her current position, Gay is a well-known advocate for diversity and an expert voice on minority issues in government, which many believe could be transformative for the school as it continues to reckon with a long history of racism and exclusion.
"Claudine is a remarkable leader who is profoundly devoted to sustaining and enhancing Harvard's academic excellence," said a statement from Penny Pritzker, who chaired the presidential search committee. "Claudine has brought to her roles a rare blend of incisiveness and inclusiveness, intellectual range and strategic savvy, institutional ambition and personal humility, a respect for enduring ideals, and a talent for catalyzing change."
She succeeds 71-year-old Lawrence S. Bacow, Harvard's 29th president who has led the school since 2018.
Many voices in academic circles hailed Harvard's decision, including renowned professor Henry Louis Gates, who called the choice "a victory for diversity."
"Claudine has proven herself a first-class academic leader as well as a rigorous scholar in her own right," he told The New York Times. "And under her leadership, Harvard will continue to be a model in upholding the highest standards of academic excellence, advancing frontiers of knowledge while also advancing strategies of inclusion."
Gay's academic studies include examinations of how the election of minorities in America influences public attitudes about government, and she has done extensive research into housing mobility and its impact on voter participation among poor populations.
Gay was born in New York after her parents immigrated from Haiti. The family struggled financially as her mother and father worked while paying their way through college, however, they remained determined and ultimately achieved successful careers in nursing and civil engineering. For a time, the family lived in Saudi Arabia, where her father took a job with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Gay graduated in 1988 from Phillips Exeter Academy, where she later served as a trustee.
"My parents believed that education opens every door," she said. "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. Becoming an academic was not what my parents had in mind."
