Lani Guinier, professor, Harvard Law School selected as one of the Top Ten Black Women in Higher Education.
Nominated to head the civil rights division of the Department of Justice by former President Bill Clinton, Lani Guinier came to national attention in 1993, when conservatives attacked comments she had made in the past, on voting rights and the state of American democracy, as irresponsible and unpatriotic. Under pressure, Clinton withdrew her name from consideration. But that event has not softened her high-minded criticism of governmental policy or simmered her passion for justice. The attorney and former Justice Department staffer has written two books and numerous articles since, become the first tenured black woman professor at Harvard Law and remains popular on the lecture circuit. She now focuses a great deal of her attention on equalizing the admissions criteria at elite universities, including increasing quotas for U.S.-born blacks. Guinier, a graduate of Radcliffe College and Yale Law, argues that foreign-born or first-generation students from Africa and the Caribbean hold many of the slots that should be allotted for students who are descendents of former American slaves. Guinier's father Ewart Guinier was, ironically, a Jamaican-born Harvard student who left the school because he didn't have enough financial aid. The elder Guinier was also one of the university's first black professors.
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Wednesday, July 13th 2005 at 5:15PM
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