Milestones in diversity, equity, and inclusion at BU: people on the path

Boston University has a long and distinguished history of diversity and inclusion. Indeed, its founding mission was built upon those tenets. The University was the first in the nation to admit women to medical school, to graduate a Native American physician, and to award a PhD to a woman. And that’s just for starters. Today, nearly two centuries later, BU is redoubling its efforts. Recent examples include the relocation of the expanded Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground to a place of prominence on campus and the establishment of the Center for Antiracist Research.

Below are just six of the remarkable people who take their place on that continuum.

On this Giving Tuesday, December 1, 2020, we hope you will join us in supporting those funds that help create a more antiracist, diverse, and inclusive BU.

Fighting for justice

Emanuel Hewlett (LAW 1877) was the first Black graduate of the School of Law and one of the first Black degree recipients of a major US law school. He ran a busy law practice in Boston from 1877 to 1880, then moved Washington, D.C. In 1883 he became one of the first Black Americans admitted to the bar of the US Supreme Court, and among the first Black Americans to argue cases before that court. He was involved in 10 Supreme Court cases, often working on appeals he filed on behalf of Black defendants whose civil rights, he argued, had been violated through the willful exclusion of Black Americans from juries and grand juries. In other cases, he challenged denials of access to public accommodations on his own behalf and for Black clients, including a joint effort with several Black Washingtonians to fight against bars and restaurants violating the Equal Services Acts of 1872 and 1873, D.C. laws that barred racial discrimination in such establishments. In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him a justice of the peace for the District of Columbia. He was reappointed by Presidents Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt, ultimately serving a total of 16 years in the position.

You can learn more about Emanuel Hewlett here, here, and here.

Pursuing a dream

Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS’55, Hon.’59) arrived in Boston in 1951 to study at BU after attending Crozer Theological Seminary, in Upland, Penn. He came with a strong interest in philosophy and ethics, and earned his PhD in systematic theology. Among his mentors was Howard Thurman, dean of the University’s Marsh Chapel and the first Black dean at a mostly white American university. According to the BU School of Theology, “Among the lessons that inspired [King] most were Thurman’s accounts of a visit to Mohandas Gandhi in India years earlier.” Gandhi’s ideas about nonviolent protest would shape his illustrious career. Approximately six months after graduating from BU, King led the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., where he first began to attract national recognition. In August 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom drew some quarter million people, more than 60,000 of them white, to the nation’s capital to press for the passage of legislation before Congress. The high point of the march was King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial. King returned to Boston in 1964—the same year he received the Nobel Peace Prize, at age 35—to donate his personal papers to BU. The collection is among the most prominent held by the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.

You can learn more about Martin Luther King, Jr. here, here, and here.

Ensuring equal rights

John Ward (LAW’76) became Boston’s first openly gay male attorney in 1977. One year later, a police sting operation targeted—and entrapped—gay patrons of the Boston Public Library. Within two weeks, 103 men were arrested on charges ranging from indecent exposure to “lewd and gross behavior.” Ward responded by founding GLAD—Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (now known as GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders). A year later, he filed GLAD’s first case, charging the library and police officials with violating the civil rights of a man arrested at the site. The case ended in a settlement. In 1995, Ward became the first openly gay male lawyer to argue in front of the US Supreme Court, representing a group of gay, lesbian, and bisexual Irish Americans who wanted to march in South Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. The parade sponsors, the South Boston Allied War Veterans, had excluded the group. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the parade sponsors had the right to exclude marchers whose message they reject. It wasn’t a win, but it was a start. For 40 years, GLAD has been at the forefront of the crusade for LGBTQ+ rights. In 2003, the organization received national attention for its work in winning marriage rights for same-sex couples in Massachusetts.

You can learn more about John Ward here, here, and here.

Leading the way in Arts & Sciences

In 2007, Virginia Sapiro, a political scientist and women’s studies scholar, became dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences—the first woman dean in the college’s history. She held the position until 2015, and continues as a professor in the Department of Political Science. Sapiro has published extensively in the fields of political psychology, political behavior and public opinion, gender politics, and feminist and democratic theory. Her leadership positions include stints as both secretary and vice president of the American Political Science Association (APSA) and founding president of the APSA Organized Section on Women and Politics Research. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012 and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Frank J. Goodnow Award, which recognizes a career of distinguished scholarship and professional service.

You can learn more about Virginia Sapiro at her blog, as well as here and here.

Shaping the world’s stories

In 2019, Bonnie Hammer (CGS’69, COM’71, Wheelock’75, Hon.’17) was named chairman of NBCUniversal Content Studios. In that capacity she leads the company’s award-winning television studios—Universal Television, Universal Content Productions, and NBCUniversal International Studios. Previously, she was chairman of Direct-to-Consumer and Digital Enterprises, where she built the brand identity and launched the initial content for Peacock, NBCU’s new streaming service. She moved to Peacock after serving as chairman, NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment, where she had executive oversight of the leading cable brands USA Network, SYFY, Bravo, Oxygen, E! Entertainment, and Universal Kids—cable networks that under her leadership experienced tremendous growth domestically and internationally. No wonder, then, that the Hollywood Reporter named her “Executive of the Year” in 2019 and the “Most Powerful Woman in Entertainment” in 2014. She has also been recognized for her strong commitment to social issues. Just one example: in October 2017, she reinvented and relaunched her award-winning pro-social campaign Erase the Hate, which won an Emmy Award for its groundbreaking documentaries and specials, community programs, and educational materials. In delivering the Commencement address to the BU Class of 2017, she encouraged the students with these words: “When you leave today, you’ll begin to write the most powerful, most meaningful, and most entertaining story of your life.”

You can watch Bonnie Hammer’s Commencement address here, and learn more about her here and here.

Teaching antiracism

On July 1, 2020, BU announced the launch of the BU Center for Antiracist Research and the hiring of its founding director, Ibram X. Kendi, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities. “My hope is that it becomes a premier research center for researchers and for practitioners to really solve these intractable racial problems of our time,” Kendi said at the time. “Not only will the Center seek to make that level of impact, but also work to transform how racial research is done.” He is the author of three #1 New York Times bestsellers: How To Be an Antiracist; Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, coauthored with Jason Reynolds; and Antiracist Baby. How To Be an Antiracist also made several Best Books of 2019 lists and was described in the New York Times as “the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind.” He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News racial justice contributor. His op-eds have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post, London Review, Time, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, Paris Review, Black Perspectives, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. A sought-after public speaker, Kendi has delivered hundreds of addresses over the years at colleges and universities, bookstores, festivals, conferences, and other institutions in the United States and abroad. This year, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

You can learn more about Ibram X. Kendi here, here, and here.

To see more milestones in BU’s history of diversity and inclusion, please click here.