Christopher Edley Jr.
Christopher Edley Jr.
Christopher Edley Jr., a prominent legal and public policy scholar who co-founded the Harvard Civil Rights Project with Dr. Gary Orfield, died in May He was 71.
Edley spent more than two decades as a professor at Harvard Law School, where he and Orfield founded the Civil Rights Project in the aftermath of a 1996 court ruling that squelched race-conscious admission policies at many universities. The case stemmed from a reverse affirmative action lawsuit filed by white student Cheryl Hopwood, who was denied admission to the University of Texas law school. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled against the UT practices.
In 2004, Edley joined UC Berkely as dean of the law school, but stepped down from the role in 2013 and took a medical leave to battle prostate cancer. He returned as the Honorable William H. Orrick, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law at UC Berkeley School of Law and, in 2016, co-founded Opportunity Institute with Ann O’Leary, who served as chief of staff to California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The Berkeley-based nonprofit organization promotes social equity through education, using a cradle-to-career reach across four distinct demographic groups.
In 2012, Diverse honored Edley and Orfield with the Dr. John Hope Franklin Award, the annual recognition for excellence in higher education named after the pioneering Black
Nathan Hare
Dr. Nathan Hare, who was known as the father of Black Studies, died in June at the age of 91.
In 1968, Hare was hired at San Francisco State College (now known as San Francisco State University) as the first program coordinator of the school’s Black Studies program, the first program of its kind in the United States.
He is credited with coining the term “ethnic studies” to replace “minority studies” and was a productive researcher and scholar, publishing a number of books with his late wife, Dr. Julia Hare.
