Aaron Sibarium of the Washington Free Beacon reports on an interesting choice for a Harvard leadership role.
Harvard University on Monday tapped an ex-McKinsey consultant who has criticized meritocracy and published controversial research on the benefits of diversity in business to help select the university’s next president.
Vivian Hunt, who in 2015 co-authored McKinsey’s influential paper, “Why diversity matters,” has been appointed to lead the Harvard Board of Overseers, the head of which has historically sat on Harvard’s presidential search committees along with all 12 members of the Harvard Corporation, the university’s top governing body, according to the Harvard Crimson. The overseers can also veto presidential appointments with a majority vote.
The system means that Hunt—who has argued that meritocracy “isn’t good enough” and urged companies to adopt explicit diversity targets—will likely play a major role in picking former Harvard president Claudine Gay’s successor. Her appointment comes amid plummeting donations and a major drop in applications to the Ivy League school, which has been at the center of a debate about diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in higher education.
Critics of those programs say Hunt’s selection is a red flag as Harvard gears up to find a permanent replacement for Gay—a major champion of DEI—who resigned in January amid allegations of plagiarism.
“Vivian Hunt leading the search for the next president of Harvard perfectly encapsulates the rot in higher education and corporate America,” said Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, a nonprofit that has led a campaign against ESG initiatives, including diversity programs, in the business world. “If Harvard was serious about rebuilding their floundering reputation, Hunt would be the last person chosen to lead this search.”
Hunt has been a driving force behind the proliferation of DEI initiatives. Her 2015 paper has been cited by countless companies and institutions, including the Pentagon, to justify their diversity programs, even as more recent research has challenged her findings.