Jeffrey Sonnenfeld at Corporate Board Member:
The negative buzz over board challenges experienced by Harvard, Tesla and Boeing shows remarkably parallel problems over the same period. Harvard’s stumble is particularly educational for boards facing a governance crisis.
At a recent Yale Higher Education Leadership Summit, 87 percent of 70 college and university presidents attending concluded that it was right for Harvard’s former president, Claudine Gay, having lost the legitimacy to lead, to step down, with 60 percent also expressing support for Harvard in pushing her from office.
How could this happen just a year after Gay’s installation as the first Black woman to lead Harvard University? In her own published statement, Gay referenced racial bias as a factor. However, there are many brilliant Black women educators and scholars triumphantly leading major colleges and universities, and Gay was not the first to blaze a trail in the Ivy League. Summit attendees largely concurred, with 86 percent saying that racial bias was not the reason Gay had to resign.
More here.