Coalition for a Diverse Harvard Endorses 5 Candidates in 2025 Board of Overseers Race

The Coalition for a Diverse Harvard endorsed five candidates for this year’s Board of Overseers election on Sunday, three weeks before Harvard affiliates begin voting to fill six vacancies on the University's second-highest governing board.

The alumni advocacy group — which aims to promote diversity and inclusion at Harvard — endorses a slate of five candidates annually for the 30-member board that provides guidance to top Harvard administrators.

The Coalition endorsed Mark E. Edwards ’82, the chief executive officer of Upstream USA, a nonprofit supporting access to contraceptives; Nathaniel O. Keohane, the president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions; Anjali Sud, the former CEO of Vimeo; Courtney T. Vance ’82, the president of SAG-AFTRA; and Mary Louise Kelly ’93, the host of NPR All Things Considered and a former Crimson News editor.

Harvard affiliates traditionally elect five new Overseers each year, but six seats are open this year after Mark J. Carney ’82 resigned earlier this month following his election as Canada’s prime minister. While the top five vote-getters will serve six-year terms, the sixth-ranked candidate will only serve for four years to finish off Carney’s term.

Harvard affiliates will select from the eight candidates nominated by the Harvard Alumni Association when voting begins on April 1. No write-in bids were launched for this year’s election, returning the election to its quiet spot in Harvard’s governance after last year’s election saw several high-profile outsider campaigns.

The Coalition’s Sunday endorsement of candidates it expects to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion comes as the Trump administration doubles down on its aggressive campaign against those exact principles — a contrast that was not lost in the Coalition’s deliberation process, according to board member Michael G. Williams ’81.

Williams said that the group took a “broader set of considerations” in their deliberations given the new White House’s threats against DEI programming at colleges, including a pledge to cut federal funding for universities that refuse to suspend diversity-related programs.

“We want to make sure, as Harvard is making these critical decisions, that the people who are inside making those decisions have the values of the Coalition in mind,” he said. “That they make decisions about ethnic studies, that they make decisions about the curriculum in general, as they respond to the current very fraught political environment.”

Of the five candidates who received endorsements, one explicitly supported creating an ethnic studies concentration — a proposal that the Coalition has long advocated for. Another candidate who supported creating an ethnic studies concentration did not receive the Coalition’s endorsement.

Only Keohane responded to the Coalition’s questionnaire on diversity. The other four endorsed candidates cited conflicts of interest with work obligations, promised to present more information later, or declined to answer.

None of the five candidates are members of the Coalition.

Keohane said he would be a “sounding board” on issues including free speech and protest if he was elected to the Board.

“There’ll be new challenges,” he said in an interview with The Crimson. “Thinking about how do you create a University that honors those principles, I think, is going to be important.”

Kelly, the NPR host, promised to probe Harvard’s leaders on how the University would defend its values when they “come into conflict” with one another.

“I don't have the answers,” she said. “I like asking questions.”

According to Williams, the Coalition considered the questionnaire, their interviews with candidates, and the candidates’ track record on DEI and racial justice to determine their endorsements.

Seventeen other alumni affinity groups and organizations — including the Harvard Arab Alumni Association and Harvard Black Alumni Association — co-signed the endorsements, the highest number of co-signers since the Coalition’s founding, according to Williams.

The Coalition also endorsed six candidates for elected directorships with the HAA — a position that involves bolstering alumni engagement and overseeing the alumni network — after skipping those endorsements last year to focus on the Overseer race.

The Coalition endorsed Angela M. Ruggiero ’02, an Olympic gold medalist ice hockey player; Sanjay Seth, a former chief of staff at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Daniel H. Ahn ’90, managing partner at Clearvision Ventures; Colin J. Kegler ’97, a senior software engineer; Victoria W.K. “Vicky” Leung ’91, the president of the Harvard Club of the United Kingdom; and Theresa J. Chung ’98, a U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board administrative judge and a former Crimson Editorial editor.

Voting is scheduled to open on April 1 and close on May 14. All Harvard degree holders as of Jan. 1 will be eligible to vote, with the exception of alumni currently holding posts in Harvard’s governing bodies.

Correction: March 24, 2025

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that three of the Overseer candidates endorsed by the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard supported the creation of an Ethnic Studies department. In fact, two Overseer candidates supported an Ethnic Studies concentration. Only one of those two received the Coalition’s endorsement.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.

—Staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @graceunkyoon.