Since its founding in 1636, Harvard University has been the most prestigious and most financially endowed institution of higher learning in the US.

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Satonya Fair holds a red-cased diploma at her graduation at Miami University. She is a young Black woman in navy graduation robes with a yellow, green, red, and black sash. She smiles at the camera as people mill around in the background outside of a brick building.

Since its founding in 1636, Harvard University has been the most prestigious and most financially endowed institution of higher learning in the US. Just 150 years its junior, the University of North Carolina was founded in 1789. For the majority of their histories, the students these campuses played host to have formed a sea of near-unbroken whiteness. Harvard Law School did not have its first Black graduate until 1869, with the first Harvard BA awarded to a Black man the following year. UNC eventually followed suit in 1955, with a whopping three Black students; Karen Parker was the first Black woman to earn a JD from UNC Law School in 1959.

In 2022, the private Ivy and the public Ivy found themselves preparing legal arguments for the Supreme Court. At its essence, both universities were fighting for to retain their best practice to date—affirmative action policy using race as one of many criteria for college admissions—which they deployed to right the wrongs of systemic and overt exclusion of not only Black students, but also of ethnic minorities that were deemed undesirable and therefore excluded from campus participation. The majority decision, delivered on June 29 in the case of Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. (SFFA) v. President and Fellows of Harvard College ([link removed]) , struck down affirmative action programs in college admissions, stating that both universities violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

I am from Ohio, a state that enjoys a reputation for producing musical and political luminaries, great tires, strong steel, and ardent white supremacy. For the four years that I made the four-hour bus trip between my parents’ Akron home and Miami University in Oxford, I learned to know, by the mile marker, when I needed to look away from the window to shield my early-adult eyes from farm after farm where three giant crosses stood symbolically for racial hatred, and Confederate flags painted across the sides and roofs of barns. Let’s just say that my neck got a workout.

I averted my gaze then, as a Black woman in the late 1980s and early 90s, so as not to give new life to the experiences that hounded my parents and that held my ancestors in bondage. The plantation houses had long burned down and disappeared, but the familial memories carried on, shared through narrative and embedded in our very DNA.

After four years of this unwelcome routine, and despite pushback based on the prejudice of an almost-entirely white faculty, I completed college with a double major in political science and psychology. Many of my fellow Black students switched to other universities to complete their degrees; only 50 percent of us graduated from Miami. For those of us who stuck it out, the Black administrators hosted, proudly, a graduation reception in our honor. As a 22-year-old who always finished what she started, I recall a bit of a What’s the big deal? feeling. But for my family, it was huge. At that moment—as at this moment, I hope—I was realizing my ancestors’ wildest dreams for our family.

Last year, I returned to the campus to celebrate my 30th class reunion and the memories came rushing back. The class of 92 had roughly 100 Black students on a campus of more than 12,000 undergraduates. During my time there, I had experienced, regularly, incidents of white students asking to touch my hair or my skin. The N-word was regularly launched by student athletes who forgot that we had Black student athletes on campus, too. In one particularly fraught moment, the KKK staged a “parade” through the main campus street, either on their way to or returning from their rally in Cincinnati. Via phone tree, the campus scrambled to advise all students to stay indoors and resist confrontations. I remember most of us were terrified, angry, and puzzled. This isn’t 1965. How could this happen?

If you made your way through the 237-page opinion in the SFFA case, or had a moment to skim any of the amicus briefs favoring affirmative action (in essence, a pro-diversity perspective citing business, finance, and academic research showing that exposure to different people and experiences, which often first occurs during college, creates a positive ripple effect that leads to better and healthier communities, positive financial outcomes for US companies, and a competitive advantage globally across many factors), you witnessed the progressive desire to see this country not for its ugly past—of slavery and brutality against Black folks and other marginalized people, codified yet in certain laws, policies, and practices across the country—but for what we intend to be our highest ideal: That folks in positions of power would simply do the right thing by others. All the time. With no legal intervention required.

I’ve been in a spin since that Thursday. And as I read and processed, I found myself reflecting on PEAK’s annual convening this past May, our first in-person gathering since 2019. There, we created space for peer communities to connect, and these spaces have quickly proven to be a lab for testing, challenging, and learning. At PEAK2023, our Black Caucus hosted a session titled “What if Philanthropy Loved Black People?” It was the first time I had seen so many Black people gathered in one place over my 13-year experience with the organization. My heart was so full I struggled to keep myself still and in the moment. The transparency and honesty on display was simultaneously inspiring and heart-crushing: Many reported feeling alone in their organizations, witnessing what seems to be a falling away from social justice advocacy. Many reported an organizational shift since George Floyd’s murder: from pushing to help Black folks, to pushing for BIPOC communities, to pushing for marginalized or
diverse causes, to pushing simply for all people. Anticipating this ruling, leadership in philanthropy—still largely white leadership—seems to have preemptively sought cover with watered-down language and intentions. Though done quietly, it was not done without notice.

In the weeks since that discussion, and in preparation for this expected, yet still shocking, Supreme Court decision, I have found myself going back to the question “What if philanthropy loved Black people?” and expanding on it: What if our Founding Fathers loved Black people? What if America loved Black people? What if the world loved Black people? If you took even 30 minutes to absorb the news of the past week—from Sudan to France to the Supreme Court of the United States—you’d see clear evidence that Blackness creates a fear in folks that manifests in violence against us, and in policies that seem hell-bent on stymieing or destroying our bodies, our progress, and our joy. But I shall not be stymied, let alone destroyed.

Enough has been said and written by now about the zero-sum mentality—that one’s gain is another’s loss—that we should all have unlearned and erased it from our thinking. I can be safe, healthy, and financially comfortable. You can be safe, healthy, and financially comfortable. We can stand side by side and clear the path for the next and the next to do the same. My win has never been to the detriment of anyone else. And if you do not agree, that is a sad statement about you.

If the heart values humanity, then the resulting action is to create ecosystems and circumstances where Black people have unfettered access to opportunity. The Supreme Court decision does the opposite. It means that the freedom to attain a college degree—a powerful lever for attaining financial success in the US—is a type of freedom that even fewer Black folks and other people of color will be able to enjoy.

So what happens next? I believe that this decision might have a chilling effect on many sectors, including our own, which have employed many practices to address the lack of diversity in its ranks. Because of affirmative action, there was at least some hope that higher education institutions were going to eventually help America work through the educational attainment divide that is at the root of exclusionary employment and housing access issues. But my more immediate concern is about how humans go into tomorrow and the next day.

Again, if the heart is for good, justice, and right, nothing will stymie you in your pursuit of policies and practices that lift those qualities up. However, I am aware that for some Americans, their “right” and “good” is an America in retrograde, slipping backwards in time, bucking against progress. I concede that humans are complicated.

My first thought is based on recent experience: When narrow-minded people feel triumphant, they lose all pretense of tolerance in communities and at work. We should watch for shifts in behavior. Dr. King prepared us in describing the cloaked Northern racism that met him as he journeyed in support of worker’s rights, fairness, and justice: “Only the language was polite; the rejection was firm and unequivocal.” Within philanthropic circles, this same politeness may be used to cover up a failure of accountability, a disconnection between values and actions, and giant power gaps in our powerful micro-sector. Will the ripples of those challenges spill over into the conversation around using demographic data, being trust-based, and shifting funds to Black-led and -powered entities? Some within our ecosystem think so. As an optimistic realist, I tend to agree—and that potential outcome hurts me in ways I cannot express in words right now, especially given a history of underinvestment in my people.

The other issue is more delicate: Black folks and Asian folks must make every effort to find common ground and work toward solidarity. No race or ethnicity is a monolith—let me spell that out and share that I believe it. Though SFFA is an association made up primarily of Asian Americans, it does not represent all Asian Americans—just as I neither represent all Black people or women (though I get tagged with the representational good and bad regardless).

Following the horrific violence in Atlanta of two years ago, I saw a shift in the relationship between our communities. Many Asian people in my circle spoke about how quickly Black folks showed up to support the Asian American community. Having experienced such horrors all too often—having in many ways earned a degree in grief and fear—Black Americans were quick to act and offer support in any way we could. Although we share many common experiences historically—exclusion, normalized hate against us, bondage and separation—perceptions of caste, and possibly a pull toward whiteness, have seemed, in my experience, to divide us. I have no crystal ball, but I plan to double down on efforts to build more bridges with my Asian sistas and brothas. Many Black Americans have come to expect this pendulum swing between Black progress and white fear (or flight). Sadly, we are not yet done with the struggle.

It’s ironic that July 1, 2023, marked the official first day for Dr. Claudine Gay ([link removed]) , the first Black president of Harvard in its almost 400-year history. She’s high achieving, driven, and has both a humble and uplifting origin story as a child of Haitian immigrants. Reading about her journey, in her words, I have felt instant camaraderie. Like Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, such a feat has been accompanied by a fight, as opposed to an unfettered celebration over what must be one of her proudest personal and professional milestones. Also like Justice Jackson, Dr. Gay is to me Black Girl Magic exemplified. I hope all will join me in sending them both some positive cosmic energy. Unbowed, Harvard has already pledged ([link removed]) to continue their work to ameliorate the wrongs of the past.

After being named president-elect of Harvard, Dr. Gay spoke about how her parents arrived in the US, worked hard to pursue higher education, and sought careers that made her path possible: “My parents believed that education opens every door.” With this decision, SFFA can celebrate overcoming what they perceive as an unconstitutional harm for some. But for many Black students, doors closed this June. To all those looking for solutions, remember that change begins with you. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for to shift the pendulum back again toward justice and equity. We are the movement builders, and we must use all legal means and options, with grace, love and peace as the wind at our backs. As for me, I plan to take that door off its hinges.

Satonya's signature reads Satonya and is written in black ink.

Satonya Fair, JD
President and CEO
PEAK Grantmaking
she/her/hers

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