Large Group of Blacks Inducted Into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Four of the New African-American Fellows Are Academics

JBHE research shows that approximately 2 percent of the 4,000 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences are black. This year’s group of 175 new American inductees includes at least seven African Americans. Joining former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and new chief justice of the United States John Roberts, are four blacks from the academic world and three from the corporate sector.

While the academy does not disclose the race of its members, JBHE research has determined that among this year’s black inductees are:

•  Dean Paul Baquet, editor of the Los Angeles Times
•  Lawrence D. Bobo, Martin Luther King Jr. Centennial Professor and director of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University
•  Kenneth I. Chenault, chair and CEO of the American Express Company
•  Michael C. Dawson, professor of political science at the University of Chicago
•  Rita Dove, former poet laureate of the United States who currently serves as Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia
•  Darlene Clark Hine, professor of history at Northwestern University
•  Gwen Ifill, moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and senior correspondent on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer for the Public Broadcasting System

Copyright © 2006. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.