Coalition For A Diverse Harvard Backs Six Candidates in 2026 Board of Overseers Race

The Coalition for a Diverse Harvard on Wednesday endorsed six candidates for the Board of Overseers ahead of the April election, in which nine nominees will compete for six seats on the University’s second-highest governing body.

The alumni group, which advocates for diversity and inclusion, issues annual endorsements for Overseer and Harvard Alumni Association elected director races. This year’s slate includes mergers and acquisitions lawyer Salvo Arena; entrepreneur Teresa Hillary Clarke ’84; artificial intelligence technologist Arti Garg; former justice of the Mexican Supreme Court Alfredo Gutiérrez Ortiz Mena; former California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris; and architect Philip L. Harrison ’86.

The slate was announced in partnership with seven other alumni advocacy groups.

The top five candidates will serve six-year terms on the 30-person advisory board, which consults the Harvard Corporation and the University’s top administrators. The candidate with the sixth-most votes will finish out the two remaining years of Vikas P. Sukhatme’s term.

This year’s race unfolds amid Harvard’s ongoing tensions with the White House — a backdrop the Coalition said it hopes alumni will weigh as they cast ballots.

Michael G. Williams ’81, a Coalition board member, said the election offers alumni a chance to respond to what the group sees as concessions by Harvard to political pressure from the Trump administration. He pointed in particular to controversial decisions last spring and summer to restructure diversity offices and cut funding for affinity group graduation celebrations.

“I think it is a vehicle for the alumni to express, among other things, concerns about what direction Harvard will go in, in relation to the pressure that’s been placed upon it,” Williams said.

“We as a coalition, deliberately, definitively want to make sure that the University stays true to its commitments regarding diversity, equity and inclusion, and we see our selections of who we decide to endorse as part of that process,” he added.

Four of the six endorsed candidates completed the Coalition’s diversity questionnaire; Garg and Clarke declined. All four respondents said they would support establishing a formal ethnic studies department — a longstanding Coalition priority.

Several candidates also backed changes to Harvard’s admissions practices. Harrison, Burke Harris, and Gutiérrez Ortiz Mena supported reducing the weight of legacy and donor ties, while Gutiérrez Ortiz Mena called for eliminating both preferences entirely.

Williams said new alumni interview guidelines — which bar interviewers from discussing an applicant’s race, ethnicity, or national origin — have prompted “deep, deep concern” within the Coalition. Candidates’ positions on the policy factored into endorsement decisions.

“One of the things that was interesting among the Overseer candidates, in particular, was how many of them have extensive experience interviewing candidates to the College,” Williams said. “But in turn, given that experience, how off-putting it was to them to be faced with these new guidelines during this academic year.”

In interviews with The Crimson and questionnaire responses, Harrison, Arena, and Gutiérrez Ortiz Mena each called for revisiting the policy to ensure applicants’ backgrounds and experiences are fully conveyed in the admissions process.

Founded in 2016 to counter a campaign to elect anti-affirmative action candidates, the Coalition has remained a significant force in Harvard politics. Though the Supreme Court struck down Harvard’s affirmative action policies in 2023, the Coalition remains an influential voice in University politics — for the past two years, all of its endorsed candidates have won seats on the Board.

The group also endorsed three HAA Elected Director candidates: alumni arts network founder Mia Esther Alpert ’99; attorney and law lecturer James P. “Jimmy” Biblarz ’14; and private investor Yoshiko J. “June” Nagao ’96.

Voting opens April 1 for most Harvard degree holders, with the exception of officers of instruction and government at Harvard and members of the Harvard Corporation.

Though more than 335,000 alumni are eligible, turnout remains low. Last year, just 39,725 ballots were cast in the Overseers race — just over 10 percent of eligible voters.

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at hcc.35. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at elisespenner.82. Follow her on X @EliseSpenner.