As the nation grapples with issues of race and fairness, Dr. Ruth J. Simmons, a trailblazing academic leader, says different groups must join forces in service of “an overridingly important common project: a thriving democracy.” Simmons delivered the University of Houston Law Center’s 2025 Black History Month Lecture. Her talk was titled “Race and Racism: Reconciling the Past with the Present.
“We must come together to come up with sensible policies and make it possible to move forward together,” said Simmons, a Distinguished Presidential Fellow at Rice University, adviser to Harvard University on HBCU initiatives, author and president emerita of Prairie View A&M, Brown University, and Smith College. “It’s work we have to do for the survival of the country.”
UHLC Dean Leonard Baynes set the stage with a historical overview of civil rights in the United States, from the Dred Scott decision of 1857 to President Gerald Ford’s official recognition of Black History Month in 1976 to 2022’s Supreme Court opinion overturning affirmative action practice in higher education in SFFA v. Harvard. Quoting Carter G. Woodson, the historian who pioneered the celebration of Black history, Baynes underscored the significance of remembering: “If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition. It becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world….”
Simmons discussed many of her insights on race, racism, and civil rights based on her six decades of firsthand experience.
Born the youngest of 12 children to sharecropper parents, Simmons grew up in rural East Texas and later Houston. She shared that she spent about the first 18 years of her life learning in segregated schools. What she learned there had its own value and led her to earn a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, at Dillard University in New Orleans and then a master’s and doctorate in Romance languages and literature from Harvard University. Leaving the segregated learning environment was a turning point in her life.
“When I was introduced to a broader learning environment, my world expanded,” she said. “And that’s the world I wanted to be a part of.”
While a bigger world opened doors to new opportunities – like learning French among other things – it also came with additional challenges. Simmons recounted that early in her non-segregated learning experience, she found one of her classes to be very hard and wanted to drop it. However, the professor refused to allow her to do so.
Over her career, she has held leadership roles at institutions including the University of Southern California, Princeton University, and Spelman College. In 1995, she became president of Smith College, where she founded the first engineering program at a U.S. women’s college. Six years later, she became the first African American to lead an Ivy League university as president of Brown.
After stepping down in 2012, she returned to her home state of Texas, only to come out of retirement in 2017 to serve as interim president of Prairie View A&M University, later becoming the first woman to hold that role permanently. Last year, President Joe Biden awarded her the National Humanities Medal in recognition of her contributions to education and social justice.
Addressing an audience of over 300 in-person and virtual attendees, Simmons reflected on the nation’s historical struggles with race, the evolving policies, and the continued challenges that seem to be shrinking the world again for many. She cautioned against oversimplified narratives.
“In considering recent actions opposing affirmative action, it’s useful to recall those circumstances that led to the original development and enactment of this policy,” she said. “Politics, invariably, is of the moment. We must therefore accustom ourselves to the political reality of justice rather than merely spout high-minded ideals with the expectation that they will hold over a significant span of time.”
Looking ahead, Simmons urged universities to play a more active role in fostering inclusive learning environments, emphasizing the need for policies rooted in evidence rather than ideology. “Universities must be proactive in defining the elements of learning that are enhanced by the presence of difference: difference of background, difference of viewpoints, difference of cultural experiences,” she said. “We should define to what extent such a carefully curated environment takes priority over the tyranny of data and science, as well as over quantitative measures of merit.
“In being proactive, administrators should involve scholars who are able to develop more cogent theories and evidence for social and political realities that benefit from an inclusive ideal and reality,” she added.
Simmons, who has spent decades opening doors for and advising generations, reminded the audience that everyone needed to come together to do the “serious work of owning who you are, owning your legacy, protecting that legacy and protecting the truth.”
“It is up to you,” Simmons said and encouraged the audience “Have no fear.”
The evening concluded with a reception and a book signing for Simmons’ recently published memoir “Up Home.” Yet her thought-provoking words — about the nation’s past, its present, and the future of race relations — lingered well beyond the event.
Dr. Steven Starks, a geriatric psychiatrist and learning community professor at the Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine, attended the event because Simmons is a longtime personal hero of his.
“I needed guidance on how to navigate the challenges we face in ensuring everyone has the opportunity to access institutions of higher learning and attain professional growth,” Starks said. “Dr. Simmons encouraged us all to be open to critique and dialogue. I appreciated that she outlined how critical it is to develop policies that have valid measures, that focus on meaningful outcomes, and that can be communicated in a manner that is clear and relatable.”
Jerrod Henderson, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the UH Cullen College of Engineering, attended because of a personal commitment.
“As life and work can get so busy, I committed myself to be more intentional about celebrating Black History Month this year,” Henderson said. “The platform provided by the UH Law Center was a perfect setting to pause, reflect, and in a way, honor those trailblazers who paved the way for me and countless others to be able to thrive in higher education.”
His biggest takeaway: The work of inclusion must continue.
“I left more determined to find ways to contribute,” Henderson said. “Moving forward, it is crucial to remain focused and not allow the noise and chaos to derail progress.”
Original source can be found here.