Lani Guinier
Lani Guinier (; born April 19, 1950) is an American civil rights theorist. She is the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the first woman of color appointed to a tenured professorship at that institution. Guinier's work includes professional responsibilities of public lawyers, the relationship between democracy and the law, the role of race and gender in the political process, college admissions, and affirmative action.
Early life and career
Born in New York City, Guinier is the daughter of a Jewish mother and civil rights activist, Eugenia "Genii" Paprin, and Ewart Guinier, a black Panamanian-born and Jamaican and Harlem-raised scholar who was one of two blacks admitted to Harvard College in 1929. Ewart Guinier was, however, not given financial aid nor was he allowed to live in the dormitories on the purported grounds that he had failed to submit a photograph with his application. After dropping out of Harvard College in 1931 because he could not afford it, he ultimately returned to Harvard as a professor and chair of the Afro-American Studies Department in 1969.
