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Harvard University announced Thursday that Claudine Gay will become its 30th president, making her the first Black person and the second woman to lead the Ivy League school.

Ms. Gay, who is currently a dean at the university and a democracy scholar, will become president July 1. She replaces Lawrence Bacow, who is stepping down and has said he wanted to spend more time with family.

鈥淭his is crazy, right?鈥� a beaming Ms. Gay said as she was introduced to applause at the Smith campus center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She currently serves as the Edgerley Family Dean of Harvard鈥檚 Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

鈥淚 am absolutely humbled by the confidence that the governing board has placed in me,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 am also incredibly humbled by the prospect of succeeding President Bacow and leading this incredible institution.鈥�

A child of Haitian immigrants, Ms. Gay is regarded as a leading voice on the issue of American political participation. Among the issues she has explored is how a range of social and economic factors shape political views and voting. She also is the founding chair of Harvard鈥檚 Inequality in America Initiative, which studies issues like the effects of child poverty and deprivation on educational opportunity and American inequality from a global perspective.

鈥淐laudine is a remarkable leader who is profoundly devoted to sustaining and enhancing Harvard鈥檚 academic excellence, to championing both the value and the values of higher education and research, to expanding opportunity, and to strengthening Harvard as a fount of ideas and a force for good in the world,鈥� Penny Pritzker, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation and chair of Harvard鈥檚 presidential search committee, said in a statement.

In her speech, Ms. Gay called for greater collaboration among schools at Harvard and said there was an urgency for the university be more engaged with the world and to 鈥渂ring bold, brave, and pioneering thinking to our greatest challenges.鈥�

鈥淭he idea of the 鈥榠vory tower鈥� 鈥� that is the past not the future of academia. We don鈥檛 exist outside of society, but as part of it,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat means that Harvard has a duty to lean in, engage, and to be of service to the world.鈥�

With Ms. Gay鈥檚 appointment, women will outnumber men as chiefs of the eight Ivy League schools. Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania appointed women earlier this year, joining Brown and Cornell. Columbia, Princeton, and Yale are led by men. Drew Faust was the first woman to be president at Harvard. A noted historian of the American South and the Civil War, she stepped down in 2018 after 11 years.

Ms. Gay will be the only Black president currently in the Ivy League and the second Black woman ever, following Ruth Simmons, who led Brown University from 2001 to 2012.

Ms. Gay鈥檚 appointment is remarkable in part because relatively few U.S. universities are led by Black presidents, said Eddie R. Cole, a historian of college presidents and race at the University of California, Los Angeles. Harvard wields outsized influence in higher education, he said, and other universities are bound to take notice.

鈥淎t a time when everyone continues to look at Harvard, this presidential hire will arguably be one of the most significant in American higher education for years to come,鈥� Mr. Cole said.

As president of Harvard, Ms. Gay will shape decisions that can have impact at the local, state, and federal level, Mr. Cole said. That includes racial issues that the campus has confronted in recent years, including affirmative action and the school鈥檚 own history with slavery.

Mr. Bacow, who took over as president in 2018, expanded and updated the university鈥檚 teaching and research missions and fostered cooperation across disciplines to address issues including climate change and inequality.

Under his leadership, Harvard joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a legal challenge to the Trump administration鈥檚 decision to make international students leave the country if they planned on taking classes entirely online in fall 2020 at the height of the pandemic. He criticized the policy for its 鈥渃ruelty鈥� and 鈥渞ecklessness.鈥�

Harvard also faced challenges during his tenure. The university survived a legal challenge to its admissions policies in U.S. District Court, a case now being weighed by the Supreme Court.

It was also disclosed that disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein visited Harvard鈥檚 campus more than 40 times after his 2008 sex crimes conviction 鈥� long before Mr. Bacow鈥檚 tenure 鈥� and was even given his own office.

Ms. Gay鈥檚 early challenges could include fallout from the Supreme Court鈥檚 review of the use of race in admissions. The court is weighing challenges to processes at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, which consider race among many factors when choosing students.

Lower courts have upheld practices at both universities, rejecting claims that they discriminated against Asian American applicants. But in oral arguments this year, the high court鈥檚 six conservative justices expressed doubts about the practice, which has been upheld under Supreme Court decisions reaching back to 1978.

This story was reported by The Associated Press.聽AP education writer Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report.