(Bloomberg) -- Harvard University named Claudine Gay as the Ivy League school’s first Black president and just the second woman to hold the post.

She will succeed Lawrence Bacow on July 1, the university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in a statement Thursday. 

Gay, 52, joined Harvard’s faculty in 2006 as a professor of government and served as dean of social science from 2015 to 2018. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, followed by a doctorate in government from Harvard. 

“Harvard has a duty to lean in and engage and to be in service to the world,” Gay said at a news conference following the announcement of her appointment. “Our people, our collections, our research, how we use our convening power, in business, in law, in public policy, for all of that our commitment must be to openness and engagement.”

The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Gay has focused her studies on political participation, voting behavior, public opinion and the interplay of race, ethnicity and politics in the US, Penny Pritzker, chair of Harvard’s search committee, said in the statement. 

“Claudine is a remarkable leader who is profoundly devoted to sustaining and enhancing Harvard’s 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,” said Pritzker, a former US commerce secretary.

Bacow, 71, announced in June that he planned to retire after shepherding the university through the pandemic. During his tenure, which began in 2018, Harvard also acknowledged the university’s ties to slavery and established a $100 million endowed Legacy of Slavery Fund.

He was preceded by US historian Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard’s first woman president, who served in the post for 11 years.

Gay will be settling into her new role after the Supreme Court considers challenges to race-conscious admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The case could determine the fate of affirmative action at all US colleges and universities, and the justices are expected to issue a decision by June. 

Read more: College Affirmative Action in Doubt After Supreme Court Fray

“Enrolling a diverse student body is central to fulfilling our educational mission,” Bacow said in a separate statement.

The university said its search for a new president garnered about 600 candidates. Other members of the search committee include former American Express Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Chenault and Carlyle Group Inc. co-founder David Rubenstein.

(Updates with Supreme Court affirmative action case in ninth paragraph.)

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