Proud Products of Texas Public Schools

Ruth Simmons
Graduate of Houston Phillis Wheatley High School

On November 9, 2000, Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, unanimously elected Ruth Simmons as its 18th president. With her election, Simmons became the first African-American to preside over an Ivy League institution. Prior to that, Simmons was president of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, for six years.

The 12th child born to sharecroppers in the small East Texas town of Grapeland, Simmons moved with her family to Houston when she was young. There, her father found employment as a factory worker, and her mother worked as a maid.

Simmons continued her education, earning her bachelor’s degree summa cum laude at Dillard University in New Orleans in 1967 and her master’s and doctorate in Romance languages and literatures at Harvard University in 1970 and 1973, respectively.

Simmons has worked tirelessly toward opening higher education—particularly elite private institutions—to disadvantaged minorities, a mission she has described as “a matter of national salvation.”