Carol Heiss
In 1960, NYU undergraduate Carol Heiss won the first gold of only three first-place medals for the United States at the 1960 Winter Olympic Games. Upon her return to New York City, the sophomore English major was greeted by a ticker tape parade on Broadway, attracting a crowd of 250,000 people.
Women Law
Dr. Emily Kempin, a graduate of the Zurich Law School, has been credited with the formation and the success of the University's first woman's law class, held on October 30, 1890. Prior to teaching the class, she had been permitted to attend legal lectures with men in 1888 and taught Roman law to male students.
Women at the Heights Campus
In 1959, NYU first admitted women to the undergraduate classes of its two colleges at the University Heights campus. The College of Engineering admitted two coeds, Linda Mantovani and Patricia Hanusik. The University College of Arts and Science admitted 102 coeds for the 1959-1960 fall term.
Constance Baker Motley
A civil rights activist, lawyer, state senator, and judge, Constance Baker Motley received an A.B. in economics from NYU in 1943. After receiving a law degree from Columbia University, Motley worked under the tutelage of Thurgood Marshall, chief counsel of the NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and eventually became associate chief counsel for the association. She aided in several key civil rights cases, including Brown v. Board of Education. In the early 1960s Motley continued her fight for equality, arguing ten civil rights cases on the floor of the U.S. Supreme Court. She won nine. In 1964, she left the NAACP to become the first African-American woman state senator in New York. She served in this capacity until the winter of 1965, when the New York City Council elected her the first woman to serve as President of the Borough of Manhattan. The following year, President Lyndon Johnson nominated Motley for a Federal District Court judgeship for the Southern District of New York. Confirmed in August of 1966, Motley became the first African-American woman named to the federal bench.
Study Abroad
The first study abroad site was opened in Madrid in 1958. Currently, NYU operates more than 40 study abroad programs in 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. These include NYU centers in London, Madrid, Paris, Florence, Prague, Berlin, Ghana, and Shanghai (beginning Fall 2006) where students may spend a summer, semester, or academic year taking courses toward their degrees and broadening their understanding of the world.
Countee Cullen
Countee Cullen, noted Harlem Renaissance poet, graduated from NYU in 1925. While a student at NYU's University Heights campus, Cullen completed his renowned "Ballad of the Brown Girl" and published his first book of poetry, Color. Color later earned Cullen the Harmon Foundation's first gold medal for literature in 1927. The NYU Archives still retains Cullen's senior thesis, "The Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay: an appreciation."
Institute Afro American Affairs
The murder of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 sparked the intensification of an NYU program to improve educational opportunities for minority groups. Central to the plan was the establishment of a scholarship program named for Dr. King.
Also in 1968, John Hatchett was hired by Chancellor Cartter to direct the new Martin Luther King Jr. Afro-American Student Center. His appointment became controversial when it was discovered that Hatchett had authored an article accusing the New York City public school system of being dominated by "anti-black Jews and Black Anglo-Saxons." Religious organizations on campus labeled his comments "Black Nazism." During the controversy, Hatchett announced that certain seminars at the Center would be open only to Black students. At first, the administration vowed to keep Hatchett, an action which led to issues of racism, anti-Semitism, and freedom of speech being hotly debated on campus. However, after further review and increased pressure, Hatchett was fired. NYU President Hester responded that such policies "are not in keeping with the spirit in which the Center was created and certainly not in keeping with the spirit in which I endorsed it." The University decided that it did not wish to endorse a center that students saw as "a form of separatism," and the Martin Luther King Jr. Afro-American Student Center came under the control of an independent board of Black students and faculty who were willing to take full responsibility for the Center in order to secure its existence.
The Afro-American Studies Institute was also created to provide lectures, workshops, conferences and programs about Black identity. This is now known as the Institute of African American Affairs.
