Shaun Harper, PhD

Two U.S. Presidents and a California Governor have appointed Shaun Harper to significant boards and councils. In 2024, he joined the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy as a Professor in the Department of Public Policy and Management. Harper is one of 14 Provost Professors, an elite cadre of interdisciplinary faculty members who hold joint appointments in two or more academic schools at the University of Southern California. He joined the USC Rossier School of Education and USC Marshall School of Business faculties in 2017 after spending a decade at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a tenured full professor. Harper was named University Professor in 2022, a distinction bestowed only to 30 of nearly 4,700 full-time USC faculty members. Additionally, he holds the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership.

Harper is best known for his rigorous scholarship on race, gender, and other dimensions of equity in policymaking, educational, and corporate contexts. He also is an expert on intercollegiate and professional sports. One of his 12 books, Scandals in College Sports, offers comprehensive analyses of significant policy violations that occurred over four decades. In September 2024, Harvard Education Press published his newest book, The Big Lie About Race in America’s Schools. He is currently finalizing his next book, which is on the implementation of name, image, and likeness policies in college athletics.

Harper has testified twice to the U.S. House of Representatives and spoken at numerous White House and federal agency convenings, as well as at three Congressional Black Caucus annual legislative conferences. His research has been included in several amicus briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and cited in over 25,000 published studies spanning a vast array of fields and disciplines. The recipient of dozens of top awards in his fields and five honorary degrees, Harper was ranked the fourth most influential scholar in the field of education in 2023. He served as the 2020-21 American Educational Research Association president and the 2016-17 Association for the Study of Higher Education president. He was inducted into the National Academy of Education in 2021. He has been a National Education Policy Center Fellow since 2016.

Beyond his academic work, Harper teaches various publics through extensive journalistic engagement. He spent one year (2020-21) as editor-at-large of TIME magazine; published 93 articles during his two years (2022-2024) as a Forbes contributor; and currently writes as a columnist for Inside Higher Ed. More than 3 million people have read articles he has written for the Washington Post, Forbes, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Fortune, CNN.com, and other major press outlets. In addition, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Sports Illustrated, USA Today, and The Atlantic are among the hundreds of newspapers and magazines in which he has been featured or quoted as a subject-matter expert. Harper has been interviewed on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, ESPN, PBS NewsHour, NPR, and the Dr. Phil Show.

In addition to his Senior Scholar role in the USC Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy and Government Service, Harper is founder and chief research scientist of the USC Race and Equity Center. During his 14 years as its executive director, his center generated more than $51 million in grants, contracts, and investments. The U.S. Air Force, Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, New York City Department of Education, Philadelphia Mayor’s Office, City of Los Angeles, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Major League Baseball, and the National Football League are among the more than 400 agencies, businesses, and institutions with which Harper has worked.