Jesse E. Hoffnung-Garskof ’93 will join the Harvard faculty as the third professor to be recruited through an ethnic studies cluster recruitment initiative by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, according to the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard, which advocated for the creation of a department of ethnic studies.

Hoffnung-Garskof, currently a professor of history, American culture and Latin studies at the University of Michigan, will join Harvard as a professor of history, according to the group. He would join other ethnic studies scholars that Harvard recruited as part of its group recruitment – ​​history professor Erika Lee and government professor Taeku Lee.

The Coalition for a Diverse Harvard has announced the hiring of a tweet Friday. FAS spokeswoman Rachael Dane declined to comment.

Jeannie Park ’83, co-founder and board member of Coalition for a Diverse Harvard, wrote in a statement that Hoffnung-Garskoff’s acceptance of the Harvard job offer is “a second round of exciting news” just three days after Harvard announced the nomination of Erika Lee.

“Harvard said faculty must come before structure, so now it’s time to give new and existing faculty, who have been presenting plans for ethnic studies for years, the resources to build,” he said. she writes.

The dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Claudine Gay, announced in February that the school was “actively recruiting” four academics she had identified as part of its ethnic studies group hiring.

Hoffnung-Garskoff was among several scholars, including Erika Lee, who visited Harvard in 2020 as part of a lecture series featuring candidates for the ethnic studies faculty.

Beginning in 1972, Harvard affiliates advocated for an ethnic studies program for five decades. In June 2019, Harvard announced that Gay would hire three to four senior professors in Asian American, Latin American, and Muslim American studies. The search for Ethnic Studies professors was suspended in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but resumed approximately four months later.

In her statement, Park wrote that the Coalition still regrets that Harvard has denied tenure to other ethnic studies professors, such as former associate professor of Romance languages ​​and literatures Lorgia García-Peña, whose denial of tenure in 2019 caused national outrage.

“As we celebrate new hires, we still mourn the loss of Professor Lorgia García-Peña and other ethnic studies professors that Harvard has failed to hire in recent years,” she wrote.

—Editor Meimei Xu can be reached at meimei.xu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @MeimeiXu7.