The Ford Foundation has picked Heather K. Gerken, the dean of Yale Law School, to become its next presiden. Gerken will oversee one of the country’s most powerful philanthropic organisations in an era in which social justice, long a hallmark of the foundation’s giving strategy and programming, is increasingly framed as a culture war issue by conservative donors and politicians.
Gerken will succeed Darren Walker a year after he announced his departure following a 12-year tenure at the head of the Ford Foundation. Gerken has stated that she will continue to help the foundation “protect democracy and the rule of law and further our mission to create a more just and fair world for everyone”.
“Heather Gerken brings exceptional intellect, inclusive leadership and a profound commitment to justice around the world,” Paula Moreno, who served on the presidential search committee for the Ford Foundation board of trustees, said in a statement. “As only the second woman to lead the Ford Foundation, where we reimagine the world through equality and hope, Heather will drive bold innovation and inspire transformative systemic change with urgency and vision.”
During Walker’s time helming the foundation, he shifted the funding focus of the organisation towards “wealth disparities” and “injustices in politics, culture and society that compound inequality and limit opportunity”, a pivot from the more generalised scope of its founding by the auto empire heir Edsel Ford in 1936. In more recent decades, the Ford Foundation has supported what eventually became PBS, helped save the collection of the Detroit Institute of the Arts after the city filed for bankruptcy in 2014, and spent more than $600m on gifts and contributions to causes related to “civic engagement and government”, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana and Spelman College, according to The New York Times.
Gerken will take the reins of the foundation in November, departing from Yale before her second term was originally scheduled to conclude in 2027. A lawyer who clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice David Souter, Gerken taught at Harvard Law School before her arrival at Yale, where she became a dean in 2017. She was praised for instituting a popular program that helped cover law school tuition for low-income students and for refusing to provide data for the US News and World Report rankings, arguing that the for-profit publisher’s formula for producing those rankings was arbitrary and harmful. Her background in constitutional law made her a standout as the foundation searched for an appropriate successor to Walker.
Gerken’s time at Yale was not without controversy. In 2024, the law school stripped a pro-Palestine activist, Helyeh Doutaghi, of her role as deputy director of the university's Law and Political Economy project after an AI “empowered” website accused her of being a member of a terrorist organisation. Yale fired Doutaghi, citing her refusal to aid in the school’s investigation, sparking sharp criticism throughout the institution.
Members of the Trump administration have cast various public aspersions on the Ford Foundation’s legacy, including the vice-president, JD Vance, who called the foundation and other similar entities “cancers on American society” on Fox News during his Senate candidacy.
In a statement of support, Christopher L. Eisgruber, the president of Princeton University, Gerken’s alma mater, stated that her presidency would prove the correct choice “in a moment when constitutional democracy needs urgent attention and engagement”.
