User Profile

President, Mount Holyoke College

Danielle R. Holley is the twentieth president of Mount Holyoke College. A noted legal scholar and educator, Holley served as Dean of the School of Law at Howard University (2014 - 2023) prior to joining Mount Holyoke. She holds a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Holley also previously served as a law clerk to Judge Carl E. Stewart on the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. A lauded and sought-after expert on a wide range of civil rights and equity subjects, President Holley has offered her academic analysis of topics related to desegregation, racial discrimination and affirmative action, the history of the civil rights movement, diversifying K-12 pipelines to higher education, admission of undocumented immigrants to public colleges and universities, women in academic leadership and reproductive rights. She is a leading scholar of the Supreme Court decisions regarding race-conscious college and university admissions and her insights have appeared in the media on numerous occasions. Currently, President Holley serves as the co-chair of the Board of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. She has also served on the board of the Law School Admission Council and on the board of the Howard University Middle School of Math and Science. She is a moderator for the Aspen Institute, a Liberty Fellow through the Aspen Global Leadership Network and a fellow with the American Council on Education. She is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, the trailblazing sorority for Black women in higher education founded at Howard University in 1913. President Holley is Mount Holyoke’s first permanent Black president in the College’s 186-year history, and the fourth Black woman in history to lead one of the original Seven Sisters.