10 African Americans Named Rhodes Scholars, Most Ever
Style Magazine Newswire | 11/22/2017, noon
Cadet Simone Askew one of 32 Americans awarded Rhodes scholarships/credit usnews/(AP Photo/Richard Drew, File) The Associated Press
Source: USNews.com/Associated Press
The latest group of U.S. Rhodes scholars includes 10 African Americans — the most ever in a single Rhodes class — as well as a transgender man and four students from colleges that had never had received the honor before. The Rhodes Trust on Sunday announced the 32 men and women chosen for post-graduate studies at Oxford University in England. Among them: the first black woman to lead the Corps of Cadets at West Point; a wrestler at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who's helping develop a prosthetic knee for use in the developing world; and a Portland, Oregon, man who has studied gaps in his hometown's "sanctuary city" policy protecting immigrants in the country illegally from deportation. "This year's selections — independently elected by 16 committees around the country meeting simultaneously — reflects the rich diversity of America," Elliot F. Gerson, American secretary of the Rhodes Trust, said in a news release announcing the winners Sunday.
