Eddie R. Cole

Eddie R. Cole, Ph.D., is Professor of Education and History at UCLA.

Professor Cole spent 2023-24 as a Joy Foundation Fellow in-residence at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

A historian of higher education, Professor Cole’s research explores race and social movements on college campuses; power and systems of power; and the outsized influence of colleges and universities on American society.

His award-winning first book, The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom (Princeton University Press, 2020), is a history of how academic leaders shaped racial policies and practices during the mid-twentieth century. It received five book prizes:

His essays and op-eds on education, race, and socio-political contexts have appeared in TIME, The Guardian, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Chronicle of Higher Education, among other media outlets. He has also been an expert commentator for CNN, BBC World News, MSNBC, and C-Span Book TV.

His second book, With Faith in God and Heart and Mind: A History of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity (University of North Carolina Press, 2025), is a co-authored comprehensive history of the fraternity, emphasizing its vital role through multiple eras of the Black freedom struggle. The book addresses the collective and individual work of its members, such as Carter G. Woodson and Benjamin Elijah Mays, to demonstrate the power of a Black collegiate fraternal organization toward social reform.

In addition to those two books, Professor Cole has published articles in leading academic journals, including the Journal of African American History, Peabody Journal of Education, and Journal of Diversity in Higher Education.

Aside from his own writing, Professor Cole’s research has been mentioned in The New York Times and Fortune Magazine coverage on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). He also commented for The Atlantic regarding political attacks on American higher education; the Associated Press and Forbes Magazine on the hiring of Black college presidents; and Vox News on the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling on race in college admissions.

His third book, currently in progress, is a history of how American higher education has been shaped by Black intellectuals (to be published by Princeton University Press).

In addition to the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Professor Cole’s research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (now the Institute for Citizens & Scholars), the Spencer Foundation, the National Academy of Education, the University of Chicago, and Princeton University.

He is also a frequent public speaker and serves as a senior fellow for the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy and a member of the board of directors for the History of Education Society.