Miami native is MIT’s first black woman student body president

Danielle Geathers, a Miami Country Day grad, was recently named the 2020-21 Undergraduate Association President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s student body. Geathers is the first black woman in the history of MIT to serve in that role.

“I am really excited,” she told The Tech, MIT’s student newspaper.

Geathers, 22, was apprehensive about running for the Undergraduate Association at first.

“I talked to a couple of people who said ‘that is the problem with America.’ People who care about equity never want to run for the main role because they think they’re not for it.”

Geathers, a 2018 Miami Herald Silver Knight Award winner for athletics, soon realized she was up for the challenge.

“A black female in that role will squash every perception that MIT is still mostly white and male,” she told The Tech. “Minimally, the immediate image of that will make MIT a more welcoming and inclusive place.”

In terms of student diversity, MIT says that about 6% of its undergraduates are black and 47% percent are women.

The school, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was founded in 1861 — 159 years ago. Two days after it was chartered on April 10, 1861, the first battle of the Civil War erupted in South Carolina — the Battle of Fort Sumter.

“Although some people think it is just a figurehead role, figureheads can matter in terms of people seeing themselves in terms of representation,” Geathers told CNN. “Seeing yourself at a college is kind of an important part of the admissions process.”

Geathers, the daughter of Marva Wiley, a Miami attorney, will be a junior in the fall.

Danielle Geathers