Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot will teach a course at Harvard later this year on “Health Policy and Leadership,” she announced on Thursday.
“I’ve always loved teaching, and the opportunity to get back to it is something I am really excited about,” Lightfoot said in a statement. “I learned a lot over the past four years, and this gives me an opportunity to share my experiences and perceptions of governing through one of the most challenging chapters in American history.”
The course will draw on her experiences leading Chicago through COVID-19, a pandemic that put enormous strain on every sector of the city and highlighted the city’s endemic social problems. Lightfoot, who lost her bid for re-election in February, drew on her pandemic leadership as she appealed to voters but her legacy on the issue is more mixed.
Early in the pandemic, when Black Chicagoans were dying at six times the rate of whites, Lightfoot and her team led by Dr. Allison Arwady worked to address that startling disparity. They provided door-to-door outreach with masks and information in vulnerable communities and, when vaccines became available, prioritized them for South and West side residents.
But Lightfoot also was slow to take action when the pandemic spurred Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to close schools and businesses across the state, following along only reluctantly. She later clashed with the governor over bar and restaurant rules and battled the Chicago Teachers Union in a push to return to in-person learning, even as she faced blowback over keeping the lakefront closed too long. Her supporters praised her effort to make Chicago the largest open city in America, but critics accused her of acting too hastily to loosen restrictions.
As mayor, Lightfoot also walked away from her campaign promise to reopen public mental health clinics closed by predecessor Rahm Emanuel. Lightfoot argued the city could better serve residents by giving money to vendors, a stance that drew criticism and which her successor Brandon Johnson has pledged to reverse.
“I’m delighted to welcome Mayor Lightfoot to Harvard Chan School as a Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow,” Michelle A. Williams, Dean of Faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a statement. “As mayor, she showed strong leadership in advocating for health, equity, and dignity for every resident of Chicago, from her declaration of structural racism as a public health crisis to her innovative initiative to bring mental health services to libraries and shelters. And of course, she led the city through the COVID-19 pandemic.”
