President Joe Biden Appoints Chris Paul to HBCU Board of Advisors

President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he was appointing Suns star Chris Paul to his Board of Advisors on historically black college and universities.

Biden along with Vice President Kamala Harris—a graduate of Howard University, an HBCU—have committed more than $5.8 million to support toward the financial commitment to these institutions. 

Paul, along with 17 other distinguished leaders, will serve on the board with the idea to advance the goal of the HBCU initiative, a platform aimed at providing the highest-quality education for students attending HBCUs. 

Paul is no stranger to the HBCU community. While he attended Wake Forest, the 12-time All-Star has supported historically black colleges and universities for years. He co-produced Why Not Us, an eight-episode docuseries on ESPN that took viewers behind the scenes of the North Carolina Central men’s basketball team. In that series, it also included conversations with HBCU graduates such as Spike Lee, Taraji P. Henson and Jerry Lorenzo.

He also partnered with Harvard Business School to bring its entertainment, media and sports program to North Carolina A&T and more HBCUs in the future to provide opportunities in the career field. Paul started HBCU voting initiatives to encourage students to vote.

More recently, Paul hosted the HBCU Challenge in November and teamed up with Boost Mobile and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame to do the Chris Paul HBCU Tip Off.