Why Tyra Banks' Time At Harvard Sparked Controversy

Tyra Banks became a renowned international fashion model in the '90s when she signed a contract with Elite Model Management and launched her career as a runway model in Paris, quickly rising to one of the world's top supermodels, as per Biography. The California native became the first African-American model to be featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, in addition to GQ magazine.

When she left runway modeling, she expanded into the world of entertainment, debuting her acting career with several appearances on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" in 1993 and, later, starring in a handful of popular films, including "Life-Size" and "Coyote Ugly." Banks reached her pinnacle when she created her own reality television program "America's Next Top Model," followed by her Emmy-winning talk show "The Tyra Banks Show." 

While the former supermodel has enjoyed a truly well-rounded career, her position in the limelight has earned her plenty of criticism. Banks has made plenty of controversial choices related to her mentoring style on "America's Next Top Model" and treatment of aspiring models. She was also supposedly caught in a lie when asked if she was jealous of Oprah while hooked up to a lie detector machine, according to biographer Terri Dougherty's "Tyra Banks." However, the Banks controversy that takes the cake has to do with a business course she attended at Harvard in 2012.

While it is true that Tyra Banks attended Harvard Business School, she did not earn a diploma. In fact, she received a Certificate of Completion after finishing a course in the Owner/President Management non-degree extension program, which totaled nine weeks of study, as per the Daily Mail. While the course completion certainly brings huge boasting rights, the extension program is not the same as a full-time MBA program, which runs for two years and earns students a diploma upon completion. 

The controversy surrounding the model's time at Harvard began after she posted a photo to Twitter in which she held up her certificate while posing next to the Harvard Business School's Centennial Bell. Alongside the snap, she wrote, "Smiling ear2ear on the Harvard Business School campus w/ my diploma!" Her choice to use the word "diploma" was criticized as misleading. She continued the confusion with a separate tweet that read, "So excited 2 finally graduate from Harvard Business School! Learned so much from every1 of you - my profs&classmates!"

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter a few months later, Banks again name-dropped Harvard, although the outlet clarified that she was talking about "the university's executive education program." Banks' Harvard debacle aside, she did have lofty college goals right out of high school, revealing in Lean In that she was accepted at both UCLA, USC, and "several universities and film schools around the Los Angeles." However, she "chose to attend Loyola Marymount" before deferring her admission for a fashion career. 

Tyra Banks' misrepresentation about her Harvard Business School achievement clearly was not her best moment, but it wasn't her only public misstep. Many of the model's controversial moments are related to her reality television program, "America's Next Top Model," which ran from 2003 to 2018. Critics of the show have expressed their distaste for Banks' lack of sensitivity towards race despite being a Black woman herself, as reported by CNN. Resurfaced clips have shown the former supermodel berating the models on the show for certain perceived flaws, including a gap between the front teeth of one model. She was also seen encouraging the women to "darken their skin tones" in another episode, which was called out as blackface.

The "Dancing with the Stars" host was slammed once again earlier this year when Olivia Jade, daughter of Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, was accepted as a contestant on the dance competition show, according to Black Enterprise. The YouTube influencer's parents famously made headlines in 2019 for their involvement in a college bribery scam. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Banks defended the decision to allow Olivia Jade to participate on the show, which earned her plenty of criticism. She stated to the publication, "I think Olivia is so brave. I think people don't know her, they know what happened to her ... It's really sad, and it's very hurtful when something publicly happens but you had nothing to do with it."