Harvard's First Aboriginal PhD Graduate Dies at 85

When MaryAnn Bin-Sallik was nine years old, she learned what racism felt like. She wasn't allowed to sit for the scholarship exam in year seven and was instead expected to train as a domestic worker.

That anger became her fuel. Last Saturday, Professor Bin-Sallik passed away at 85, but not before becoming the first Aboriginal person to graduate from Harvard with a PhD and transforming Indigenous education in Australia forever.

Born in Broome in 1940, the proud Djaru woman refused to let others define her path. In 1962, she became the first Aboriginal person to graduate in nursing from Royal Darwin Hospital, despite everyone around her expecting less.

"I knew I wanted nursing," she told the ABC in 2017. "My mother wanted me to be a secretary but I had nursing and wouldn't budge."

After 17 years of nursing across the Northern Territory, she moved to Adelaide in 1974 and realized her real impact would be in higher education. While studying for a social work diploma, she joined the Aboriginal Task Force at the South Australian Institute of Technology, the country's first Indigenous higher education program.

By 1982, she was running it. She became the first Aboriginal person employed full time in higher education and developed Australia's first degree studying Indigenous culture at the university level.

But she wasn't done learning herself. She earned her master's degree from Harvard, then stayed to complete her doctorate in Teaching and Learning.

Why This Inspires

Professor Bin-Sallik's legacy lives in every Indigenous student who now sees themselves reflected in university textbooks. She co-commissioned the groundbreaking Bringing Them Home Report on the forced removal of Aboriginal children and served as Dean of Indigenous Education and Research at the University of South Australia.

In 2016, she became NAIDOC's Female Elder of the Year. In 2017, she received the Order of Australia.

When asked last year who inspired her now, she didn't talk about herself. "All the black PhDs," she said. "Every black person I meet with a PhD inspires me because I know you will be making literature for the next generation."

She wanted Indigenous students to learn from their own textbooks, written by their own people. Thanks to her, thousands now do.

Professor Bin-Sallik is survived by her daughters Rokiah and Lisa, and her grandchildren, who carry forward the path she blazed through barriers that told a little girl she wasn't worthy of a scholarship.