Berry spent seven years working at the
University of Maryland, eventually becoming interim
provost of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences. In 1976, she became chancellor of the
University of Colorado in
Boulder,
Colorado, the first black woman to head a major research university. In 1977, Berry took a leave of absence from the University of Colorado when President
Jimmy Carter named her assistant secretary for education in the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. She clashed frequently on the commission with the Reagan-appointed chairman,
Clarence M. Pendleton Jr. Pendleton tried to move the commission in line with Reagan's social and civil rights views and aroused the ire of liberals and feminists. He served from 1981 until his sudden death in 1988. In 1984, Berry co-founded the
Free South Africa Movement, dedicated to the abolition of
apartheid in South Africa. She was one of three prominent Americans arrested at the South African Embassy in Washington the day before Thanksgiving; the timing was deliberate to ensure maximum news exposure. In 1993, Berry was also appointed chair of the Civil Rights Commission by President
Bill Clinton, who reappointed her for another term in 1999. Separately from her work on the Civil Rights Commission, Berry was named chair of the
Pacifica Radio Foundation's National Board in June 1997. She drew controversy from listeners, programmers, and station staff, after she and the board attempted to modify programming in order to expand the listeners of the stations and to attract a more diverse audience. "White male hippies over 50," is how Berry described the programmers and audience of KPFA in Berkeley. Rumors of board actions involving the sale of flagship stations such as KPFA were widely circulated by the programmers. (Unlike most public service stations, Pacifica stations hold valuable high wattage licenses at commercial frequencies in major urban markets including
New York City.) In 1999 she and Pacifica's Executive Director Lynn Chadwick fired the station's manager and issued a gag order, threatening to fire anyone else who worked at the station who spoke of their actions. Berry thereafter ordered a lockout of all KPFA personnel, in violation of station union agreements. She then proceeded to demand the imposition of racial preferences across the board at KPFA, though she refused to meet with minority staff people at the station, who mostly disagreed with her actions. Berry's actions in connection with Pacifica Radio brought protest from free speech groups such as the
ACLU. She subsequently resigned from the Pacifica board. She continued to serve as chair of the Civil Rights Commission. In 1999, Berry persuaded the Clinton administration to appoint
Victoria Wilson, her editor at
Alfred A. Knopf, to the commission. In 2001, she and the Democratic board members of the commission barred the seating of
Peter Kirsanow, who had been appointed by President
George W. Bush to replace Wilson on the commission. Berry and the Democratic bloc argued that Wilson was entitled to serve a full six-year term, but the Bush Administration contended that she had only been appointed to serve out the remainder of a previous member's term. Kirsanow sued, claiming Wilson's tenure had expired and he had been validly appointed. Wilson won in federal district court but ultimately lost on appeal in 2002, and the court ordered the seating of Kirsanow. The dispute determined which political party would have a majority of the board's members. Berry left office expiration of her term in late 2004 and was succeeded by
Gerald A. Reynolds. In 2009, Berry's ninth book was published, a history of the Civil Rights Commission. Reviewing it in
The New York Times,
Samuel G. Freedman wrote, "Reviewing a book is not reviewing a life. For her public service on behalf of racial justice, Mary Frances Berry deserves her many accolades. But on the evidence of 'And Justice for All,' she may have been the wrong person to tell a story that obviously matters to her so deeply." ==Leadership==