Long before she was a member of the British Royal Family and even before she was an actress —Meghan Markle was a typical college girl. The Los Angeles native has always had a passion for philanthropy, women’s rights, and education so it makes sense that she would attend the prestigious Northwestern University located in Evanston, Illinois — a suburb just outside of Chicago. Markle would double major in Theater and International Relations.

Though she has always been super intelligent– pledging with the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, and snagging an internship at the US Embassy in Buenos Aires, Markle was always bothered by one thing in college.

Did Meghan Markle have a hard time in college?

Markle chose to attend Northwestern because of their acclaimed drama department where she focused on African-American playwrights. Unfortunately, the Duchess of Sussex soon discovered that the rest of her classes and institutions for higher education across the Western world erased women and people of color in both the curriculum and in leadership roles. One of the duchess‘ former professors, Harvey Young, told Northwestern Now, 

Being a biracial actress, Meghan had a sophisticated view and understanding of what it means to be perceived and treated differently. She was quite aware of how people respond to race and was very clear about the need to think about the experiences of people who are not only biracial but also people of color.

In 2017, Markle told Allure, “I took an African-American studies class at Northwestern where we explored colorism. It was the first time I could put a name to feeling too light in the black community, too mixed in the white community.”

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Meghan Markle is working to bring more diversity to colleges and universities

With her new role in the British Royal Family –Markle is working to bring more diversity to institutions of higher learning, so students don’t face the same issues that she met when she was in college. The duchess is a patron of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), and she is supporting a campaign that will, “decolonize the curriculum’ and confront the legacy of empire and racism on university campuses.”

According to The Times, after hearing a presentation from Meera Sabaratnam, who is leading a push to decolonize the curriculum at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the City, University London –Markle said, “Just open up that conversation so we are talking about it as opposed to continuing with that daily rote… sometimes that approach can be really antiquated and needs an update.”

The duchess was reportedly showed a sheet of data that revealed that UK professors were overwhelmingly white men. The mother-to-be was taken aback by the news, and she exclaimed, “Oh my God.”

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