[1] Harris is an educator, having held her first position in 1965 as an assistant professor in the department of Art and Archeology, Columbia University.
[2] She was then appointed Assistant Professor of Art History at Hunter College, City University of New York (1971–1973).
Following that she held the Arthur Kittridge Watson Chair for Academic Affairs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1977–1981.
Harris received a Senior Research Fellowship in 1981-82 from the National Endowment for the Humanities and in 1982, was named the Amon Carter Distinguished visiting Professor of Art History at the University of Texas at Arlington before accepting the position of Mellon Professor of Art History at the University of Pittsburgh.
[4] She argues that an aspect of bias was that women did not have access to the same academic training as men, thus causing their dismissal as "dilettantes".