Marx completed a doctoral dissertation titled "Lessons of struggle: South African internal opposition movements, 1960-1990.

After graduating from Yale, Marx spent a year in South Africa participating in the anti-Apartheid movement.

[4][5] According to BusinessWeek, one reason the Amherst Board of Trustees chose Marx as president was his support for socioeconomic diversity on college campuses.

One of Marx's goals was to make Amherst more accessible to qualified students from lower income families.

Coates Senior as founder of Black Classic Press has controversially republished anti-Semitic and homophobic screeds from a range of African-American writers.