Hexter received an A.B. in English literature from Harvard College in 1974. He then studied in England, where he earned a B.A. and M.A. in classics and modern languages at Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1977 and 1982, respectively. He also earned an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Yale University in 1979 and 1982, respectively. Hexter subsequently taught in the classics department at Yale from 1981 to 1991.^[2][3]

Hexter taught classics and comparative literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder and at Yale University.^[2][3] He was also the Executive Dean of Letters and Science and Dean of Arts and Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley.^[2][3] Hexter assumed the Hampshire College presidency on August 1, 2005, a post he relinquished on December 31, 2010.^[3]

Hexter has been involved with the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts, Phi Beta Kappa, the American Philological Association, and the National Conference for Community and Justice.^[3]

On August 2, 2010, Hexter announced his resignation as president of Hampshire.^[5][6] On August 20, Hampshire College announced that Marlene Gerber Fried would serve as acting president and that Hexter would be on sabbatical beginning on September 1.^[7]

On November 22, 2010, it was announced that Ralph Hexter would be the next Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor at the University of California, Davis, effective January 1, 2011.^[8] His faculty title is Distinguished Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature.

Hexter is openly gay.^[9][10] He was among the founding members of LGBTQ Presidents in Higher Education. Hexter married his longtime partner, Manfred Kollmeier, in 2007.^[11]

• Equivocal Oaths and Ordeals in Medieval Literature, by Ralph J. Hexter, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975.
• Ovid and Medieval Schooling: Studies in Medieval School Commentaries on Ovid's Ars Amatoria, Epistulae ex Ponto, and Epistulae Heroidum, by Ralph J. Hexter, Munich: Arbeo-Gesellschaft, 1986.
• Innovations of Antiquity, edited by Ralph Hexter and Daniel Selden, New York: Routledge, 1992.
• A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald, by Ralph J. Hexter, New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
• The Faith of Achates: Finding Aeneas' Other, by Ralph J. Hexter, Berkeley, CA: Doe Library, University of California, 1997.
• The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature, edited by Ralph J. Hexter and David Townsend. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
• Appendix Ovidiana: Latin Texts Ascribed to Ovid in the Middle Ages, edited by Ralph Hexter, Larua Pfuntner, and Justin Haynes. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 62. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2020.

• Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter via University of California, Davis