Glenn Loury on Race Relations, how to be a good student, and reflections on his brilliant career
An interview with one of the world's great living teachers
Glenn Loury was the first black economics professor to win tenure at Harvard, appointed at age 33 to the permanent faculty of the University. This Summer, I interviewed Glenn in Dallas, Texas, as part of the UATX Forbidden Courses series. Prior to recording, we had spent a week canvassing the question of Racial Inequality in America, with 20 exceptional students, gathered at Old Parkland, in downtown Dallas.
The timing of our interview was extremely fortuitous. The day prior, the United States Supreme Court had handed down its watershed decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, effectively ending the legal sanction of positive discrimination in favour of Black students and against Asians in University admissions practices.
Among other things, Glenn gave considerable support to Justice Clarence Thomas’s formulation of the moral and legal dissonance in the affirmative action principle. As he said to me:
This is not a new question. This is a question that has been around for a half Century. Justice Thomas has, from the very beginning of his career, been raising serious doubts about the appropriateness of the racial affirmative action policies - about their legality and their utility, and I share some of those concerns, so unlike many of my fellow black intellectuals, I am not disquieted by the challenge to African Americans and to the country which the Supreme Court’s decision in this affirmative action case poses. I think that we are entering a new era, in the long historical struggle of African-Americans for equality, and I much prefer to do it on a level playing field without racial preferences being a part of the picture, at least as far as college admissions is concerned
Nearing the end of one of the most distinguished careers in American higher education, Glenn was generous in sharing his reflections. His life story is an amazing one - and one he shared more openly than expected, reading excerpts from his yet-to-be-published memoir to the students.
I found Glenn’s candid advice and deeply personal recollections extremely moving. I hope you enjoy this interview featuring one of America’s greatest public intellectuals.