Glenn Loury

Glenn Cartman Loury, (born September 3, 1948) is an American economist, academic, and author.

Loury was born on September 3, 1948, in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, growing up in a redlined neighborhood.

Before going to college he fathered two children, and supported them with a job in a printing plant.

When he wasn't working he took classes at Southeast Junior College, where he won a scholarship to study at Northwestern University.

In 1972, he received his B.A. degree in mathematics from Northwestern University.

He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1976, writing his dissertation, "Essays in the Theory of the Distribution of Income", under the supervision of Robert M. Solow.

At MIT he met his future wife, Linda Datcher Loury.

Loury became an assistant professor of economics at Northwestern University after receiving his doctorate.

In 1979, he moved to teach at the University of Michigan, and was promoted to full professor of economics in 1980.

In 1982, at age 33, Loury became the first black tenured professor of economics in the history of Harvard University.

He moved to Harvard's Kennedy School of Government after two years.

While at Kennedy school he would befriend William Bennett and Bill Kristol

(He later said in an interview that his economics appointment was a mistake because he "wasn’t yet fully established as a scientist". )

In 1987, Loury was under consideration to be an Undersecretary of Education in the Reagan administration.

He withdrew from consideration on June 1, three days before citing personal reasons.

After a subsequent period of seclusion and self-reflection, Loury reemerged as a born-again Christian and described himself as a "black progressive."

In the mid-1990s, following a period of seclusion, he adopted more progressive views.

Loury left Harvard in 1991 to go to Boston University, where he headed the Institute on Race and Social Division.

He is the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at Brown University, where he has taught since 2005.

At the age of 33, Loury became the first African American professor of economics at Harvard University to gain tenure.

Loury achieved prominence during the Reagan Era as a leading black conservative intellectual.

In 2005, Loury left Boston University for Brown University, where he was named a professor in the Economics Department, and a research associate of the Population Studies and Training Center.

Loury's areas of study include applied microeconomic theory: welfare economics, game theory, industrial organization, natural resource economics, and the economics of income distribution.

In addition to economics, he has also written extensively on the themes of racial inequality and social policy.

Loury testified on racial issues before the Senate Banking Committee on March 4, 2021.

and presented at the Bruce D. Benson Center Lecture Series at the University of Colorado Boulder on February 8, 2021.

Loury hosts The Glenn Show on his Substack with John McWhorter, often regarding questions of race and education.

On January 9, 2007, Loury spoke out against increasing the number of troops in Iraq.

Loury was opposed to Barack Obama in his 2008 presidential run.

He continued to criticize Obama as president calling his tenure “depressing in the extreme" and also criticized Obama's closeness to Al Sharpton.

In 2016, he supported Hillary Clinton.

After the 2016 United States presidential election, Loury said it was dangerous for people not to recognize Donald Trump as the 45th President.

During debates with John McWhorter, Loury defended Donald Trump.

During Trump's presidency he doubted claims that Trump was an existential threat to the public.

On a 2017 episode of the Sam Harris podcast Making Sense, Loury stated that while he used to be "a Reagan conservative", he now thought of himself as a "centrist Democrat, or maybe a mildly right-of-center Democrat."

The New York Times described Loury as "conservative-leaning" and The Wall Street Journal described Loury as a “Reagan Republican”.

Loury has somewhat re-aligned with views of the American right, with The New York Times describing his political orientation in 2020 as "conservative-leaning."

After Trump refused to concede that he lost the 2020 United States presidential election, however, he rebuked Trump.

Loury would later blame Trump for the 2021 United States Capitol attack but opposed the second impeachment of Donald Trump.

Loury opposes reparations for slavery and affirmative action.