Honoring Professor W. Allison Davis, PhD’42
Allison Davis
The Division of the Social Sciences and the School of Social Service Administration are organizing an inaugural Allison Davis Symposium to honor Professor W. Allison Davis, PhD’42 (1902-1983) and to bring his work the recognition it deserves. Originally planned for May 2020, the event will be rescheduled once the COVID-19 pandemic has abated.
Looking ahead, the event will be convened as an annual symposium, an enduring part of the life of the University, featuring a distinguished public lecture bearing on the areas which Davis pioneered, and providing a forum for community engagement as well as scholarly discussion. Professor Davis’ lifelong commitment to studying the causes and consequences of racial and social inequality means that an annual Allison Davis Symposium will not only honor his legacy but also serve as a beacon to focus attention on the work that still lies ahead.
Professor Davis led a long and prolific life in academia, leaving his legacy as a model for transformative social science scholarship. He was trained in the methodologies of the Chicago School of Sociology and Social Anthropology. His scholarship maintained the kind of detached, professional tone that mid-century social scientists aspired to achieve. But for Davis, who was the first African American tenured faculty member at a predominantly white university, research was never a mission of mere academic fact-finding. Instead, he spent his life innovating new applications of cutting-edge social science to challenge racial inequality in America. His pathbreaking research, exemplified in his 1941 book, Deep South, provided critical support for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s efforts in the Brown vs. Board of Education case. Across his long career, Davis called out bias in the methods social scientists adopt in the study of life success and educational achievement.
An endowed fund to sustain the symposium in perpetuity – ensuring the continued life of a very vibrant event going forward – has been graciously established with the leadership support of a University of Chicago Trustee and two Trustees Emeriti, among several generous donors.