Walter Allen

University of California, Los Angeles

Allan Murray Cartter Professor of Higher Education

Walter R. Allen is Allan Murray Cartter Professor in Higher Education in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is also Distinguished Professor of Education and Sociology and Director of CHOICES, a longitudinal study of college attendance among African Americans and Latinos in California. He is co-investigator for “Educational Diversity in U.S. Law Schools,” a study of race, ethnicity, teaching and learning in legal education. Professor Allen’s research interests include higher education, race and ethnicity, family patterns and social inequality. He has been a consultant to courts, communities, business and government. Allen earned his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from the University of Chicago in sociology and a B.A. in sociology from Beloit College. His more than 150 publications include: As the World Turns: Global Higher Education (2012); Towards a Brighter Tomorrow: College Barriers, Hopes and Plans of Black, Latino/a and Asian American Students in California (2009); Till Victory is Won: The African American Struggle for Higher Education in California (2009); “Everyday Discrimination in a National Sample of Incoming Law Students” (2008); Higher Education in a Global Society: Achieving Diversity, Equity and Excellence(2006); Enacting Diverse Learning Environments: Improving the Climate for Racial/Ethnic Diversity in Higher Education (1999); College in Black and White: African American Students in Predominantly White and Historically Black Public Universities (1991); and The Colorline and the Quality of Life in America (1989). Media interviews include: The Oprah Winfrey Show; McNeil-Lehrer Reports; CBS Sixty Minutes; NBC Evening News with Tom Brokaw, British Broadcasting Corporation, GLOBO (Brazil), Jet Magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur, Chicago Tribune, Black Enterprise, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and U.S. News and World Reports. He is the proud father of two daughters and two sons and a doting grandfather to seven grandchildren — (five boys and two girls) and a great-grandson. He is married to Cathy R. Daniels.