Scholars Council, 2001 - present
More about the Scholars Council

Kluge Chair in American Law and Governance, 2015
Read press release

Blog: "William Julius Wilson Discusses 'The Declining Significance of Race' on Voice of America’s Press Conference USA"

Blog: "William Julius Wilson Arrives at the Kluge Center"

WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON is Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University, where he is affiliated with the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Professor Wilson was educated at Washington State University (Ph.D). He taught sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1965-71) and later at the University of Chicago (1972-96), where he also served as director for the Center for the Study of Urban Inequality (1990-96). He joined the faculty of Harvard in 1996.

Professor Wilson was selected by Time Magazine as one of America's 25 most influential people. He is a recipient of the 1998 National Medal of Science, the highest scientific honor in the United States. His publications include "The Declining Significance of Race" (1980); "The Truly Disadvantaged" (1990); "When Work Disappears" (1997); "There Goes the Neighborhood" (co-author, 2007); and "More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City" (2010). In 2015, Wilson held the Kluge Chair in American Law and Governance at the Kluge Center, revisiting research on race and inequality found in his earlier works through the lens of recent events.

Selected Publications

• "More Than Just Race" (2009)
• "The Bridge Over the Racial Divide" (1999)
• "When Work Disappears" (1996)
• "The Declining Significance of Race" (1978)

Events

• "#ScholarFest: Freedom of Expression & Why It Matters" (Jun. 11, 2015)
• Lecture: "Reflections on Issues of Race & Class in 21st Century America: Revisiting Arguments Advanced in the Declining Significance of Race" (May 21, 2015)
• Moynihan Lecture, 2013