Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative

Late Admissions by Glenn C. Loury is a raw, introspective memoir by one of America’s most provocative and influential economists, tracing his extraordinary personal and intellectual journey through issues of race, identity, morality, and belief.

Loury recounts his rise from a working-class childhood on Chicago’s South Side to earning a PhD from MIT and becoming the first Black tenured professor of economics at Harvard at just thirty-three. But behind his professional success lies a turbulent personal story: he has been a young father, drug addict, adulterer, psychiatric patient, born-again Christian, and later, a skeptic of faith.

Throughout his life, Loury has been unafraid to challenge political and cultural orthodoxy—from his controversial stances on affirmative action and institutional racism to his shifting views on conservatism and progressivism. What defines him most, however, is his fearless honesty and his willingness to rethink and revise even his most deeply held convictions.

In Late Admissions, Loury offers a candid reflection on the complexity of self-identity, the cost of public intellectual life, and the ongoing struggle to reconcile personal failings with moral and political principles. It is a portrait of a brilliant, flawed, and ever-evolving mind, told with unflinching truth and hard-earned wisdom.