Loury Sought Public Spotlight, His Friends and Colleagues Say

Colleagues and friends of Professor of Political Economy Glenn C. Loury in interviews this week painted a portrait of an intellectually brilliant, attention-seeking, and socially popular man destined for success, when describing the Kennedy School economist who last week was charged with assaulting a woman.

Loury, whom Reagan tapped in March for a cabinet post, cited personal reasons when he withdrew his name from the nomination two days before the woman filed a complaint with the Boston police.

Professors who have worked with the Kennedy School economist said he has chosen to pursue the public spotlight, speaking out on Black issues from a conservative viewpoint, rather than a more scholarly career.

But a longtime friend and colleague described a more personal side of Loury, saying he is "immature" and rash and intensely leader of the Black community. The friend added that Loury had "a self-destructive personality" which sometimes led him to seek risk and excitement in defiance of social norms.

Born in Chicago's South Side to a family of modest means, the 39-year-old Loury quickly rose to the top of the economics profession, but he is better known for his views on the role ofBlacks in today's society.

Loury has taken critical stands againstaffirmative action and questioned the views ofnational civil rights leaders in numerous speechesand writings. He advocates what he calls a"self-help" philosophy for Blacks and argues thatpreferential treatment for minorities"stigmatizes" all successful Blacks.

But colleagues said that Loury's provocativeconservative arguments, which made him a favoriteof the Reagan Administration, did not appear inhis earlier years.

"A hot number" coming out of MIT at the age 27,the noted Black conservative was courted byseveral schools before he accepted an assistantprofessorship at Northwestern University'seconomics department, said Robert Eisner, chairmanof the department at the time.

After writing a "prodigious amount of highquality material in a short period of time," Lourybecame known as "one of the outstanding economistsof his generation," said Frank Stafford, chairmanof the economics department at the University ofMichigan, where Loury accepted a tenured post in1980.

In 1982, Loury accepted a lifetime post atHarvard where he "would gain a lot more visibilitythan at Ann Arbor," Stafford said. He involvedhimself in public policy issues and in 1984 afterMIT tried to lure him away, he made the switchfrom the Economics Department to the K-School.

At Northwestern and Michigan, Loury's views inarticles and private conversations were "fairlyliberal," said his former colleagues. "I did notrecall him as having particularly conservativeideas that have made him attractive to the ReaganAdministration," Eisner said.

"It did not occur to me that he was opposed to[affirmative action policies] then," Eisner said.In a May interview, Dubois Professor of Historyand Afro-American Studies Nathan I. Huggins notedthat only recently has Loury charted such aconservative course.

Colleagues speculated about the factors thatbrought about Loury's "puzzling" transformationinto a conservative. A Harvard professor who spokeon the condition of anonymity speculates that itstems in part from the low number of Blacks on theUniversity's faculties.

Loury's opposition to affirmative action wasprompted by his belief that such policies hadstigmatized him, as his colleagues attributed hisearly tenure to his race and not his ability, theprofessor said.

Stafford speculated that the conservativenature of Loury's economic writings had alienatedhim from the liberal Black community. Stung, heretreated into the arms of "irrational, fairlyquestionable conservative elements," Staffordsaid.

But Marcus Alexis, dean of the School ofBusiness Administration at the University ofIllinois at Chicago and chairman of the economicsdepartment at Northwestern when Loury was there,sees a more calculated motivation behind Loury'spolitical views.

"He wanted to be the great Black leader, a kindof messiah," Alexis said. "But Jesse Jackson wasway out in front of the traditional civil rightmovement," so Loury turned to a conservativephilosophy, added Alexis, who said he was alongtime friend of Loury.

"I think that he has and had a great desire tobe listened to, to be in the limelight," Alexissaid. "And the conservatives gave him that stage."

Alexis says the recent allegations againstLoury do not come as a complete surprise to him,but he finds them very ironic in light of Loury'sconservative philosophy.

"That's the ultimate irony. He always had thesense of moral rectitude and it was something thathe sought, and they were aspects of his personallife which didn't fit his preachments," Alexissaid.

"Maybe deep down he was a troubled person indeep conflict with himself, of trying to provesomething and wanting to make a statement aboutBlackness in some ultimate sense," Alexis said."That kind of search for an ultimate truth gotconfused with ego gratification," he said.Photo/APKennedy School Professor GLENN C. LOURY,right, seen with his attorney last week in BostonMunicipal Court.