Citation of William Julius Wilson by Acting Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty Ann B. Scott.

Mr. President, I am honored to present William Julius Wilson.

Glazed eyes stare out at landscapes scarred by littered vacant lots, glittering broken glass and streets strewn with the detritus of stultified, purposeless lives. William Julius Wilson, a leading sociologist of our time, believes that these hopeless panoramas are rooted in ghetto joblessness, not ghetto poverty. Maintaining that "most workers in the inner city are ready, willing, able and anxious to hold a steady job," he advocates the adoption of public policies that will halt the downward spiral of poverty and despair, policies that include a broad network of job opportunities, job training, public school reform, child care programs, universal health insurance, subsidized transportation and an expansion of the earned income tax program.

After receiving his Ph.D. at Washington State University, William Julius Wilson began his career as a teacher at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He then moved on to the University of Chicago, where he taught sociology and public policy as the Lucy Flower University Professor and directed the Center for the Study of Urban Equality. Currently, he serves as the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and Department of Afro-American Studies.

Wilson has authored or edited nine books that deal with race relations, urban poverty, the ghetto underclass and public policy. Several of these publications have been cited as among the best books of the year; others have garnered awards from the American Sociological Association, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, the Gordon Public Policy Center at Brandeis and the Sidney Hillman Foundation. Among his many other distinctions, he was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship and in 1998 received the National Medal of Science, the highest scientific honor conferred in the United States.

For demonstrating through his example the critical role of the academic as an engine of social change, for his courageous advocacy on behalf of the urban poor and for his belief that society can develop creative policies to improve the prospects of all persons, I present William Julius Wilson for the degree Doctor of Laws.

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