Anita L. Allen is an expert on privacy law, the philosophy of privacy, bioethics, and contemporary values and is recognized for scholarship about legal philosophy, women’s rights, and race relations.
Her books include Privacy Law and Society (Thomson/West, 2016), the most comprehensive textbook on the US law of privacy and data protection; Unpopular Privacy: What Must We Hide (Oxford, 2011); The New Ethics: A Guided Tour of the 21st Century Moral Landscape (Miramax/Hyperion, 2004); Why Privacy Isn’t Everything: Feminist Reflections on Personal Accountability (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); and Uneasy Access: Privacy for Women in a Free Society (Rowman and Littlefield, 1988), the first monograph on privacy written by an American philosopher.
Prof. Allen has published more than a hundred scholarly articles, book chapters and essays; contributed to popular magazines, newspapers and blogs; frequently appears on nationally broadcast television and radio programs; and is active as a member of editorial, advisory, and charity boards and in professional organizations related to her expertise in law, philosophy and health care. In 2010, she was appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
The first African-American woman to hold both a PhD in philosophy and a law degree, she is a graduate of Harvard Law School and received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan.
