Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy
Anita L. Allen, JD, PhD, MA, is an expert on privacy law, bioethics, and contemporary values, and is recognized for her scholarship about tort law, legal philosophy, women’s rights, and race relations. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan. At Penn she is the Vice Provost for Faculty and the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Philosophy. In 2010 she was appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Her books include Unpopular Privacy: What Must We Hide (Oxford, 2011); Everyday Ethics: Opinion-Writing about the Things that Matter Most (Academic Readers/Cognella, 2010); Privacy Law and Society (Thomson/West, 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). She co-edited (with Milton Regan) Debating Democracy’s Discontent (Oxford, 1998). Allen, who has written more than a hundred scholarly articles, has also contributed to popular magazines and blogs, and has frequently appeared on nationally broadcast television and radio programs. Allen has served on numerous editorial and advisory boards, and on the boards of a number of local and national non-profits and professional associations including the Hastings Center, EPIC (from which she received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014) and the Bazelon Center.
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