Anita L. Allen

In 2019 Allen received an honorary doctorate from Tilburg University for her contributions to legal philosophy, women's rights, and diversity in higher education.

In 2017 Allen was elected Vice President and President Elect of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, the first African American woman to hold the post in any Division of the Association. In 2019 Allen was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 2010 President Barack Obama appointed Allen to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. In 2016 Allen was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

In 2006, Allen became an elder of the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church.

Allen is one of several successful black professionals whose experiences and perspectives have been profiled in books including Laurel Holliday's Children of the Dream (2000), Ellis Cose's The Rage of a Privileged Class (1994), George Yancy's African American Philosophers: 17 Conversations (1998,) and Elwood Watson: Outsiders Within (2008). She was featured in Carlin Romano's 2007 article, "A Challenge for Philosophy." Of her, he writes, "Penn's Anita Allen is at the top of her field, but she has serious concerns about its lack of openness and diversity."

Prior to joining the Penn faculty, Allen was professor and associate dean for research and scholarship at Georgetown University Law Center from 1987 to 1998, and an assistant professor of philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University from 1978 to 1981. She was the first African American woman to serve on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, 1985 to 1987. She has been a visiting faculty member at Tel Aviv University, Waseda University Law School in Tokyo, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, University of Washington, Hofstra Law School, University of Arizona College of Law, Princeton University, Yale Law School, Villanova University School of Law, and Harvard Law School.

In 1985, Allen married Paul Vincent Castellitto, a lawyer from Mount Vernon and New Rochelle, New York, who specialized in white collar criminal defense law, and later became a college instructor specializing in ethics. The pair raised two children.

Allen is a member of the Pennsylvania and New York bars. She briefly practiced law with Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City in 1984 and 1985.

A marriage in 1982 to artist Michael Kelly Williams of Detroit, Michigan ended in divorce. Allen was the model for Williams' woodcut, Afternoon of a Georgia Faun. An original version of the woodcut was printed at the printmaking workshop of Robert Blackburn and now is held in the permanent print collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Allen graduated an honor student from Baker High School in Columbus, Georgia, in 1970 in three years. Allen holds a B.A. from New College of Florida, on whose board of trustees she later served. Allen has twice delivered the commencement address at New College. While enrolled at New College, Allen spent a year studying in Italy and Germany. Under the direction of Professor Bryan Norton, she completed an undergraduate thesis on the philosophy of logical positivist Rudolf Carnap. She studied American Philosophy under Professor Gresham Riley.

Anita LaFrance Allen (aka Allen-Castellitto) (born March 24, 1953) is the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She is also Vice Provost for Faculty. She has been a senior fellow in the former bioethics department of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, a collaborating faculty member in Africana Studies, and an affiliated faculty member in the gender, sexuality and women's studies program. She has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the American Law Institute, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She served as President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in 2018–19. In 2010 President Barack Obama named Allen to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She is a Hastings Center Fellow.