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.