Bobo is the second of three sons born to Joseph R. Bobo Sr., a graduate of Meharry Medical College and once the chief of minor trauma at USC County Medical Hospital in Los Angeles, California, and Joyce Cooper Bobo, a longtime teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District.[citation needed]
His maternal grandmother was Ann Nixon Cooper, the 106-year-old Atlanta woman Barack Obama mentioned in his victory speech in Grant Park, Chicago, upon his election as president in 2008.[2] Bobo wrote of his relationship with her in a blog post for The Root at the time of her death.[3]
In June 2024, Bobo authored a Harvard Crimson op-ed arguing that Harvard should sanction faculty members who "excoriate University leadership, faculty, staff, or students with the intent to arouse external intervention into University business".[8] His essay was widely criticized by faculty at Harvard and other universities, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board.[9][10][11] Ten members of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard responded to Bobo in another Crimson op-ed, calling his arguments "downright alarming" and "clear infringements on academic freedom".[12][13]
They live in the Brattle District of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a home originally designed by Lois Howe in 1898.[14] Bobo and Morgan remodeled the home, contracting with architect Mary Ann Thompson[15] and consulting on the kitchen design with chefs Jody Adams and Aaron Sanchez. The remodeled Victorian has received recognition[16] and awards.[17]
Awards and honors
Warren J. Mitofsky Award for Excellence in Public Opinion Research, The Roper Center, University of Connecticut (2021)[18]
Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement, American Association for Public Opinion Research (2020)[19]
Phi Beta Kappa (Alumni Member), Omega Chapter of California, Loyola Marymount University (2020)[20]
Outstanding Book Award, American Association for Public Opinion Research (for Prejudice in Politics) (2018)[21]
W.E.B. Du Bois Fellow, American Association of Political and Social Science (2017)[22]
Charles Horton Cooley-George Herbert Mead Award for a Career of Distinguished Scholarship in Sociological Social Psychology, American Sociological Association (2012)[23]
Outstanding Book Award, American Association for Public Opinion Research (for Racial Attitudes in America) (2005)[24]
Bobo, Lawrence D.; Smith, Ryan A. (1994), "Antipoverty policy, affirmative action and racial attitudes", in Danziger, Sheldon H.; Sandefur, Gary D.; Weinberg, Daniel H. (eds.), Confronting poverty: prescriptions for change, New York Cambridge, Massachusetts: Russell Sage Foundation Harvard University Press, pp. 365–395, ISBN9780674160811.