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Professor of Sociology Judy Porter passed away at the age of 84 on Oct. 21, 2024, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Porter attended Vassar College for two years before transferring to Cornell University, where she earned her B.A. and M.A. in sociology. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University in 1967. 

In 1966, Porter joined the 911������ Sociology Department, where she was a dynamic teacher, adviser, and department chair. Her ever-popular introductory course, “Society, Culture, and the Individual,” introduced students to sociological thinking and research and even required students to do surveys of students from their high schools and to analyze the results quantitatively. Her “Sociology of Poverty” course led students to explore how the United States government defined poverty and how this definition aligned with real family budgets. Porter embraced the idea that sociology was about how the individual fit into the larger social structure.

Porter was raised in a family that lost many members in the Holocaust, and she developed a passion for fighting for social justice at a young age. Porter, who insisted that sociology isn’t an ivory tower discipline, was a longtime social activist, beginning with organizing protests in northern states in 1960 to support the courageous students who sat at lunch counters at Woolworth’s to protest segregation in North Carolina. She protested South African apartheid, supported Soviet Jewry in the Soviet Union, and brought her classrooms into the larger community and vice-versa. 

Sociology professor David Karen accompanied Porter and students from the College on a visit to Lexington, Miss., in the late 1980s to introduce the group to the nature and experience of racial and economic segregation in one of the poorest counties in the country. The students helped Holmes County’s Rural Organizing and Cultural Center (ROCC) on projects ranging from collecting oral histories about locals’ participation in the civil rights movement to gaining equity on water bills from the local water company. Karen remembers well “Judy’s insight and outrage about the inequality we witnessed and her encouragement of all of us to help ROCC resist.” 

“Judy’s friendship, support, and guidance was essential and central to my experience at BMC,” Karen says. “Judy was my rabbi, mentor, and role model.” 

The late Bob Washington, professor emeritus of sociology and Porter’s colleague since 1973, remarked that “Judy Porter was not only an outstanding mentor and scholar in the field of race relations, she was also a humanitarian volunteer who worked tirelessly on behalf of AIDS victims.” Washington and Porter co-authored an important article in the Annual Review of Sociology on “Black Identity and Self-Esteem.” 

Porter’s research and teaching was wide-ranging, examining race relations, poverty, health, and religion. Her book Black Child, White Child: The Development of Racial Attitudes was a follow-up study of the Kenneth and Mamie Clark study cited in the 1954 Brown v Board of Education outlawing school segregation, to see if attitudes had changed since that time. Porter published articles about race and health throughout her career. Her courses on “Sociology of Poverty” and “Sociology of AIDS” required students to work in Philadelphia and presaged the College’s Praxis program in combining academic work with community partnerships. In the “Sociology of AIDS” course—a combined academic and internship two-credit course—community experts came into the classroom and students worked in the community to engage with and better understand the nature of the crisis. 

Later in her career, Porter became a fierce advocate for harm reduction, an approach toward many social problems that acknowledges human frailty and social-structural barriers to easy solutions. As a harm reductionist, Porter co-founded Prevention Point Philadelphia, where IV drug users could trade used for clean needles, thereby diminishing the spread of HIV via shared needles. Early in the AIDS epidemic, Porter went to welfare offices to educate people about HIV and how it spread. Her work was recognized by then-Mayor of Philadelphia Ed Rendell, eventually serving on the Mayor’s Commission on Addiction and Recovery and the Mayor’s Executive Commission on Drugs and Alcohol. In 2022, Prevention Point established the Judy Porter award to recognize her contributions and continue her legacy. 

Porter had an enormous effect on so many of her students, for whom she was a role model, teacher, and adviser. Elizabeth Arend ’02 wrote in a letter to Porter “…you made a huge difference in my life. I’m sure many of your former students would say the same, but I have had the added privilege of being in touch and spending time with you and Jerry since I graduated. I am grateful for every moment. I only regret that in all of those visits, I didn’t make you sit for interviews so I could write your biography.”

Mary Osirim, professor emerita of sociology and former College provost, sums up Judy’s contributions and persona:

“Judy was an amazing teacher-scholar, extremely dedicated to fostering excellence in her students—excellence that was not confined to the classroom. She was a pioneer in experiential learning at BMC and truly believed that students learn sociology best by doing it. In her research and advocacy in Philadelphia, she transformed lives—from her work with Women Against Abuse to Prevention Point. I admired her sharp wit, high energy, fun-loving spirit, and her commitment to social justice. I am so grateful for her friendship—it was truly an honor to know her!”

Porter is survived by her husband of 64 years, Jerry, and their three children, Dan, Rebecca, and Michael.