Phyllis Ann Wallace died on January 10, 1993, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at age 72, following a distinguished career as a labor economist and MIT professor.
Phyllis Ann Wallace passed away on January 10, 1993, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 72. At the time of her death, she was a professor emerita at the MIT Sloan School of Management, having become the first African American woman to earn tenure at the institution.
Her death was noted in major publications including The New York Times, which highlighted her pivotal role as the economist whose data and analysis undergirded the historic 1973 consent decree between the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and AT&T—at the time one of the largest sex and race discrimination settlements in U.S. history.
Wallace's death marked the end of a career that spanned government service, academia, and civil rights advocacy. She left behind a legacy of scholarship on labor market discrimination against women and minorities, and her work continued to influence economic policy, labor law, and corporate diversity practices long after her passing. Colleagues and former students at MIT and throughout the economics profession remembered her as a pioneering scholar who used rigorous empirical methods to document and combat discrimination.