James Edward Allen Jr. (April 25, 1911 – October 16, 1971) was the Commissioner of Education of the State of New York from 1955 to 1969 and served briefly as Richard Nixon's U.S. Commissioner of Education.
His father was a Presbyterian minister and he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Davis & Elkins College in 1932.
[2] In 1960, he was opposed to school districts drawn up along racial lines and began having local school boards redraw boundaries to end racial disparities in 1962.
[3] His strong support for desegregation caused friction however, and President Nixon removed him the following year.
He went from there to the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton.