The invitation to James Lawson to serve as Visiting Professor this fall at Vanderbilt is for that venerable institution a courageous act of repentance and a sign of hope that life can and does change. Lawson was dismissed from the Divinity School for his civil rights organizing activites with Fisk students more than 30 years ago.
One could wish that the late Langdon Gilkey had lived to see this day. Reflecting on his experience as a faculty member in Nashville during those "heady" times, Dr. Gilkey often told the story of how he and several other Divinity School faculty tendered their resignations unless Lawson was reinstated. The Chancellor was not moved. However, when several members of the faculty at the Medical School offered the same challenge, the administration began to reconsider, although Lawson had by that time had moved on to Boston.
In his inimicable way, Gilkey noted that, in the South, a great university could survive without a divinity school, but not a medical school!
On a personal note, it humbled me to recently learn that one of those activist Med school faculty members was my late Uncle, Dr. Victor Najjar. I think he would also had been very pleased to learn of Vandy's turn-a-round.
Visit PBS story "This Far By Faith"
No comments:
Post a Comment