Reinstate Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright's Honorary Degree

To:  President Henry Bienen

Reverend Jeremiah Wright has dedicated his life's work to serving those that society has left unequal and excluded. After a review of his life's work, and a vote of the appropriate faculty committee, Reverend Wright's service with distinction to his community merited reward with an honorary degree in Sacred Theology from Northwestern. After the degree was approved by the faculty, and approved by the Board of Trustees, the degree was rescinded. This decision is not in the spirit of the academic tradition, is embarrassing for a university of Northwestern’s stature, and is unprecedented.
The undersigned, including the black alumni community, the black undergraduate community, and the larger community of intellectuals and concerned citizens are outraged at the University's unilateral and unprecedented action to rescind the award of a degree offered to and accepted by Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

We call for the University to engage in the following actions immediately:
1. Reinstate the honorary degree withdrawn from Jeremiah Wright.
2. Award the Honorary Degree to Reverend Wright at the June 20th 2008 commencement ceremony.
3. Institute a faculty committee immediately to review the decision to withdraw Reverend Wright's honorary degree, and to create rules that the University will follow in the future regarding honorary degree candidates that may become the subject of controversy.
4. Disclose all facts the University used in concluding that giving Reverend Wright an honorary degree is controversial.
5. Institute a task force made up of University personnel, faculty, students and alumni to investigate the instances of insensitivity toward the Black community including the Reverend Wright controversy; the failure to grant Professor Aldon Morris, the position of permanent dean of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, though he was a finalist and was the interim Dean of the Weinberg College; Blackface – black body Halloween incident in 2007; the dramatic decline in enrollment in Black undergraduate students at Northwestern since 1992; and other instances of racial intolerace of black students that have occurred on campus; the lack of resources and financial aid for black undergraduate students; and the failure of the University to include and serve black high school students who live in impoverished communities.

We can no longer remain silent as great institutions like Northwestern bless racial and religious bigotry by withdrawing the degree from Reverend Wright, while at the same time silently close the door of opportunity on highly intelligent but poor black students.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Reinstate Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright's Honorary Degree Petition to President Henry Bienen was created by Members of NUBAA; Members of FMO; The larger community of progressives and intellectuals and written by Ce Cole Dillon (colewrite@gmail.com).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.