Emory President James Wagner

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) will honor Emory President James Wagner tonight with the Stuart Lewengrub Torch of Liberty Award.

Wagner will receive the Torch of Liberty Award in recognition of his "dedicated efforts to revisit and correct injustices that have been a stain on Emory University’s proud history."  

Wagner will be honored for his leadership in the convening of a major conference exploring slavery and the university, for overseeing creation of the university's Transforming Community Project, and more recently for apologizing and leading a town hall meeting in discussing anti-Semitic practices that excluded from admission or failed Jewish students of the now defunct Emory Dental School.  

Wagner joins two other champions of social justice in receiving prestigious awards from the Anti-Defamation League:  

• Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed will receive the Abe Goldstein Human Relations Award for dedicating his political career to building bridges across "lines of race, party, religion, sexual orientation and ethnicity."

• The Honorable Stuart Eizenstat, former ambassador to the European Union and special representative of President Bill Clinton on Holocaust issues, will receive a special Centennial Achievement Award for his impact on the global Jewish community.

The awards will be presented Nov. 19 at the ADL Community of Respect Dinner in Atlanta.  

"We are extremely proud that in our Centennial year, we are able to recognize the accomplishments of these three distinguished honorees, all of whom have worked to erase discrimination and bigotry and to help bring us together across lines of race, religion, sexual orientation and ethnic background," said Michael Merlin, Southeast regional chairman of the ADL Board of Directors.