TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Julia Wilburn on Jul 3, 2024

The University of Tennessee (UT) at Knoxville will give honorary degrees to former Sen. Lamar Alexander and civil rights leader Rita Sanders Geier. The Knoxville News Sentinel reports that a date for conferring the degrees has not been set, but UT has announced that Alexander will receive an honorary Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy from the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences, while Geier will receive an honorary Doctorate of Laws. Alexander, originally from Maryville, was Tennessee's governor from 1979 to 1987 and served as the 18th UT president from 1988 to 1991. He helped set some groundwork for UT to move forward with his vision for connecting with Oak Ridge National Lab. Geier, a Memphis native, attended Fisk University, then received her master's degree from the University of Chicago and her law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School. Along with four other plaintiffs, Geier filed a class action lawsuit against the state of Tennessee in 1968, saying Black students and faculty members were segregated from equal higher education opportunities. The lawsuit brought systemic change to higher education systems across the South, including through the 2001 Geier Consent Decree, which provided $77 million from the state of Tennessee to help diversify institutions and fund scholarships.