Dr. Perry Brickman did what a lot of his classmates did after he flunked out of Emory’s dental school in the 1950s: He buried the truth, never telling his friends or family that he was singled out for being Jewish.
But after discovering a book written 50 years ago documenting the dental school dean’s anti-Semitic bias, Brickman decided to seek out classmates who were also victims of the prejudice.
Brickman spent the next few years interviewing dozens of Jewish students who attended the school in the 1950s and 1960s, painstakingly compiling a 56-minute homemade video that revealed a pattern of discrimination by the school’s dean.
On Wednesday, the footage prompted Emory administrators to apologize for the sad chapter in the school’s history — the first time the school had acknowledged the bias.
More importantly, Brickman said, his experience has helped other victims come to a reckoning of what happened to them.
“Going against Emory in Atlanta is like attacking the Vatican in Boston,” Brickman said. “It was a fraternity of silence. We were just quiet. We didn’t say a word. Ever.”
No longer. At Wednesday’s event, a standing-room-only crowd packed a ballroom for the debut of a documentary film that — much like the public apology that followed — never would have come without him.
"I am sorry. We are sorry," Emory President James Wagner said. "We know that Emory can never totally repair the impact that discrimination had on Jewish dental students more than half a century ago, but we can use the opportunity provided by Dr. Brickman's research to reflect on these events in ways that make us more vigilant.
“We owe him thanks for helping to remind us to make certain that events like these will never be possible again.”
Thunderous applause rang out from the crowd of about 400, a turnout that surprised even Emory administrators who had carefully planned the event. Many in the audience where well-dressed and white-haired, and a few leaned forward in their wheelchairs so as not to miss one second of the film, “From Silence to Recognition: Confronting Discrimination in Emory’s Dental School History.”
What they witnessed was a remarkable and very public coming to terms on two fronts: Between the university and the victims of its long ago discrimination. And between the victims and their own hidden pasts.
“I look at it as they suffered a form of post-traumatic stress disorder and shame,” said David Duke, whose Lilburn-based production company, Living Stories, made the documentary that grew out of Brickman’s videotaped interviews.
“When you see the interviews that Perry did, it was like how some World War II veterans never talked about (their experiences). But if they finally did, it was as though it was happening to them yesterday.”
Credit: Hyosub Shin, hshin@ajc.com
Credit: Hyosub Shin, hshin@ajc.com
The pain was palpable in the ballroom as the half-century-old details came tumbling out.
The “dreaded letter” that arrived out of the blue informing one Jewish student he’d flunked out of Emory’s dental school.
The “one opportunity” another Jewish student was given to resign from the program, leading him to enroll in medical school instead.
The cheating accusations lodged against another student when he and his non-Jewish study partner came up with the same answers on tests.
They all pointed to the same truths: that the school’s dean, John Buhler, had an undeniable anti-Semitic bias during his tenure between 1948 and 1961. Even after Buhler left the school, Emory administrators denied the bias. And Buhler, who died in 1976, went on to lead a South Carolina dental school.
“We all knew,” said Jay Paulen, 80, the student who was forced to defend himself against those cheating accusations. He remembered helplessly watching the dwindling ranks of his Jewish dental fraternity.
“Every year, we would lose more guys,” he said.
Those guys are no longer keeping it bottled in. One former student after another admitted in interviews after the screening that they’d hidden what they’d experienced at Emory for far too long.
"I didn't tell my kids about it until much later. After I had given my son the disc," said Richard Arnold of Coral Gables, Fla. "In a way, I felt like I couldn't tell them until after what I'd been through had been validated like that."
His daughter’s reaction to discovering what really happened to her father?
“I was shocked,” said Dana Arnold Startt, who accompanied him to the screening. “I know he’s a strong person who can overcome anything, but I was unaware he had gone through this. Truthfully, I wish he had said something about it prior to this. There are some things in my own life I would have done differently.”
Another woman who grew up knowing all about her father’s difficult years at Emory understands why some were so reluctant to talk about it.
“It’s very shame-based,” said Brenda Paulen, whose father, Jay, was one of the few Jewish students to make it all the way through Emory’s dental school during that dark period. Still, the pain of his experience lingered, she said.
"As a child, I was very aware of the hurt and anger he had," said Paulen, who attended a different dental school in part because of her father's rough treatment at Emory. "For years, he purposely made large donations to [Emory] to show he was good enough."
The documentary and Emory's formal apology make it official now: They were good enough, all those Jewish students who were forced to repeat courses, graded on a different curve or forced out entirely.
And now that they’ve started talking about it, it seems, they’re not inclined to stop.
Not if Brickman has anything to say about it.
After Wednesday’s public event, some former students and their family members gathered for a dinner at Emory’s Hillel Center, where Brickman asked them to share why they were there.
“One after another they expressed experiencing a feeling of closure,” said Duke, the filmmaker, who was in the room. “They said, ‘I have a sense of relief and healing I never thought I’d have.’ ”
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