Prodigal's Return

The academically forlorn University of Georgia system was restored last week to accredited standing. The Southern Association of Colleges & Secondary Schools generously made the accrediting retroactive to September 1942--the date when Georgia was dropped from respectable academic society after gallus-snapping Governor Eugene Talmadge had 1) packed the Georgia Board of Regents with political stooges; 2) made himself a member of the board; 3) fired Dean Walter D. Cocking (of the university's College of Education), President Marvin S. Pittman (of Georgia State Teachers College) and others because they were "furriners" (Pittman is Mississippi-born, Cocking Iowa-born) and alleged "nigger-lovers."

Georgia's loss of academic standing meant that its degrees and course credits were not recognized by other colleges, that its law, medicine and teachers' college graduates could not be licensed in other states. Georgia's faculty began to leave, and its students sent up a shriek that made the issue outstanding in last fall's election, which replaced Talmadge with Attorney General Ellis Gibbs Arnall.

Governor Arnall at once appointed new regents, significantly including two-time regent Marion Smith, who had been fired by both Governor E. D. Rivers and Governor Talmadge for political reasons. The new regents last week voted to restore both Cocking and Pittman to their jobs. Cocking prefers to stay in Washington as Federal Security Agency consultant. Pittman returns to Georgia this week.

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