Courageous Columnist Takes Lovejoy

Tucker, who earned praise "for her forceful, persuasive columns that confronted sacred cows and hot topics with unswerving candor" from Pulitzer Prize judges, will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree and will speak during a formal convocation in Lorimer Chapel.

The Lovejoy Selection Committee chose Tucker because she has upheld the Lovejoy tradition of integrity and courage, challenging the Atlanta elite with principled editorial stands that aren't always popular. The committee called her "an equal opportunity social critic," who guides editorial polices on everything from foreign policy to local school board races and who has not been afraid to confront powerful people and institutions ranging from government officials to the Martin Luther King Jr. family.

Besides editing the Journal-Constitution's editorial page, Tucker is a syndicated columnist and a frequent television commentator. As a reporter she covered local governments, national politics, crime, and education, and she filed dispatches from Africa, Central America, and Cuba as well as from stateside. In 2000 she won the American Society of Newspaper Editors' Distinguished Writing Award, and last year she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for commentary.