Professor, activist does time at Elkton prison

ELKTON — A professor emeritus at Seton Hall University, with a doctorate in history from Columbia University, was in Elkton on Thursday morning to turn himself in to the federal prison.

Dr. Edwin R. Lewinson, 78, of South Orange, N.J. is to serve a 90-day sentence on a misdemeanor charge of trespassing on government property.

“Justice is blind,” said one of his supporters, Terry Vickers of Boardman.

Vickers wasn’t referring to the statue of Lady Justice, but to Lewinson.

“I’ve been blind from birth,” the professor aid.

He was arrested last November at what many still call the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga.

Protesters maintain that the school, which has been renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, continued to teach the use of torture, including waterboarding, long before its use was criticized in the war in Iraq.

During a lifetime of fighting for justice, Lewinson said he had been arrested eight or 10 times but the charges were dismissed. He said he did spend one night in jail but was released the next day.

Along the way, he said he fought for blacks who were barred from hotels between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and fought to desegregate restaurants.

Many liberals went into action during the 1960s for various causes. What’s different about Lewinson, who is Jewish, is that he has never seen any of the things he’s been involved in.

Read more in Friday’s Vindicator and vindy.com