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Kaine Wants Medal For Slain Tech Professor

September 29, 2007

By Rex Bowman

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine is asking President Bush to bestow the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously on a Virginia Tech professor. Liviu Librescu was slain April 16 while trying to bar a door against the gunman who killed 32 people on campus.

In a letter to the president dated Thursday, Kaine hailed Librescu as a man "who sought liberty and truth during his lifetime," and the governor urged Bush to give Librescu the medal, the nation's highest civilian award.

"He was a wonderful man," said Ishwar K. Puri, head of the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department, where Librescu taught for more than two decades. "He was obviously very devoted to his students, and the fact that he sacrificed himself for the sake of his students is inspiring, perhaps awe-inspiring."

Librescu, 76, was teaching a solid-mechanics class in Room 204 of Norris Hall when student Seung-Hui Cho began his killing rampage on the second floor. Librescu told his students to jump from the classroom windows, then he tried to hold the door shut to prevent Cho from entering.

Cho eventually forced the door open and killed Librescu and a student. The others escaped.

Cho's shooting rampage in Norris lasted less than 10 minutes, Puri said, "and Liviu did not have time to analyze things, but he acted in an exemplary manner."

Puri said that in the weeks after the massacre, a petition appeared online calling for Librescu to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Puri said he signed the petition.

President Harry S. Truman established the medal in 1945 as a way to honor combat service. President John F. Kennedy reintroduced it in 1963 as a way to mark outstanding civilian service.

"Professor Librescu will be remembered for his humility and his intellect, but more than that, possibly his greatest contribution to society was his fascination with actively solving problems, a passion that ultimately saved lives," Kaine wrote in his letter to the president. "His final problem solved, Liviu Librescu's sacrifice of his own life allowed his students the freedom to live theirs."

Librescu, a Romanian-born scientist, was a Holocaust survivor who refused to swear loyalty to the Communist Party in Romania and was fired from his teaching job after asking for permission to immigrate to Israel. He eventually moved to Israel, where he taught at Tel Aviv University before moving to Blacksburg to teach at Tech.

"Professor Librescu," Kaine wrote, "was a man of unfailing talent and courage who embodied the idea of freedom in many ways."

Contact Rex Bowman at (540) 344-3612 or rbowman@timesdispatch.com.