{{short description|American mathematician}} thumb|Lee Lorch, 1995 '''Lee Alexander Lorch''' (September 20, 1915 – February 28, 2014) was an American mathematician, and early civil rights activist. His leadership in the campaign to desegregate Stuyvesant Town, a large housing development on the East Side of Manhattan, helped eventually to make housing discrimination illegal in the United States but also resulted in Lorch losing his own job twice. He and his family then moved to the Southern United States where he and his wife, Grace Lorch, became involved in the civil rights movement there while also teaching at several Black colleges. He encouraged black students to pursue studies in mathematics and mentored several of the first black men and women to earn PhDs in mathematics in the United States. After moving to Canada as a result of McCarthyism, he ended his career as professor emeritus of mathematics at York University in Toronto, Ontario.
==Background== He was born in New York City to Adolph Lorch and Florence Mayer Lorch.<ref name=nytobit>{{cite news|last=Margolick|first=David| authorlink = David Margolick|title=Lee Lorch, Desegregation Activist Who Led Stuyvesant Town Effort, Dies at 98|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/nyregion/lee-lorch-desegregation-activist-who-led-stuyvesant-town-effort-dies-at-98.html?_r=0|accessdate=March 1, 2014|newspaper=New York Times|date=March 3, 2014}}</ref> He graduated from Cornell University in 1935 and obtained his PhD in mathematics from the University of Cincinnati in 1941.
He did mathematics-related work for the war effort in a "draft exempt" job but quit<ref name="York2">{{cite web | url = http://www.yorku.ca/mediar/archive/Release.asp?Release=1190 | title = Mathematician Lorch wins award for activism | publisher = York University Media Relations | date = January 8, 2007 | accessdate = 2007-01-15}}</ref> in 1943 to enlist in the United States Army. He saw service in India and the Pacific Theater of World War II before being demobilized in 1946.<ref name="York"> {{cite web | url = http://www.math.yorku.ca/Conferences/LL80/lorch.bio.html | title = Biography | publisher = York University, Department of Mathematics | date = October 27, 1995 | accessdate = 2007-01-15}}</ref> Lorch obtained a teaching position at the City College of New York following the war but was soon fired because of his civil rights work on behalf of African Americans.<ref name=nytobit/>
==Stuyvesant Town== "I had become very aware of racism through the war; not just anti-Semitism, but the way the American army treated black soldiers. On the troop transport overseas, it was always the black company on board that had to clean the ship and do the dirty work, and I felt very uncomfortable with that," Lorch told an interviewer in 2007.<ref name="Star">{{cite web | url = https://www.thestar.com/article/171118 | first = Louise | last = Brown | title = At 91, rights activist fights the good fight | newspaper = Toronto Star | date = January 15, 2007 | accessdate = 2007-01-15}}</ref>
Some time after taking up his job at City College, he moved into Stuyvesant Town, a development owned by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company built with financial and legal support from New York City for war veterans. Outraged at the development's "No Negroes" policy, Lorch became a vice-chair of a tenants' committee formed to eliminate this discrimination. This had two-thirds support from the other tenants. City College, though conceding the excellence of his work, dismissed Lorch, refusing to give any reason. Lorch obtained a new position at Pennsylvania State University, but rather than give up his apartment he asked a black friend and his family to move into his dwelling as "guests", a move which circumvented the policy against accepting housing applications from blacks, but which also resulted in his being fired from Penn State, as reported in ''The New York Times'' on April 10, 1950. An editorial in the ''Times'' the following day (April 11) called on Penn State to reconsider, recalling the suspicious nature of his dismissal from City College the previous year, to no avail.<ref name="Star"/><ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/nyregion/22stuyvesant.html?_r=3&scp=4&sq=stuyvesant%20town&st=cse|title=A New Light on a Fight to Integrate Stuyvesant Town |author=CHARLES V. BAGLI |date=November 21, 2010 |work= New York Times/Region|accessdate=19 December 2010}}</ref>
"It's hard to imagine now, but there was no civil rights legislation back then. You could be fired without explanation. But how could you do anything else, in all good conscience?" said Lorch in 2007.<ref name="Star"/>
==Moving South== After being fired by Penn State, Lorch obtained a teaching position at Fisk University, a black college located in Tennessee, in 1950.
In 1951 there was a south-eastern sectional meeting of the Mathematical Association of America in Nashville.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Painful Path Toward Inclusivity |first=Lee |last=Lorch |author-link=Lee Lorch |year=1994 |url=http://www.wam.umd.edu/~rlj/Lorch.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080906170043/http://www.wam.umd.edu/~rlj/Lorch.html |archive-date=September 6, 2008 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|first=Richard|last=Hamilton|url=http://www.maa.org/news/AwardsJMM07-Citations.html|title= MAA Prizes and Awards at the 2007 Joint Mathematics Meetings|journal=MAA Online|year=2007}} (includes citation for Lee Lorch)</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|first=Allyn|last=Jackson|journal=Notices of the American Mathematical Society|url=https://www.ams.org/notices/200705/comm-maa-web.pdf|title=MAA Prizes Presented in New Orleans|volume=54|year=2007|pages=641–642}}</ref> The citation delivered at the 2007 MAA awards presentation, where Lorch received a standing ovation, recorded that:
:Lee Lorch, the chair of the mathematics department at Fisk University, and three Black colleagues, Evelyn Boyd (now Granville), Walter Brown, and H. M. Holloway came to the meeting and were able to attend the scientific sessions. However, the organizer for the closing banquet refused to honor the reservations of these four mathematicians. (Letters in Science, August 10, 1951, pp. 161–162 spell out the details). Lorch and his colleagues wrote to the governing bodies of the AMS and MAA seeking bylaws against discrimination. Bylaws were not changed, but non-discriminatory policies were established and have been strictly observed since then.<ref>{{Cite journal|first=Richard|last=Hamilton|url=http://www.maa.org/news/AwardsJMM07-Citations.html|title= MAA Prizes and Awards at the 2007 Joint Mathematics Meetings|journal=MAA Online|year=2007}} (includes citation for Lee Lorch)</ref><ref name="MAA">[http://www.maa.org/news/AwardsJMM07-Citations.html MAA citation] for Yueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Distinguished Service to Mathematics Award.</ref>
==House Un-American Activities Committee== In 1955, Lorch was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee after he and his wife, Grace, attempted to enroll their daughter, Alice, in an all-black elementary school after the United States Supreme Court ruled in ''Brown v. Board of Education'' that school segregation was unconstitutional. The Committee's questioning immediately went in a political direction: though Lorch "pointedly denied" engaging in any Communist activity during his tenure at Fisk, he refused to answer questions about his party membership prior to 1941, citing the right to do so under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and never made use of the Fifth Amendment. His refusal to testify before HUAC resulted in his being indicted, tried and acquitted for contempt of Congress<ref name="York2"/>–nevertheless, during the House of Un-American Activities Committee hearing Fisk University's president, Charles S. Johnson, issued a statement that Lorch's position before the HUAC was "for all practical purposes tantamount to admission of membership in the Communist Party."<ref name = "M. Manning">Marable, Manning. ''Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The second Reconstruction in Black America, 1945-1990''. 2nd Ed. University Press of Mississippi, 1991 {{ISBN|0-87805-493-6}}, {{ISBN|978-0-87805-493-0}}. P. 29</ref> Despite the appeals on Lorch's behalf from 48 out of 70 staff members, 22 student body leaders, and 150 alumni, Fisk ended his contract.<ref name="M. Manning"/>
==Little Rock Nine== In 1957, Lorch was working as chair of the Mathematics Department at Philander Smith College,<ref name="York2"/> a small black college in Little Rock, Arkansas. That year, he and his wife, Grace, helped escort the Little Rock Nine, nine high school students attempting to be the first black students to enroll at Little Rock Central High School<ref name="Star"/> against white segregationist opposition that was so ferocious his wife helped protect a 15-year-old black girl, Elizabeth Eckford, from a mob. Faced with threats and sticks of dynamite left in their garage <ref name="Star"/> and with the school's funding at risk, Lorch resigned and was again forced to look for new employment.<ref name="York"/>
==Move to Canada== In 1959, facing a blacklist by most US universities, Lorch accepted a position with the University of Alberta and moved his family to Canada. He moved to York University in Toronto in 1968<ref name="Star"/> and taught there until his retirement in 1985.<ref name="York"/> He maintained an office at York and, in 2007, was collaborating with Martin Muldoon on a paper about Bessel functions.<ref name="York2"/>
Lorch remained a political activist in Canada and was a member of the Communist Party of Canada, the United Jewish Peoples Order<ref>{{cite news|title=Event listings - The United Jewish People's Order of Toronto (UJPO) is screening Conversations With Lee Lorch...|url=http://www.cjnews.com/arts/chanukah-concert-friends-yiddish|accessdate=March 2, 2014|newspaper=Canadian Jewish News|date=December 3, 2013}}</ref> and honorary president of the Canadian Cuban Friendship Association.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ccfatoronto.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=247:distinguished-academic-award-given-to-lee-lorch&catid=58:articles-of-interest&Itemid=80|title= Distinguished Academic Award Given to Lee Lorch|website=Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association Toronto|accessdate=24 January 2018}}</ref>
==Academic work and recognition==
Lorch's dissertation, under Otto Szász, focused on the behavior of certain classes of Fourier series<ref>{{cite web|title=Lee Lorch|url=https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=9796|website=Mathematics Genealogy Project|accessdate=22 November 2017}}</ref> and his subsequent research also focused on analysis.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Williams|first1=Scott|title=An Appreciation to Lee Lorch|url=https://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/special/lorch-lee.html|website=The Mathematics Department of The State University of New York at Buffalo.|accessdate=22 November 2017}}</ref>
He has been recognized for his academic work with a fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada, election to the councils of the Canadian Mathematical Society, the American Mathematical Society and the Royal Society of Canada.<ref name="York"/>
Two of the colleges that fired him, Fisk and City University, have awarded Lorch with honorary degrees. He was also honored by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1990 and by Spelman College in 1999.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.spelman.edu/docs/trustees/honorarydegreerecipients.pdf?sfvrsn=8|title=Spelman College: Honorary Degree Recipients, 1977–Present|publisher=Spelman College|accessdate=24 January 2018|archive-date=20 December 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220085944/http://www.spelman.edu/docs/trustees/honorarydegreerecipients.pdf?sfvrsn=8|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 2003, the International Society for Analysis, its Applications and Computation presented him with an honorary life membership for distinguished mathematical contributions and for his struggles for the disadvantaged and world peace.<ref name="York2"/>
In 2007, Lorch was awarded with the Mathematical Association of America's most prestigious award, the Yueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics,<ref>2007 Jackson, Allyn (2007). "[https://www.ams.org/notices/200705/comm-maa-web.pdf MAA Prizes Presented in New Orleans]" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 54: 641–642.</ref><ref name="York2"/><ref name="MAA"/> and in 2007 he was the first Canadian, and one of only 17 non-Cubans, to be elected to the Cuban Academy of Sciences.<ref name="York3">{{cite web | url = http://www.yorku.ca/yfile/archive/index.asp?Article=9625 | title = Cuba's Academy of Sciences honours York's Lee Lorch | publisher = York University|work=Y File | date = December 11, 2007 | accessdate = 2007-12-11}}</ref> In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.<ref>[https://www.ams.org/profession/fellows-list List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society], retrieved 2013-02-02.</ref> He served on the AMS Council as a member-at-large 1974-1976 and 1980-1982.<ref>{{Cite web |title=AMS Committees |url=http://www.ams.org/about-us/governance/committees/mal-past.html |access-date=2023-03-11 |website=American Mathematical Society |language=en}}</ref>
==Legacy== Lorch's legacy as a teacher at black universities such as Fisk and Philander Smith was to encourage black students, including black women, to pursue graduate study in mathematics. At Fisk, Lorch taught three of the first black students ever to earn doctorates in mathematics.<ref name=nytobit/> Of the 21 American black women who obtained a PhD in mathematics before 1980, Lorch taught three during his tenure at Fisk University.<ref name="York"/><ref name="MAA"/>
In 2010, Lorch was asked if he would have done anything any differently. "More and better of the same," he replied.<ref name=nytobit/> He died in 2014 in Toronto, aged 98.<ref name=nytobit/>
==See also== *Grace Lorch * List of peace activists
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
==External links== *[http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=8396 Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture entry] *[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/nyregion/22stuyvesant.html "A New Light on a Fight to Integrate Stuyvesant Town"], ''New York Times'', November 21, 2010 (interview with Lee Lorch) *[http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/11/22/nyregion/1248069152993/a-conversation-with-lee-lorch.html A Conversation with Lee Lorch], from a documentary directed by William Kelly in conjunction with the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Oral History Project, 2010 *[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/nyregion/lee-lorch-desegregation-activist-who-led-stuyvesant-town-effort-dies-at-98.html?_r=0 Lee Lorch, Desegregation Activist Who Led Stuyvesant Town Effort, Dies at 98], ''New York Times'', March 1, 2014 *{{YouTube|x3MKhuuMhE0|Conversations with Lee Lorch}}, a film by Rachel Deutsch *{{YouTube|mcpiVui54w|Lee Lorch}}, interview by Anton Wagner (2 hours) *{{YouTube|QEUDdo2ULA4|Lee Lorch}}, a video of the presentation of the CAUT (Canadian Association of University Teachers) Distinguished Academic Award to Lee Lorch, May 9, 2012 *[http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=484 "A Life in Sum"], profile of Lee Lorch published in ''Cornell Alumni Magazine'', July 9, 2009 *[https://web.archive.org/web/20071129011253/http://www.cbc.ca/metromorning/media/20070109LLJAN09.ram CBC Metro Morning interview with Lee Lorch], January 9, 2006 *[https://ctasc.blog.yorku.ca/2012/02/24/bhm2012_leeandgracelorch/ Black History Month featured fonds: Lee and Grace Lorch] News from the Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections, York University *{{MathGenealogy|id=9796}} *[http://www.honoraryunsubscribe.com/lee_lorch.html, "Honorary Unsubscribe" biographical summary by Randy Cassingham], March 2, 2014 *[https://confessions.scientopia.org/2014/03/17/mathematician-and-activist-lee-lorch-1915-2014/ "Mathematician and activist Lee Lorch, 1915-2014"], by John Dupuis (includes a large number of links to other sites), in blog "Confessions of a Science Librarian", March 17, 2014 * [https://atom.library.yorku.ca/index.php/lee-lorch-fonds Lee Lorch archives] held at the Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections at York University Libraries
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lorch, Lee}} Category:1915 births Category:2014 deaths Category:20th-century American mathematicians Category:21st-century American mathematicians Category:Activists for African-American civil rights Category:American communists Category:20th-century American Jews Category:Canadian anti-war activists Category:Members of the Communist Party of Canada Category:Canadian mathematicians Category:Cornell University alumni Category:Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Category:Fisk University faculty Category:Philander Smith University faculty Category:Academic staff of York University Category:21st-century American Jews