152 YEARS LATER, COLGATE HONORS EXPELLED STUDENT.(CAPITAL REGION)

Byline: Associated Press

HAMILTON -- George Gavin Ritchie was expelled from Colgate University for writing a controversial editorial in the student newspaper concerning black rights.

But now, Ritchie has been redeemed. He will be awarded a bachelor of divinity degree at the university -- 150 years after his expulsion.

Nellie Edmonston and her husband William, an emeritus Colgate professor, proposed Ritchie for the posthumous degree after Nellie Edmonston prepared a paper about the maverick journalist for the village's bicentennial.

``It was a wonderful story,'' she said in a phone interview. ``It was a story about a man who stood on …