Less than a week after the Bush administration asked the Supreme Court of the United States to declare the University’s admissions policies unconstitutional, the Rev. Peter J. Gomes told a friendly audience, “Win or lose, you can’t help but win because you are on the side of the future. You are on the side of moral justice. You are on the side of the angels, and the world will stand witness to that.”

Speaking at the Business School’s Martin Luther King Jr. program Jan. 20, Gomes, a best-selling author and the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, Pusey Minister at Memorial Church, Harvard University, said, “It is not always a bad thing to have the government standing opposite you in the forum of moral public opinion.” He cited the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of the government in the Dred Scott case, in which the majority ruled that Congress had no power to limit slavery in the territories.

Gomes chose for his text the Genesis story of Joseph, whose brothers sold him into slavery after he shared dreams indicating he would reign over them. “You can’t kill a dream, but you can do a lot of damage if you kill the dreamer,” Gomes said.

King, with his dreams of racial justice, upset the moral equilibrium of the country. “What Martin Luther King dida dangerous thingwas to force us to take seriously as a country our own moral ambitions and aspirations. He forced us to face first the disconnect between our profession and our practice, and then he forced us to face what ought to be done,” Gomes said. “That, like Joseph’s dream, was too much for our culture to bear.”

All of us have benefited from King’s ambitions, Gomes said, adding, “He actually believed that God had sent him to do good for the whole people, not just for his people.”

Gomes exhorted the audience:

· To remember the past. “Our fathers and our mothers didn’t die to leave us in this place. They did not do what they did just for Black America. They did it for all America and indeed the whole world.”

· To see discouragement as the seedbed of opportunity. “Discouragement must not be an anesthetic. It must be a stimulant. We need to reclaim old friends. We need to discard false friends. We need to make new friends. We have not arrived anywhere near the Promised Land. We still have miles to go and work to do until our great victory is won.”

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