Perry Brickman had always been a solid student. He never failed a class and was always getting good grades.

Then he entered the dental school at Emory University.

A year later Brickman was kicked out, flunked out of the school.

Not only was Brickman dismissed but so were some friends of his who had entered the dental school with him in 1951.

"We would all  be gone in two years," says Brickman.  "Completely gone."

He had no idea how it could have happened but he moved on with his life.  Then, decades later he learned the truth.

"What was happening was the Jewish students were being failed out in inordinate numbers, way out of proportion," Brickman says.

It happened between 1948 and 1961.

"65 percent (of the Jewish students) were either flunked out completely or made to repeat one or more years," Brickman tells WSB.  "That was over five times what the non-Jewish failure rate was."

The main culprit in the anti-Semitism was the dean of the dental school, Dr. John Buhler.  During his tenure as dean, Jewish enrollment at the school declined sharply.  He was finally forced to resign after he added a question to the student application in 1962.

Buhler add the category of "race," and offered three choices; Caucasian,  Jew or Other.

For Brickman and the others who were dismissed, they went on to other careers.  Some became lawyers, some doctors.  Brickman and three others finally became dentists.

Wednesday night, after decades of denial, Emory University administrators will acknowledge what happened and try to make amends.

"Nobody has said a word about any kind of reparations," says Brickman.  "They're not interested in that.  All they want is an apology."

Emory's President, James Wagner, is prepared to offer just that.  He'll meet with Brickman and other surviving students who were failed out of dental school because of their religion.

"He's going to offer sincere regret, not only for what happened but that it took this long to say anything about it," says Brickman.

After getting kicked out at Emory, Brickman ended up at the dental school at the University of Tennessee, where he graduated fourth in his class.  Another of his Emory classmates, who had ranked last out of 72 students when he was dismissed, went to dental school at the University of Florida.  He finished tops in a class of 141.

For Perry Brickman, Wednesday's meeting with President Wagner will offer vindication to those who knew something was wrong when they were told to leave Emory.  Brickman hopes it provide closure for those who felt they let their families down and lost their dreams.

It is a long time in coming.

"I don't have any complaints about my life.  I've been successful," Brickman says.  "But it's a deep wound.  It's a scar."

"They called me a failure back then.  I was called a failure.  Well, they were the failure."