Joshua Morse 3d, 89, who as dean of the University of Mississippi School of Law in the 1960s defied segregationist tradition by admitting the school's first black students, a move that led to the desegregation of Mississippi's legal profession and judiciary, died Friday at his home in Tallahassee, Fla., his family announced.
In a time of civil rights marches and often violent racial strife in the Deep South, Mr. Morse challenged prejudice and parochialism by fostering a markedly progressive period at the school. He used Ford Foundation money to recruit minority students, promoted a student legal assistance program for the poor, exposed students to liberal ideas, and hired Ivy League professors from the North.
