Japan’s Doshisha University has posthumously awarded an honorary doctorate to South Korean poet Yun Dong-ju. 

The university in Tokyo awarded the degree to Yun, one of its alumni, during a ceremony held Sunday after reaching a decision in December. 

It is the first time the university has posthumously presented an honorary doctorate to anyone since its establishment in 1875. 

Professor Itagaki Ryuta of the university’s sociology department said the decision reflected the remorse the university felt for failing to protect Yun, who was arrested in 1943 while attending the university for being active in an organization of Korean students seeking Korean independence from Japanese rule.

Yun eventually died in a prison in Fukuoka on February 16, 1945, some six months before Korea’s liberation. 

He was 28. 

Yun’s nephew, Yun In-seok, an honorary professor at Sunkyungkwan University in Seoul, attended Sunday’s ceremony. 

He told Seoul-based Yonhap News before the event that Doshisha University appears to have recognized the growing influence the poet has had in Japan, three decades after erecting a monument to him on its campus in 1995.