Heading into the Miller Center of Public Affairs’ “UVA Secrets and Traditions” event on Friday, I hardly expected to hear the vindictive exhibition which was delivered by Adjunct Professor Corrine Field to the assembled crowd of students and scholars. After some brief remarks by Miller Center Scholar Doug Blackmon, Field took the microphone and went on an angry and fragmented tirade about the history of discrimination against blacks and women at the University.
While these are issues worthy of discussion, Field’s approach was far from the solemn tribute one would expect for such a delicate subject. In between her lines, she made frequent pauses to laugh sarcastically, though it was not clear if the hilarity was meant to be directed at the historical leaders of the university, or the actual discrimination itself. Either way it inappropriately maligned a painful topic, and no one present joined in the laughter.
History should not be ignored, yet I find it saddening that someone who is not an alumna of this fine institution would use a platform here to treat these sensitive matters with so little respect, and in front a crowd of first-years no less. These students are just beginning their undergraduate careers, and they deserve better than listening to their school being condemned with such callous flair.
Gabriele Vogt
CLAS III
Read More
EDITORIAL: Celebrating and reflecting on The Cavalier Daily’s independence
By Editorial Board | 4 days agoOur independence grants us the ability to ask the hard questions and to say what University representatives cannot.
ARRAS: U.Va. must revise the Sexual Assault Prevention Training module
By Aoife Arras | 6 days agoIn addition to its failures in interactivity, the module lacks details specific to the University and discusses key concepts in universal terms.
EDITORIAL: Pedestrian safety is an institutional imperative
By Editorial Board | April 15, 2024Amid a national crisis of pedestrian safety, Charlottesville and the University are also struggling to properly maintain pedestrian safety.
