In 1934, Alice Jackson Stuart, then Alice Jackson, an African American woman from Richmond, was rejected from the University's Graduate school.At the time, the University claimed she was rejected based upon "good and sufficient reasons" as well as race.
Stuart was the first African American to apply to a graduate school in Virginia. She responded to her rejection letter with a request to know what the "good and sufficient reasons" were for her rejection. Her letter sparked a Supreme Court case that allowed southern schools to reject African Americans if they would pay for the students to attend other colleges out-of-state.
Her son Judge Julian T. Houston, a Massachusetts Superior Court Judge, plans to donate her rejection letter and other documents to the University. The donation includes 60 boxes of papers, photos, and documents related to her career henceforth.
Stuart graduated from Virginia Union University in 1934.She then went to Massachusetts to study at Smith College.Stuart was an instructor at Virginia Union when she applied to attend graduate school at the University of Virginia.
Stuart went on to study at Columbia University and consequently teach at historically black colleges for about 50 years.
She died at the age of 88 in 2001.
--Comp. by Chris Wallace
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