I’m a graduate student in the English department, which means I have a somewhat odd window onto undergraduate life at U.Va., not least because I get to hear the thoughts of my fellow graduate students. One of the chief fixations of the graduate students is the undergrads’ love of Thomas Jefferson.
When I visited Charlottesville last year to decide whether to enroll, I asked an English Ph.D. student about the undergrads. They’re very smart, he told me, “but they’re so stuck in their neoliberal ways. They just love Thomas Jefferson.”
I was supposed to chuckle along in condescension, laughing at the poor kids who weren’t awake to the fact that Jefferson was a bad, racist oppressor. Instead, I smiled and nodded and decided I would probably rather like U.Va. undergraduates.
Students at universities across the country are turning against figures whose names are campus fixtures. Slavery proponent and U.S. Sen. John C. Calhoun is on trial at Yale, his alma mater, where a residential college is named after him. At Amherst, Jeffrey Amherst, who thought it was a good idea to give Native Americans blankets infected with smallpox, may be fired from his role as the school’s unofficial mascot. The case where the questioned figure is most central to his university’s identity is at Princeton, where the jury is still out on Woodrow Wilson, a pretty racist guy who was also a president of that university and of the United States, a champion of liberal government and an intellectual titan.
And at the College of William and Mary and the University of Missouri at Columbia, our man Thomas Jefferson is under fire. At William and Mary, Jefferson is an alumnus, whereas in Columbia he is merely a statue students walk past daily. Still, at neither school does he hold the revered status he does in Charlottesville, at the University whose creation he considered his proudest achievement.
Inside Higher Ed published a piece last week about the latest movements against Jefferson; it mentioned his far greater role at U.Va. and noted that, so far, at least, there has been no movement to banish Mr. Jefferson from his own Grounds.
While U.Va. received only a brief mention, the piece raises a few questions: What distinguishes U.Va. from those other schools? Is it only a matter of time before activists call for Jefferson’s throat here, too? And should The Cavalier Daily be covering student protests against tainted names with a particular eye to the legacy of Jefferson at U.Va.?
National attention on U.Va. — even if it comes in the form of passing speculation — is of interest to readers on Grounds. And The Cavalier Daily ran an editorial last week discussing the relevance of name changes to U.Va. and Jefferson; while more reported stories might have offered readers a clearer and deeper assessment of the issue, the editorial broached the right questions.
Jefferson’s best hope at U.Va. may be that he isn’t an abstraction here. At Yale, Calhoun is regarded first as a name and, until recent debates pushed the issue to the fore, the residential college’s namesake often slid into anonymity. At U.Va., on the other hand, Jefferson is celebrated for his thinking and his accomplishments — it is the man, not just the name, who is remembered. And when a university embraces a person, it is bound to grapple with his whole character, including his bad aspects. (Monticello, that other great Jeffersonian celebration, offers a whole tour about the slaves Jefferson owned.) U.Va.’s love of Jefferson is not blind.
It might, then, be premature to assume Jefferson will be next on the chopping block. But The Cavalier Daily should keep asking why parallel protests have not developed at U.Va. What is it about this University and Jefferson's role here that has thus far spared him from protesters' demands? Whence the deep allegiance to the University's founder?
And while those questions matter now, U.Va. students and faculty should also wonder whether they will become moot. Wilson, perhaps the figure who comes closest to Jefferson’s level of influence at his university, is under attack; who’s to say Jefferson won’t be next?
Julia Fisher is the Public Editor for the Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at publiceditor@cavalierdaily.com or on Twitter at @CDPublicEditor.
Read More
IYER: Sports stadiums should sport more benefit to Virginia residents
By Arjun Iyer | 7 hours agoPast stadiums in other states show that Virginia has the potential to succeed at such a construction project, provided that proper measures are undertaken.
KURTZWEIL: True financial aid must be transparent
By Paul Kurtzweil | 4 days agoThe implications and revelations of the lawsuit should inspire greater transparency at the University in order to ensure that financial aid is properly and equitably distributed.
SULLIVAN: Ramp up physical accessibility on Grounds
By Scarlett Sullivan | 6 days agoThe University must take responsibility for the inaccessibility of Grounds and work to promote accessibility for all students despite misguided laws.
