In the months leading up to former University President Jim Ryan’s resignation, the Jefferson Council repeatedly raised concerns that the University had strayed from the ideals of its founder, Thomas Jefferson. The Jefferson Council, a conservative alumni group dedicated to preserving Jefferson’s legacy, argued that Ryan’s leadership failed to uphold core Jeffersonian principles, such as civil dialogue, intellectual diversity and the free exchange of competing ideas.
After Ryan announced his resignation, the Jefferson Council released a statement calling it a “necessary and welcome step toward restoring intellectual diversity, depoliticizing the University and a commitment to equal treatment for all.”
“For too long,” the statement continued, “policies driven by ideology rather than merit, achievement and character have eroded trust, divided the community and betrayed the University’s founding ideals.”
But what exactly are Jeffersonian and founding principles, and how should they guide a modern university more than 200 years after its founding? As the University enters a period of transition, The Cavalier Daily spoke with historians and the Jefferson Council to better understand Jefferson’s legacy on Grounds and how it resonates today.
Disagreements over what it means to be Jeffersonian lie at the heart of the debate over Ryan’s leadership. While the Jefferson Council argues that Ryan violated the University's founding mission and endangered Jefferson’s legacy, historians suggest that even Jefferson’s own views were far from consistent.
Central to the Jefferson Council’s claims that Ryan was anti-Jeffersonian is a belief that Jefferson’s central values remain consistent, and essential to the University’s governance even in modern debates, according to Jefferson Council President Joel Gardner.
“[Jefferson’s] values of freedom of expression, of freedom of religion, of [preventing] orthodoxy of thought [from] pervading Grounds, and his views on having open and civil debate with diversity of thought as an elementary part of that, are as valid today as they were then,” Gardner said.
While Gardner views Jefferson’s ideals as timeless, historians argue that any attempt to define a singular Jeffersonian philosophy requires historical context, particularly in light of the evolving understanding of how those ideals shifted later in Jefferson’s life.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard University professor and Pulitzer Prize winner for her book, “The Hemingses of Monticello,” argued that Jefferson’s Enlightenment roots suggest he expected future generations to think more expansively than his own.
“He fully expected generations in the future to come to different conclusions about things than his generation, because they'll have more information, they'll know more and they will change their mind,” Gordon-Reed said.
The Jefferson Council has advocated for new leadership, specifically because of Ryan’s support for diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Gardner argued that through these policies, Ryan's administration fostered ideological conformity, undermined free expression and pushed political agendas that Jefferson would have rejected.
“Jim Ryan made diversity, equity and inclusion, as he interpreted it, an orthodoxy at U.Va.,” Gardner said. “For years, you literally had faculty members who were either applying for jobs or during their peer review process, having to say what they’ve done to further DEI in the past year. It’s unheard of.”
Gardner said this, among other examples, is evidence of what he sees as a departure from what Gardner describes as Jefferson’s belief in open discourse and institutional neutrality.
“[Jefferson] did not want any orthodoxy. He did not want the institution to push any type of agenda,” Gardner said.
Gardner argues that Jefferson’s core principles, especially around merit and individual character, remain timeless. He believes those values should continue to guide the University today, particularly in opposition to what he sees as race and identity-based initiatives such as affirmative action and diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“Jefferson would be saying people and decisions should be made on merit and on character and not on other factors,” Gardner said. “And that’s what the Jefferson Council is talking about, and that’s how we think it really goes with the Jeffersonian ideals.”
When asked whether Jefferson would have opposed modern diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, Gordon-Reed said his Enlightenment values complicate any claim that Jefferson would have rejected DEI efforts or supported institutional neutrality in the way the Jefferson Council suggests.
“It's hard to know what he would have thought,” Gordon-Reed said. “It's hard to bring him forward without all of the things that have happened, all the things that we've learned in between his time and our time. But he certainly believed in the notion of a free exchange of ideas and diversity.”
Another area of debate centers on Jefferson’s influence over the Honor System, which the Jefferson Council argues has been misused under Ryan’s tenure. They call for a return to what they see as the Honor Code’s “original spirit,” citing Jefferson’s assertion that “a pure integrity is the quality we take first into calculation.”
Alan Taylor, emeritus professor of history at the University and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for history, argued that Jefferson’s relationship with Honor was far more complicated than some groups suggest, and that the modern system would likely be unrecognizable to him following changes the University made after his death.
“[Jefferson] lived in a culture in which honor was pervasive, but as part of an elite society,” Taylor said. “Honor is very defined by race and class in the Virginia of Jefferson's time, and it means that these young men from planter society are very prickly about any perceived insult, and they're ready to duel.”
Taylor noted that this culture of honor posed a problem for Jefferson, who worried that the young men he hoped to educate would spend more time defending their pride than engaging in scholarship.
It wasn’t until after Jefferson’s death that the University reshaped the concept of honor into something closer to the institutional system seen today.
“During the later 1830s and into the 1840s, the University managed to repackage honor, to say that honor is about integrity within the institution, and that you must be willing to expose those students who are violating the rules,” Taylor said. “That’s a big redefinition and, in some ways, a narrowing of the honor culture around a different purpose. The honor code at U.Va. descends from this repackaging … it’s not particularly Jeffersonian.”
Gordon-Reed similarly emphasized that honor, character and integrity must be understood in light of cultural change.
“One of the things that’s happened … is that there are different things that now go into honor and that go into character,” Gordon-Reed said. “We think now about people's racial attitudes in the past. Being overtly racist, for example, was not thought of as a character issue. It's probably thought of as a character issue now.”
Gardner said that while society has rightly evolved, certain foundational values, like merit and character, should remain guiding principles.
“What you want is to try to create as much of an atmosphere of opportunity and equality of opportunity for everybody,” Gardner said. “So they can be judged on who they are and what they’ve achieved.”
Speaking on Jefferson’s ideas more broadly, Taylor noted that before one can have a full understanding of Jeffersonian ideals, it is important to realize that Jefferson had two different schools of thought throughout his lifetime.
“Jefferson was an extremely versatile man who lived a very long life and expressed diverse and often contradictory opinions over the course of his life,” Taylor said.
Taylor went on to explain that the younger Jefferson was much more optimistic about human nature and about a free exchange of ideas that inevitably lead to a greater truth. In comparison, he explained that the older Jefferson, who founded the University, was more narrow-minded and became more pessimistic.
“People like to say there’s a single Jefferson and that Jefferson agrees with me, and that goes on a lot, and I have a problem with that,” Taylor said. “At some points, he agreed with your perspective on the University or American society, but at other times, he had different views.”
A central claim in the Jefferson Council’s statement was that Ryan’s resignation marked a “step toward … depoliticizing the University.” But historians argue that different viewpoints in education are a cornerstone of growth.
“I don’t think you can take politics out of it,” Gordon-Reed said. “Even before [the University] was a diverse place, people had different attitudes ... There’s nothing wrong with different views and contention. That’s how you grow.”
In contrast, Gardner argued that this diversity of thought symbolizes a depoliticized University. From the Jefferson Council’s point of view, the University’s promotion of DEI policies — in their eyes, a politicized issue — prevented freedom of expression.
“[Jefferson’s support for depoliticization] is inherent in him [establishing] a purely non-religious school. It's inherent in [Jefferson] saying, we want to have all views expressed in a civil manner by the students for open debate, because that's how you learn, by hearing different viewpoints,” Gardner said.
Taylor echoed Gordon-Reed’s sentiment and noted that the University has always been political, starting with Jefferson himself.
“Jefferson politicized his own university,” Taylor said, pointing to the fact that Jefferson banned books by Federalist authors from the University's curriculum. “So the notion that Jefferson founded a university that was depoliticized is just not true.”
“And I'll be frank that anybody who says that Jim Ryan's resignation is depoliticizing the University, that's not true. It's being more politicized than ever before by the people who pushed him out,” Taylor said.
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