To frame King and activists like him as accommodating to American society — polite and gentle, messianic yet docile — is to strip them of their intellect, their cunning and their radicalism.
Labeling someone simply because they disagree automatically invalidates their experience, and becoming defensive achieves nothing.
If the Academical Village is to be more than just a location at the University and become a real practice that will aid the learning of students, then it is necessary to point out the historical failing and fight to be better.
Arguably the most frustrating piece of the increased violence in Charlottesville is not that it hasn’t stopped completely, but rather the seeming lack of care and urgency displayed by University administration.
The University has a particularly engaged student body when it comes to political action, but unfortunately most of the engagement comes from the presidential elections.
When we criticize Thomas Jefferson, his eugenics, his use of enslaved laborers or his abuse of Sally Hemings and many others, we are contextualizing history, not erasing it.
But there is a huge difference between facilitating dialogues between people and working to address large-scale inequity, and lambasting individuals for wanting to be around those with whom they share common cultural or heritage-based traits.
Book banning is a form of censorship used purely to preserve certain notions of what people — most often, children and imprisoned people — should think.
While students of community colleges are as diverse as they come in respects to their race, ethnicity, income, and general experience, one main throughline unites them all — only about 300-400 of them will matriculate to the University of Virginia.
I do not want to live in a world nor attend a university where people throw away new concepts out of comfort for old ones or abandon acknowledgement for the sake of tranquility.
Like Spanish colonization, the historical 122 years of U.S. colonial oppression have been parasitic and painful for Puerto Rico.
If the University eradicates all attendance mandates and policies from its teachers’ syllabi, students will feel less pressure to come to class with coughs, sniffles and sore throats, even if they aren’t caused by COVID-19.
The Downtown Mall's standing as the city's inclusive public square is diminished by its inconvenient lack of public benches.
A preventative ban on any University support will ensure our institution does its part to eliminate this dangerous research from ever again risking our public health.
The court must uphold the act and respect the sovereignty of Native American tribes to make decisions on behalf of their children.
When we raise someone onto a pedestal, we are effectively transforming them from a man into a myth.
In the spirit of striving toward the perfect union that Mayor Walker notes we are far from, some steps to grapple with the University’s role in Virginia’s eugenic program present themselves, such as renaming Alderman library.
So much time is lost in the process of suppressing our ailments — when we should be fixing the standard that keeps them hidden to begin with.
Virginia must codify Roe in its state constitution.
It is clear that the safety protocols in place are entirely inadequate.
