{"id":77094,"date":"2017-07-07T07:24:03","date_gmt":"2017-07-07T11:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=77094"},"modified":"2017-07-07T07:26:07","modified_gmt":"2017-07-07T11:26:07","slug":"flashback-thomas-jefferson-becomes-a-persona-non-grata-at-the-university-he-founded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=77094","title":{"rendered":"Flashback: Thomas Jefferson becomes a persona non grata at the university he founded"},"content":{"rendered":"

UVA faculty, students demand president stop quoting Thomas Jefferson because it threatens \u2018equality\u2019<\/h1>\n

Tr\u00e9 Goins-Phillips
\nTheBlaze.com<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hundreds of University of Virginia students and faculty members are demanding\u00a0President Teresa Sullivan stop quoting former President Thomas Jefferson, the school\u2019s founder, in her emails because doing so \u201cundermines the message of unity, equality and civility that you are attempting to convey.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the university\u2019s student-run newspaper,\u00a0The Cavalier Daily<\/a>, the letter\u00a0received 469 signatures before being sent to Sullivan\u2019s desk on Friday. The\u00a0memo\u00a0was sparked by an email Sullivan sent last week encouraging unity after President-elect Donald Trump won the White House.<\/p>\n

The problem students and professors have with Sullivan\u2019s decision to include a Jefferson quote is, of course, the fact that the founding father was a slave owner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThomas Jefferson wrote to a friend that University of Virginia students \u2018are not of ordinary significance only: they are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country, and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes,’\u201d Sullivan wrote in the email. \u201cI encourage today\u2019s U.Va. students to embrace that responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

In their letter to the well-intentioned university leader, faculty and students lectured\u00a0Sullivan\u00a0on the placement of the quote from their school\u2019s founder.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like for our administration to understand that although some members of this community may have come to this university because of Thomas Jefferson\u2019s legacy, others of us came here in spite of it,\u201d the letter read.\u00a0\u201cFor many of us, the inclusion of Jefferson quotations in these e-mails undermines the message of unity, equality and civility that you are attempting to convey.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0Noelle Hurd, an assistant professor of psychology, the letter to Sullivan is intended to \u201cstart a conversation\u201d about how the administration can be more inclusive in its language, per The Cavalier Daily:<\/p>\n

In the current climate, we must seize every opportunity to communicate that this university welcomes individuals from all backgrounds.<\/p>\n

[\u2026]<\/p>\n

I think that Jefferson is often celebrated for his accomplishments with little or no acknowledgment of the atrocities he committed against hundreds of human beings.\u00a0This is a complex issue but members of our community are intelligent and compassionate enough to be able to wrestle with this history and decide how we want to move forward as an institution that welcomes all<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Politics Professor\u00a0Lawrie Balfour, who also signed the letter, said students and faculty appreciated Sullivan\u2019s intentions in trying to promote unity on campus, but feel\u00a0it\u2019s damaging for her to quote Jefferson in her attempt to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been here 15 years,\u201d Balfour told the student newspaper. \u201cAgain and again, I have found that at moments when the community needs reassurance and Jefferson appears, it undoes I think the really important work that administrators and others are trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

___
\nhttp:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/news\/2016\/11\/14\/uva-faculty-students-demand-president-stop-quoting-thomas-jefferson-because-it-threatens-equality\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UVA faculty, students demand president stop quoting Thomas Jefferson because it threatens \u2018equality\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}