University of Virginia Library

Sorry, Mr. Jefferson

At least some people cared about this
Founder's Day, perhaps for the first time in
150 years. Though most of the students
remained loyal to the traditional (as opposed
to coalition) boycott of the proceedings, there
were still enough interested observers at the
ceremonies in Cabell Hall to make it sound at
times like a pep rally rather than a scholarly
convocation.

At the same time, we were a bit
disappointed in the overall impact of Founder's
Day. If such a paradox is possible, it
became a political football for some of the
University's many factions, while at the same
time managing to avoid political relevance to
the issues which engendered the factions.

Esmond Wright, for instance, was a
distinguished guest who had some very
intelligent things to say about educational
mores, and the state of European universities.
He couldn't help the fact that his last stay in
Charlottesville was 30 years ago. Thus his
speech lacked some of the specifically relevant
insights which might have come from another
speaker. Nonetheless, we enjoyed Mr Wright's
urbane perspective on higher education, as we
assume everyone who came to listen did as
well, and we thank him for making the
trans-Atlantic journey to address his alma
mater.

Student dissidents also blew the potential
that Founder's Day offered. Due to an
unfortunate occurrence, the jailing of Dick
Gregory, the coalition called Maurice Dawkins
to address its rally on the steps of the
Rotunda, another event which many
apathetically "boycotted." Mr. Dawkins is a
veteran civil rights leader, and a witty
raconteur, but he is not an educator, and he
was not given enough time to prepare many
remarks which could be addressed specifically
to this University at this point in its
development.

The timing of the walkout from Cabell
Hall was also poorly planned. Mr. Shannon's
speech asserted several points which were
liable to dissent and at which the students
might reasonably have walked out. Walking
out on the presentation to Mr. Mitchell of the
Seven Society award robbed the act of its
symbolic legitimacy. Most distressing were the
efforts of certain misguided individuals to
decorate some of the buildings on the
Grounds in ways that they deemed appropriate
to their concept of the spirit of the
occasion. It didn't do much to further rational
discussion or mutual trust between the parties
at odds.

But the Founder's Day prize for Neanderthalian
thinking has to go to Messrs.
Slaughter and Canevari for calling in football
players to help the ushers on the Lawn,
although it was a pleasant change to see the
varsity wearing coats and ties. It's nice to have
muscle on your side in a philosophical
discussion. We suppose that if rational
processes can't decide on the course of the
University, the Administration can always get
the football team to fight it out with the
bearded long-hairs and settle it that way.
Fortunately, Mr. Canevari and his storm-troopers
decided to let the demonstrators
demonstrate and avoided a confrontation.

Unfortunately, the University only gets
one Sesquicentennial, and it will be 50 years
before a comparable opportunity arises to
assess the progress and errors that have been
made and more important, new directions
that would be wise to pursue if we are to have
true reason to celebrate when the next
anniversary comes along. For all of the
speeches in praise of the Jeffersonian ideal-a
community of free and reasoned discussion-we
failed to see any members of the
Administration listening to what the coalition
speaker had to say, a boycott that seems to
indicate the same contempt that engendered
the walkout.

We do not agree with some of our
colleagues in the student body that the
University's primary achievement in the past
150 years has been to institutionalize racism.
Nor do we agree that Mr. Jefferson's ideal has
been fully or even basically realized here. Our
feeling is that something of the same thing has
been done to Jefferson's University as was
done to the Declaration of Independence. As
Mr. Dawkins pointed out, Jefferson wrote the
Declaration with a passage denouncing slavery
and the Crown's part in maintaining it. But
the passage was struck from the final draft by
southern representatives to the Continental
Congress.

In much the same way, Mr. Jefferson's
death opened the door to some drastic
revisions in his original plans for the
University, revisions from which we have yet
to recover. Still, just as the Declaration of
Independence bore his unmistakable imprint,
the University is, in many respects, "the
lengthened shadow of the man." The
challenge that lies before us is to make it more
so. None of us will be around when the
University celebrates its next 150 years, but if
we fail to meet that challenge, the University
might not even survive them.