University of Virginia Library

SDS Research

The Students For a Democratic
Society, whose research has unearthed
some surprising things,
discovered that a member of the
Board of Visitors, Chase Stuart
Wheatley, had been the sponsor of
two 1959 Virginia State Legislature
bills, one reaffirming the state's
opposition to the mixing of the
white and colored races in the
schools, and another setting up
Virginia's tuition grant system under
which white students were sent
to private schools for free, while
the public schools were closed.

A demonstration against Wheatley
turned into a University-wide
campaign, led by an amorphous
group of liberals, radicals, and (at
first) establishment politicians to
open up the University's admissions
and employment practices. After
several skillful dodges by President
Shannon and a less subtle brush-off
by Governor Mills Godwin, the
Coalition failed and very little was
accomplished. But the Coalition did
awaken and radicalize a substantial
portion of the student body.