On the campus of the University of Virginia, the words of Thomas Jefferson trump the protests of an offended faculty and student body. At least for now.
U.Va. President Teresa Sullivan acknowledged the protest against her quotation of Jefferson in a statement released Monday. She rejected the idea, however, that quotation is tantamount to endorsement of Jefferson’s shortcomings.
Last week, nearly 500 students and faculty members signed a letter protesting Sullivan’s use of Jefferson’s words in a campus-wide email. The offended undersigned argued that quoting the author of the Declaration of Independence undermines equality.
From the corner office of Virginia’s public ivory tower, Sullivan respectfully slapped down that idea.
“In my message last week, I agreed with Mr. Jefferson’s words expressing the idea that U.Va. students would help to lead our republic,” Sullivan said in a statement posted on the university’s website. “He believed that 200 years ago, and I believe it today.”
The first female president of the university that Jefferson founded, Sullivan did something her faculty could not. She made a distinction between intrinsic principle and historical personality. Those perfect ideals transcend even the flawed third president.
“Today’s leaders are women and men, members of all racial and ethnic groups, members of the LGBTQ community, and adherents of all religious traditions,” Sullivan explained. “All of them belong at today’s U.Va., whose founder’s most influential and most quoted words were ‘all men are created equal.'”
The bookish social justice mob probably won’t be receptive to that transcendent message. They’re not interested in passing intellectual judgment. They want to hold past leaders to current standards and delete mentions of any character they find lacking.
Throwing her weight behind an argument about transcendent principle, though, Sullivan stands between that mob and the historical record.
“Those words were inherently contradictory in an era of slavery, but because of their power, they became the fundamental expression of a more genuine equality today,” Sullivan concluded.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
