For the second time in seven days, the University of Virginia has pushed back against critics of the hiring of President Trump’s former legislative chief and an effort to blacklist conservatives from the school founded by former President Thomas Jefferson.
In a statement from the school’s Miller Center, a nonpartisan affiliate that specializes in presidential scholarship, Alice Handy said the university is sticking to its decision to appoint Marc Short as a senior Miller Center fellow despite the protest resignations of two educators.
“While the current administration certainly has created a fair amount of controversy, and despite the intense response to this appointment from both sides, we support the decision to bring Marc Short on as a senior fellow at the Center and feel he will bring valuable insights to our work,” she wrote.
The latest in @Miller_Center blunderfest, a no reply email from Chair Alice Handy digging in: "We feel it important at this stage to remind our community of the Center’s mission... which includes the study of all presidents, not just certain ones." 1/2
— Caroline W. Lee (@carolinewlee) August 3, 2018
And in choosing to keep Short, she added of the two who quit, “We wish them well and hope the Center can collaborate with them in the future.”
Conservative alumni have seen an uptick in bias and have applauded the Miller Center’s move to stick with its political diversity and push back on anti-Trump protests that many link to the violent race clashes in Charlottesville, Va., home to the university, last August.
Protests and hecking of current and former Trump aides has increased in recent months and the attacks on Short are just the latest.
Alice Handy, chair of the Miller Center Council, responds to the recent appointment of former Trump staffer Marc Short as a senior fellow at the center: "The balance of fellows from 'both sides of the aisle' is no accident, as it is important to our mission."
— C-VILLE Weekly (@cvillenews_desk) August 3, 2018
Just last Friday, William J. Antholis, the Miller Center’s director, issued another statement explaining its appointment of Short over objections from school officials who don’t like Trump.
On Monday, two prominent historians, professors William Hitchcock and Melvyn Leffler, resigned from the University of Virginia’s prestigious Miller Center in protest.
In her note, Handy said that in siding with Short the Center is also upholding its belief in free and diverse speech.
“Marc joins a list of other practitioners, from both Democratic and Republican administrations, who form a critical bridge for our scholars to the policy-making community, and vice versa. The balance of fellows from ‘both sides of the aisle’ is no accident, as it is important to our mission,” said her statement.
Below is her full note sent to alumni:
Correspondence from the Miller Center Governing Council
Recently there has been a significant amount of attention surrounding the appointment of Marc Short as a senior fellow at the Miller Center. Marc, in his former role as the director of legislative affairs in the Trump White House, was the key intermediary between the White House and Congress. While the current administration certainly has created a fair amount of controversy, and despite the intense response to this appointment from both sides, we support the decision to bring Marc Short on as a senior fellow at the Center and feel he will bring valuable insights to our work.
Senior fellowship positions are part-time, non-faculty appointments, one year in duration, in the Center’s Presidential Studies program. Marc joins a list of other practitioners, from both Democratic and Republican administrations, who form a critical bridge for our scholars to the policy-making community, and vice versa. The balance of fellows from “both sides of the aisle” is no accident, as it is important to our mission. Our full-time scholars and the shared faculty with the University of Virginia form the backbone of the Miller Center and create the intellectual content that makes us unique. The senior fellows provide valuable input into this scholarship and our understanding of the current political environment.
A number of our scholars and subsequently other members of the community reacted strongly to Marc’s appointment. Indeed, two of our esteemed scholars from UVA’s Department of History have resigned their Miller Center affiliations in protest. The Governing Council deeply regrets this. We appreciate the outstanding scholarship these individuals have brought to the Center over many years. We wish them well and hope the Center can collaborate with them in the future.
We feel it important at this stage to remind our community of the Center’s mission. We believe the Miller Center is the leading institution focused on studying and understanding the presidency, which includes the study of all presidents, not just certain ones. We impart this understanding via scholarly research, insights from practitioners, and importantly, civil public discourse, which has long been the hallmark of our democracy and a founding principle of the nonpartisan Miller Center. The Governing Council feels that our mission is especially important in these challenging times, during which our country has become increasingly polarized.
Alice Handy
Chair of the Miller Center Council
