Author Archives: jimbacon1953

A New Classic on Thomas Jefferson and Public Education in Virginia

Posted on June 29, 2022 | 4 comments

Courtesy University of Virginia

by James C. Sherlock

On April 29, 1962, President John F. Kennedy addressed a group of Nobel Prize winners at a dinner in their honor at The White House.

Kennedy, raised patrician, classically educated and fired in war and politics graciously toasted another such man.

“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House — with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

The polymath Jefferson saved the indulgence of a great passion, public education and the creation of a new style of American university, until his last years.

Influenced early by the writings on education of Sir Francis Bacon and John Locke, he completely re-imagined higher education in America from what consisted in 1800 largely of a few colleges teaching religion and the classics under church leadership and funding.

Jefferson’s idea of the university was an institution publicly funded and teaching republican ideals for the preservation of the form of government he and the other founders had labored so hard and risked so much to bring about.

It emphasized education in history, languages, the principles of the Enlightenment and the sciences with graduate schools in law and medicine. Of those he thought history to be the most critical of all to the preservation of freedom. Continue reading →

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Posted in History

It’s Good to Be King

Posted on June 28, 2022 | 7 comments

UVa President Jim Ryan

by Walter Smith

University of Virginia President Jim Ryan has entered into three employment agreements with UVa (technically, the Board of visitors on behalf of UVa). His first agreement was executed in September of 2017, to commence on October 1, 2018, and to last through July 31, 2025. His second agreement, executed as of March 2, 2018, amended his agreement to commence as of August 1, 2018. His third, and current, agreement was executed on March 2, 2022, extending his term of employment until July 31, 2028.

I will summarize its terms for your convenience. This summary will necessarily leave out some of the details, and, if that bothers you, then read the entire agreement yourself! (View the contract and compensation.)

The “term” is set to expire on July 31, 2028, and “renewal” discussions are to commence no later than March 31, 2027, with a desired termination date of discussions by July 31, 2027. In other words, if President Ryan’s employment is not to continue beyond the current term, he desires one year notice of his impending non-renewal. Continue reading →

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Posted in Governance

The New Racial Calculus in UVa Admissions

Posted on June 8, 2022 | 1 comment


by Walter Smith and James A. Bacon

On March 20, 2022, The Cavalier Daily student newspaper trumpeted the fact that the University of Virginia set a record low acceptance rate, offering slots to only 9,534 applicants, or 19% of the nearly 51,000 total. Of particular note, 52% of the offers went to “students of color” — up from 41% the prior year.

Only a little more than half of students who get accepted to UVa wind up enrolling there, so it’s not known what the ultimate composition of the entering class will be. But it is possible that entering first-year students will comprise the first class in which a majority of students are comprised of racial/ethnic minorities.

That would be no accident. In 2020, UVa recruited a vice provost of admissions, Stephen Farmer, whose most heralded accomplishment at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill had been  setting records for recruiting first-generation students and students from underrepresented minorities. At the time, UVa’s Racial Equity Task Force had recently articulated the goal of building a student body that “reflects the racial and economic demographics of the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

An analysis of acceptance numbers, provided by the University of Virginia and summarized in the table above, shows that UVa admissions this year clearly favor African-Americans, in-state students, and legacy students. If you are an in-state African-American applicant whose parent is an alumnus, your odds of getting accepted are roughly four times that of an out-of-state White applicant with no family connections. Continue reading →

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Posted in Admissions

VMI Alumni Open Letter Raises Governance Issues Relevant to UVA

Posted on June 8, 2022 | 1 comment

A couple of weeks ago, Walter Smith raised questions about the lack of accountability of the leadership of the University of Virginia Alumni Association. Graduates of the Virginia Military Institute are asking similar questions about the VMI Alumni Association, whose governing rules allow a hermetically sealed oligarchy to perpetuate itself.

Dissident UVa alumni may find the Open Letter penned by their VMI counterparts to be worth reading.

Once upon a time, nobody cared how alumni associations were governed. As long as they held good reunion parties, it didn’t matter. But alumni associations have evolved into adjuncts of university administrations, becoming critical partners in university fund-raising campaigns, purveyors of pro-administration propaganda, and implicit supporters of “progressive” policies pursued by those administrations. Whose interests does UVa’s alumni uphold — those of the alumni, or those of the UVa adminstration?

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Posted in Governance

What Role Will “Equity” Play in UVa’s Pay Raises This Year?

Posted on May 27, 2022 | 2 comments

by James A. Bacon

The College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia will be using “equity” as a criteria in allocating pay raises in the coming year, according to a memo distributed by Interim Dean David L. Hill.

Hill has divided the 5% pool of funds available for pay raises into three portions. One portion, accounting for 20% of the 5%, will go to “standard promotion raises,” in which “equity” is one criteria among several. The second portion, accounting for 40%, makes no reference to equity, but a third portion, also accounting for 40%, allows department chairs and directors to “address additional merit and equity considerations in their departments and programs.”

The memo does not define what Hill means by “equity.” But the pay raises will be handed out in a context in which College employees are required to submit “diversity statements” in their annual reviews describing their commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in teaching, research and service.

When Bacon’s Rebellion asked if pay raises would be tied to race, ethnicity, sex, or sexual orientation, John Carfagno, the College’s director of communications, denied that they would. Responded Carfagno:

The communication you reference outlines efforts by the Dean’s Office to evaluate potential pay inequities between faculty members who have similar roles, academic backgrounds, performance, and scholarly activities. These can arise due to many factors, including the timing and mode of one person’s hiring relative to another. These decisions are made independent of the traits you referenced in your email to Dean Hill.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Race, Equity and Diversity

Who Holds the UVa Alumni Association Accountable?

Posted on May 25, 2022 | 8 comments

by Walter Smith

Who owns the University of Virginia? The answer is clear: As an agency of the state government, UVa is owned by the citizens of Virginia. The governor appoints the members of its governing board, the University of Virginia, the General Assembly allots a significant percentage of its budget, and, although it has been granted considerable autonomy, the university must abide by state rules and regulations, such as, to mention just one, the Freedom of Information Act.

But who owns the University of Virginia alumni association — a nonprofit entity that, according to its Form 990, has $582 million in assets? And what mechanisms exist to hold the association’s leadership accountable for its actions?

The answer to that question is less immediately obvious. After digging into the matter, I’ve reached the conclusion that the alumni association is accountable to no one — certainly not to the UVa alumni. It is run by a self-perpetuating clique, which is free to indulge its decidedly ideological preferences largely uncontested. Transparency is minimal. and most alumni are clueless.

The UVa alumni association is not unique in this regard. My findings likely apply to alumni associations across the country and, indeed, to most nonprofit organizations generally. The story of how unaccountable, tax-advantaged nonprofits exercise extraordinary influence over our society is one of the great untold stories of our age. Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in Governance

A Legacy in Peril

Posted on May 19, 2022 | 11 comments

by Ann McLean

Outsiders who seem to have little understanding of or respect for Thomas Jefferson have been running Mr. Jefferson’s University for several years. Their policies have wreaked havoc on the spirit of individual liberties envisioned by the founder, threatening to destroy Virginia’s flagship University as a place of freedom and free expression.

Travel with me, a 1998 graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences (MA and Ph.D., Art, and Architectural History) as I catalogue the situation.

The Jeffersonian legacy. First, let’s recall what Jefferson gave us in his university. The academical village became one of the finest places for scholarship in the nation, with a system of honor second to none. Seeking “the truth, wherever it may lead,” he centered the university on virtue, reflective of his advice to “adore God,” which he recommended to his godson Thomas Jefferson Smith as a primary rule for living. Jefferson applied his mind to creating unique inventions and ingenious farming practices. He studied the natural order, wrote his Notes on the State of Virginia, and supplied a vision for freedom respecting nature and nature’s God. Through study of historical (classical) texts, he and other Founders created a great experiment which cleansed the continent of corrupt “over-reach” (tyranny). Perhaps most critically from our 21st-century perspective, he sowed the seeds of abolition of slavery by including the phrase “all men are created equal” (“equal” meaning in the sight of God; “man” meaning “mankind”). Continue reading →

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UVa Makes Progress in Restoring Free Speech

Posted on April 30, 2022 | 4 comments

You know The Jefferson Council and its allies are having an impact at the University of Virginia when you read items like this in “UVA This Month”:

Free speech flourished on Grounds in April. Former Vice President Mike Pence spoke at Old Cabell Hall. UVA President Jim Ryan and Provost Ian Baucom wrote eloquently about cancel culture. And a panel including students and professors explored the topic in a candid discussion on the West Range.

There’s no mention in this blurb of The Jefferson Council or the Young America’s Foundation, which sponsored the speech, much less the Young Americans for Freedom, the conservative student group that organized the event. Even the in-house news article to which “UVA This Month” linked neglected to credit those who invited Pence and paid the speakers fee.

That’s OK. The Jefferson Council can take satisfaction in knowing that we are helping change the terms of debate. Free speech was not a preoccupation of the Ryan administration a year ago. We’re delighted that it is now — at least in high-profile events like former vice presidents coming to visit.

Now… if we can just get the administration to address compelled speech. We’ll have more on that shortly.

4 Comments

Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

Compelled Speech: the Morgan Bettinger Case

Posted on April 30, 2022 | 8 comments

Morgan Bettinger

Note: I published this article originally in April 2022 on the Bacon’s Rebellion blog. In an oversight, I neglected to cross-post to the Jefferson Council website. I am rectifying that oversight now to maintain a complete record of UVA free-speech controversies here. — JAB

by James A. Bacon

On July 17, 2020, Morgan Bettinger was driving home from her job along a street in Charlottesville that flanked the downtown pedestrian mall where an unlicensed protest was occurring. Demonstrators roamed the street, so Bettinger, a University of Virginia 4th-year student, got out and chatted with the driver of a city garbage truck, which was blocking the road. In a throwaway remark she said, “It’s a good thing you are here because, otherwise, these people would have been speed bumps.”

The quip evoked the death of Heather Heyer a few years previously during the Unite the Right rally when a White supremacist ran his car into a crowd of counter-demonstrators very nearby. Overhearing the comment, two bystanders interpreted her to be saying that protesters would make good speed bumps. Word quickly spread. Demonstrators aggressively followed her in her car as she slowly backed, asking, “Was that a threat?”

One thing led to another and Bettinger wound up in front of the student-run University Judicial Committee (UJC). In what she and her attorney Charles “Buddy” Weber view as a kangaroo court proceeding, she was found guilty of violating the University’s Standards of Conduct. The UJC expelled Bettinger from UVa but held the sanction in abeyance on the condition that she not violate the standards of conduct again. Her actions, wrote the UJC panel, were “shameful” and put members of the community at risk. Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

Tagged

Miyares Names Iler as UVa’s University Counsel

Posted on April 29, 2022 | 1 comment

Cliff Iler

by James A. Bacon

Attorney General Jason Miyares has selected Clifton M. Iler as the University Counsel for the University of Virginia. As the university’s lead attorney, he will supervise a team of nine other attorneys, including three for the health system.

The press releasing announcing the appointment stressed Iler’s experience in higher-education and healthcare law. He comes from the University of Kentucky, where he served as Deputy General Counsel for Faculty, Students, and Research. Like UVa, the University of Kentucky has a medical school and healthcare system.

“Cliff is a brilliant attorney with over a decade of experience in higher education and healthcare law. I am confident he will be an excellent addition to the University of Virginia and serve the students, faculty, staff, and Commonwealth well,” said Attorney General Miyares in the prepared statement.

Miyares caused a media kerfluffle when he sacked the previous university counsel, Timothy Heaphy, for vaguely worded reasons relating to the circumstances of his appointment and his legal reasoning. There followed a wave of speculation that Miyares had fingered Heaphy because he had taken a leave of absence to lead the congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 mob scene at the U.S. Capitol. Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration