Charlottesville

[smltooner]

I saw a facebook post last night from Corey Stewart that really pissed me off.
The Student Council at UVa has voted that a statue of Thomas Jefferson be removed because, being a slave owner, he promotes "white supremacy".
If this happens, I wonder how many dollars the university will lose in contributions from supporters. I know they will lose mine.

[dorminWS]

I agree with you on ceasing donations to UVa if they were to remove the Jefferson statue (question: WHICH ONE?). Like you, I will derive some satisfaction from knowing my pitiful few bucks worth of support won’t go to underwrite such foolishness. But realize that even if a LOT of people do the same it will have little or no economic impact.

According to a CAVALIER DAILY article I found online, Forbes magazine recently listed The University as the 19th richest school in the country, with an endowment just over $5 billion. That makes them the fifth richest public school in the nation. As of June 30, 2016, The University’s total assets were $10.5 billion. The approved budget for the current fiscal year calls for $2.8 billion in spending. That is more than the GDP of more than 30 countries. Gifts, as a percent of their budget, are only somewhere between 4% and 9%.

So, to quit giving to UVa might call the attention of some minor functionary in Charlottesville to our disapproval, but they won’t miss it much. Shooting an elephant in the rump with a BB gun would have more impact on the pachyderm than all of us put together can have on UVa’s finances by withholding donations. I’m assuming that Bill Gates and his ilk are not involved, here.

Of course, while the UVa Student Council might vote to do any number of things, they have no authority to actually do them. That lies with The University’s Board of Visitors. We can all hope (without being certain in these days of appointments to that Board by Terry McAuliffe and Warner and Kaine before him) that the Board of Visitors will ignore this juvenile prattling by a group of spoiled teenagers most of whom are, after all, just passing through Virginia for a few years.

It might be more efficacious to contact our State Delegates and Senators and register our strong opposition to even the suggestion of such an action by The University. But be advised that according to that same CAVALIER DAILY article state appropriations are only between 5% and 10% of the University’s budget. (I thought it was almost twice that.) Politics is still the best way to go at it, though. Money ain’t the only handle the politicians can grab the academicians by.

[kelu]

Why we can't push for a law that will forbid politics in a public university? Like religion?

[smltooner]

.....Shooting an elephant in the rump with a BB gun would have more impact on the pachyderm than all of us put together can have on UVa’s finances by withholding donations.....

I agree, but it will make me feel better!

[Ironbear]

Why we can't push for a law that will forbid politics in a public university? Like religion?

Religion is not forbidden in public universities. The anti-Christian (pro-other religion) sentiment is largely individual activists, external agitators, and renegade faculty; and not University policy or law.

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