A Law School’s ‘Denaming’ Evokes Donor Family’s Ire

[simpleSimon]

A Law School's 'Denaming' Evokes Donor Family's Ire
The University of Richmond removed a slave-owning benefactor's name from its law school, infuriating his descendants. It's a familiar debacle that illustrates the pervasive effects of culture war politics.
by Liam Knox

When the University of Richmond's Board of Trustees voted last fall to remove the name of alumnus and donor T. C. Williams from its law school, Williams's descendants were irate. The board was following a new set of principles adopted earlier that year to ensure the namesakes of buildings, colleges and professorships lived up to the university's values; the trustees decided that Williams, a wealthy tobacco farmer and slave owner, did not.

Richmond president Kevin Hallock broke the news to Robert Smith, Williams's great-great-grandson and a graduate of the law school, over the phone. Smith responded with a letter denouncing the decision and accusing the university of hypocrisy and ingratitude.

"It is stunning to me that the University's position is that there is just one acceptable monolithic narrative, and all those that don't agree, even people born over 200 years ago, must be cancelled," he wrote. "History and posterity will judge the University and the Board."

Thomas C. Williams enrolled at what was then called Richmond College in 1848. He got rich making tobacco products and later served on Richmond's Board of Trustees from 1881 to 1889. He also donated over $35,000 to the law school—a substantial sum at the time—and gave more to the university throughout his life. His descendants claim that at the time of his death, Williams was the largest donor in the university's history.

He also relied on slave labor, according to public documents the university provided to Inside Higher Ed. Those records say that in 1860 his company "owned or actively managed" 35 enslaved men and children, and tax documents show that he personally owned three enslaved men. In 1864, Williams's company took out a newspaper ad offering a reward for the return of two escaped slaves to a Danville farm and plant that he owned; at the time, its chief function was to manufacture supplies for the Confederate Army.

Cynthia Price, Richmond's associate vice president of media and public relations, said the denaming decision was made in accordance with the university's "unambiguous" new naming policy, which "does not allow for the consideration of other factors." She added that educational efforts to recognize Williams's influence at the institution, as well as his fraught legacy, were underway.

For colleges and universities grappling with the problematic racial legacies of founders and benefactors, renaming campus buildings, endowed professorships and other institutional entities is a common first step. In 2020 Princeton University removed the name of former president Woodrow Wilson, a supporter of segregation, from its public policy school; Yale University removed slavery supporter John C. Calhoun's name from a residential college in 2017.

So Richmond was not breaking new ground when it decided to change the college's name to the University of Richmond School of Law. According to Price, no one had publicly referred to the law school by the Williams name for two decades. Still, the move touched a nerve for his descendants—as well as for critics of what they call higher education's "woke" approach to racist legacies.

In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Smith didn't deny that his great-great-grandfather used slave labor, though he suggested he may have leased rather than owned slaves. Smith's main criticism was of the new naming policy and what he considered the unjust public trashing of his family's legacy by an institution that, to hear him tell it, owes its very existence to the Williams clan.

"The honor of my family has been insulted," he said. "These unhinged leftists, as soon as you say the word [slavery], they want to demonize everybody."

After Richmond made clear it would move ahead with the denaming, Smith followed up with a second letter, published on the business news site Real Clear Markets on Feb. 1. In it he called Hallock a "woke ingrate" and "carpet bagging weasel" and argued that the university should return all the money his family has donated over the years.

Accounting for inflation and the "yearly rate of return," Smith estimates that number to be a little over $3.4 billion—more than the current value of Richmond's endowment.

"There should be a price to virtue signaling and ingratitude," Smith said. "If that name is so tainted, shouldn't they give [Williams's] money back? Wouldn't a virtuous person do that?"

Price said there is "no basis" for returning the donations, and that the initial decision to name the law school after Williams was made posthumously in recognition of his gifts, with no written agreement binding them to it. But contract or no contract, Smith said he's going to "fight for my family's name and respect."

Doug White, a philanthropy scholar who specializes in donor relations gone sour, said that even without any written agreement, the university's decision, while admirable, might have gone over better had officials reached out to Williams's descendants beforehand.

"It seems the university really turned a wooden ear to the family and its legacy there, which appears to be quite substantial," said White, the author of Abusing Donor Intent (Paragon House, 2014), about a case of mismanaged donor relations at Princeton University. "The goal of ethical decision-making in a case like this isn't to make sure everyone agrees on the outcome. It's to be transparent and make sure everyone at least feels respected."...

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2023/03/01/law-school-denaming-sparks-donor-debacle

[Parasaurolophus]

What a precious little snowflake.

He can't be much of a lawyer, either, if that's what he puts into his professional correspondence. So, a consummate failson, then.

[mythbuster]

I wonder how a big a donation will it take for a new name? Because that's the real windfall for the University here.

[Caracal]

What a precious little snowflake.

He can't be much of a lawyer, either, if that's what he puts into his professional correspondence. So, a consummate failson, then.

If "carpet bagging weasel" is in someone's list of insults, that's usually not a good sign. Arguments about "demaning" are odd to me. This isn't something that was invented five years ago. Institutions and governments have been denaming and renaming things for a very long time and the reasons are always about ideas of politics and values. Stalingrad has been Volgograd since 1961. Is that because of "wokeness?" Or is it just that once you decide that a former leader of your country was a criminal mass murderer, you probably don't want to keep having a city be named for him? Actually, before it was Stalingrad, the city was Tsaritsyn.

[Wahoo Redux]

Robert Smith probably imagines a ground-swell of conservative support.  And he's clearly swallowed the red pill and doused himself in ugly and cliched arch-conservative groupthink.  He doesn't want to deal with the reality of his family's heritage.

As the University of Richmond Caves to the 'Woke' Mob, My Response, by Rob Smith

The University's decision to untether itself from its Christian founding is at the heart of it now not having the honesty or intellectual fortitude to defend itself from the Neo-Marxist woke mob. The difference between the character of T.C. Williams and that of the "Cancellation Culture Activists" could not be starker. T.C. Williams practiced the tenets of his faith, primarily to love and serve others. The mob that you and the Board are so afraid of worships hatred and ignorance. They feign indignation, but their real objective is destruction. You and the Board have fallen for this subterfuge.

And he may be in a bit of denial:

T.C. Williams believed that all men were made in the image of God, and his mission was to love and serve others. This was the primary ethos I witnessed in my family and immediate ancestors, a loving, kind, benevolent family, imbued by the Spirit to help others.

[apl68]

While I don't blame him for being greatly annoyed for having an ancestor cancelled in this manner, his intemperate rhetoric makes him look foolish.  It's also not a very spiritual, New Testament-informed reaction.  He's not making a good representation of what he professes to be.  The great pride that he expresses in his ancestors is also not showing much humility.

Vanderbilt University ran into something like this some years back with its Confederate Memorial Hall dorm.  Which I used to walk past on the way to work all the time, by the way--it's a lovely building.  They eventually bowed to the inevitable pressure and announced that they were renaming the building.  The Daughters of the Confederacy, who had contributed to its construction almost a century earlier for the naming rights, brought suit to stop it.  Vanderbilt worked out a deal whereby they would refund the organization the inflation-adjusted equivalent of the original donation as compensation.  It worked out to several million dollars. 

Now when you walk by it the facade simply says "Memorial Dorm."  It's apparently now a "memorial" to nothing in particular.  Which is probably the safest course of action to take in today's world.  Let's face it--to "succeed" in this world in a way that makes you rich enough to get buildings named after you, odds are you've done things and associated with people that won't look great when exposed to scrutiny.  Name a building after anybody or anything, and somebody will be able to find a way to object to it.  Either we accept that our building fund donors of past and present weren't perfect people, or we stop naming buildings after people, period, and just give them all numbers or something.

[Parasaurolophus]

The "nice guy" defence makes some sort of sense for people with whom one is personally acquainted. It obviously doesn't balance out serious wrongs they may have committed, but it counts for something.

But when you invoke it to defend someone not only wholly unknown to you, but unknown even to your grandparents... Well, that's about as thin a straw to clutch for as you can get.

Likewise, while it's understandably pleasant to have your surname on a building, and understandably unpleasant to have that surname associated with something bad, it's really precious to get so excited about associations with a surname--positive or negative--so commonplace that nobody has ever associated you with that building without your having first boasted about it to them.


As for accepting imperfection or just numbering buildings: that seems like a false dilemma to me. We're perfectly within our rights to draw the line at certain kinds of wrongdoing, while accepting other, smaller foibles. Likewise, sometimes someone's legacy in some domain may be judged sufficiently important to overcome their wrongdoing in another. But there's really nothing wrong, as far as I can see, with letting people decide, over time, which associations they find acceptable or not. There's no reason why a name should be permanent. It just has to stick around long enough to facilitate reference.

[Wahoo Redux]

Unless I misunderstand southern culture, the myth of the old south revolved around pseudo-aristocratic families which could claim a noblesse oblige ruined by "carpet bagging" Yankees in the "war of northern aggression."  This sounds like that to me. 

[dismalist]

...

Vanderbilt University ran into something like this some years back with its Confederate Memorial Hall dorm.  Which I used to walk past on the way to work all the time, by the way--it's a lovely building.  They eventually bowed to the inevitable pressure and announced that they were renaming the building.  The Daughters of the Confederacy, who had contributed to its construction almost a century earlier for the naming rights, brought suit to stop it.  Vanderbilt worked out a deal whereby they would refund the organization the inflation-adjusted equivalent of the original donation as compensation.  It worked out to several million dollars. 
...

This is a good example of how some such things can be handled. It rests on the question, like other threads here, who owns what? A change in mores often implies a change in property rights. The owners must be compensated, or we would have expropriation, de-kulakization, collectivization. If a university wishes to expropriate its past donor families it certainly has the right and the means to do so. The cost it bears is on the incentives of future donors. That's why Vanderbilt coughed up the cash!

For names of public properties, such as schools and streets, the public is the owner, and democratic decision of the payers is the right authority. Of course, in such elections, small numbers of the most motivated win, but that's a different question. At present, we're probably just getting small numbers of different people. :-)

[Caracal]

Unless I misunderstand southern culture, the myth of the old south revolved around pseudo-aristocratic families which could claim a noblesse oblige ruined by "carpet bagging" Yankees in the "war of northern aggression."  This sounds like that to me.

Yes, it's just a tell about who this guy is and the kind of things he believes.

[Caracal]

While I don't blame him for being greatly annoyed for having an ancestor cancelled in this manner, his intemperate rhetoric makes him look foolish.  It's also not a very spiritual, New Testament-informed reaction.  He's not making a good representation of what he professes to be.  The great pride that he expresses in his ancestors is also not showing much humility.

Vanderbilt University ran into something like this some years back with its Confederate Memorial Hall dorm.  Which I used to walk past on the way to work all the time, by the way--it's a lovely building.  They eventually bowed to the inevitable pressure and announced that they were renaming the building.  The Daughters of the Confederacy, who had contributed to its construction almost a century earlier for the naming rights, brought suit to stop it.  Vanderbilt worked out a deal whereby they would refund the organization the inflation-adjusted equivalent of the original donation as compensation.  It worked out to several million dollars. 

Now when you walk by it the facade simply says "Memorial Dorm."  It's apparently now a "memorial" to nothing in particular.  Which is probably the safest course of action to take in today's world.  Let's face it--to "succeed" in this world in a way that makes you rich enough to get buildings named after you, odds are you've done things and associated with people that won't look great when exposed to scrutiny.  Name a building after anybody or anything, and somebody will be able to find a way to object to it.  Either we accept that our building fund donors of past and present weren't perfect people, or we stop naming buildings after people, period, and just give them all numbers or something.

Do you think that buildings on college campuses ought to be named in honor of an attempt to form a country based on racial slavery and white supremacy? There are arguments to be made about who buildings should and shouldn't be named for, but I find it perplexing to grumble that we should just throw up our hands because "nobody's perfect." Ok, but some people are worse than others, and some have done things or supported ideas so repugnant that it's reasonable that a school and/or its students/faculty and staff wouldn't want to be associated with them. Again, this really isn't a new fangled idea.

[jimbogumbo]

If there had been a Corleone School of Business somewhere (preferably warm) I would have paid for an MBA.

[apl68]

Unless I misunderstand southern culture, the myth of the old south revolved around pseudo-aristocratic families which could claim a noblesse oblige ruined by "carpet bagging" Yankees in the "war of northern aggression."  This sounds like that to me.

Yes, it's just a tell about who this guy is and the kind of things he believes.

He seems to have a pretty bad case of that, all right.

[apl68]

While I don't blame him for being greatly annoyed for having an ancestor cancelled in this manner, his intemperate rhetoric makes him look foolish.  It's also not a very spiritual, New Testament-informed reaction.  He's not making a good representation of what he professes to be.  The great pride that he expresses in his ancestors is also not showing much humility.

Vanderbilt University ran into something like this some years back with its Confederate Memorial Hall dorm.  Which I used to walk past on the way to work all the time, by the way--it's a lovely building.  They eventually bowed to the inevitable pressure and announced that they were renaming the building.  The Daughters of the Confederacy, who had contributed to its construction almost a century earlier for the naming rights, brought suit to stop it.  Vanderbilt worked out a deal whereby they would refund the organization the inflation-adjusted equivalent of the original donation as compensation.  It worked out to several million dollars. 

Now when you walk by it the facade simply says "Memorial Dorm."  It's apparently now a "memorial" to nothing in particular.  Which is probably the safest course of action to take in today's world.  Let's face it--to "succeed" in this world in a way that makes you rich enough to get buildings named after you, odds are you've done things and associated with people that won't look great when exposed to scrutiny.  Name a building after anybody or anything, and somebody will be able to find a way to object to it.  Either we accept that our building fund donors of past and present weren't perfect people, or we stop naming buildings after people, period, and just give them all numbers or something.

Do you think that buildings on college campuses ought to be named in honor of an attempt to form a country based on racial slavery and white supremacy? There are arguments to be made about who buildings should and shouldn't be named for, but I find it perplexing to grumble that we should just throw up our hands because "nobody's perfect." Ok, but some people are worse than others, and some have done things or supported ideas so repugnant that it's reasonable that a school and/or its students/faculty and staff wouldn't want to be associated with them. Again, this really isn't a new fangled idea.

Actually I have no objection to the renaming of Confederate Memorial Hall.  Nor do I object to removing T.C. Williams' name from that law school.  Although, as I said, I don't blame members of his family for being annoyed.  It's asking an awful lot to demand of people that they repudiate their own ancestors and everything about them.

I was simply pointing out that if we're going to cancel historical figures, we put ourselves on something of a slippery slope.  Where does it stop?  And how can we know that any prominent figure we try to honor now by naming something as a memorial to that person won't be cancelled in the future?  And maybe not that far into the future either, the way things have been speeding up.  Maybe we just don't need to be as keen on naming things and commemorating people as we have been in the first place.  Especially not when it's simply of matter of rewarding somebody for having made a pile of money to give, which ability is not highly coordinated with saintly behavior.

[permanent imposter]

In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Smith didn't deny that his great-great-grandfather used slave labor, though he suggested he may have leased rather than owned slaves.

Oh okay, that makes it all right then. When I read the headline I was ready to sympathize with the donor family but by the end of the article all my sympathy was gone.