
The University of Virginia suspended a campus tour program that had been criticized for citing school founder Thomas Jefferson's ties to slavery, officials said Friday.
The tours led by University Guide Service have been plagued by spotty attendance by student volunteers and issues with "consistency" in content, university officials said in a statement to NBC News. The school has been "in close contact with the student-led University Guide Service" for two years "to address a trend of issues and concerns surrounding guide attendance and tour consistency, and to discuss plans for improvement," UVA said in statement. The Jefferson Council, a conservative alumni group, had been calling for an end or change to the tour program, insisting that volunteers had been wrongly besmirching the legacy of UVA's founder. The university's statement did not cite the Jefferson Council's ongoing campaign against University Guide Services. And UVA spokesperson Bethanie Glover went a step further adding that: "This isn't in direct response to any criticism from the Jefferson Council. This is more to do with the guides not showing up for their scheduled tours." Nonetheless, the alumni group's president claimed victory on Friday. Council president Thomas Neale, a 1974 UVA grad, said his group helped push Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, to place 13 appointees on the university's 17-member governing board of trustees, which led to this action. "So yeah, we raised the issue and now that they have 13 (appointees) — and not all of the Youngkin appointees are homogenous, some are fairly moderate — but all of them looked at this and said this has to change," Neale said. Neale insisted his group doesn't want a whitewashing of Jefferson's status as a slaveowner, but a greater contextualization of America's third president and Declaration of Independence author. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/universi...s-jeffers-rcna168960 |
It’s not “mention,” it’s “entire focus” of the tour.
Big difference. I am sure the kinds of tours provided at Mount Vernon, which are comprehensive but not agenda- driven woke, will still be given at uva |
Well.. he did own slaves and actually SAd at least one of them. so..
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I thought our UVA tour was awkward. We walked by one set of dorms, saw the inside of one building, then spent the rest of the time standing on the Lawn while the guide talked about how racist the community was. Learned very little about the school. The strangest tour we had. |
But let's get real here, no conservative parent in Virginia is going to tell their kid not to apply to UVA if the tour is completely woke and does nothing but talk about the evils of slavery, and no liberal parent in Virginia is going to tell their kid not to apply to UVA if the tour uses a script written by Ron DeSantis that says blacks benefited from slavery.
The content of this tour literally Does Not Matter At All. |
On our tour recently, we walked past dorms and dining halls (did not go in), we went through the library and some academic buildings, and the tour guide mostly talked about all the different clubs you could join. Not a single word about slavery. |
You forgot the part where we had to acknowledge the indigenous people whose land we were trodding upon. |
The Jefferson Council and Youngkin’s appointees on the governing board are doing gar more damage than just this issue. |
I think people have posted for the past few years about how bad the UVA tours were (My kid attends and I thought I was fine but not the best) so perhaps it's time for an improvement. The UGS is an independent student run org and apparently they are not doing their jobs. |
Why didn’t you want to acknowledge the land? |
We also had a really awkward tour to say the least. Glad to see they are making changes but my kid won’t be applying. |
Ours required a moment of silence. People in the tour looked so confused. |
What land in Virginia wasn’t indigenous? |
This is a good change. |
Mt Vernon seems to be doing a good job handling this, totally agree. |