University of Richmond Asked To Return Billions In Donations After Scrubbing Donor's Name To Satisfy Woke Mobs
Go woke. Go broke.
A campus-wide outcry at the University of Richmond in 2021 forced it to rename the law school — a move that may cost the school millions or billions.
Robert C. Smith, a Virginia lawyer and descendent of a major donor to the law school, is demanding the school pay back over $3 billion in donations after the school renamed the T.C. Williams School of Law.
School Asked To Refund Massive Donations
T.C. Williams is Smith's great-great-grandfather. The school's name was updated to the University of Richmond School of Law after critics discovered that Williams, once a tobacco business owner, owned 25 to 40 slaves.
Following PC outrage, the university stated that Williams' slave ties violated school principles, despite freely accepting donations from T.C. Williams and his descendants for decades.
SHABAN ATHUMAN/TIMES-DISPATCH
SHABAN ATHUMAN/TIMES-DISPATCH
Smith is calling B.S. on Richmond's new stance and calling it a weak virtue signal to accommodate the woke mob. He is requesting that the school pay back the endowment now that it accepts a moral high ground. Smith calculated that the university accepted over $3 billion in donations.
The outrage follows an uptick in protests against historical figures in recent years, including a case in 2020 when a San Francisco high school was asked to remove Abraham Lincoln from its name because of a belief that he did not support black people.
University of Richmond's Virtue-Signaling
Smith sent university president Kevin Hallock, whom he called a "carpetbagging weasel," a letter on Jan. 30 stating the following:
"We know in 1888, he gave $10,000 to re-establish the Law School and at his death in 1889 his estate contributed $25,000 to the Law School," Smith said. "A conservative estimate of these gifts, just from the end of the War to his death exceeds $65,000."
Smith added, "I suggest you immediately turn over the entire $3.3 billion endowment to the current descendants of T.C. Williams Sr.
"The university’s endowment is $3.3 billion. Since you and your activists went out of your way to discredit the Williams name, and since presumably the Williams family’s money is tainted, demonstrate your ‘virtue’ and give it all back."
SHABAN ATHUMAN/TIMES-DISPATCH
Richmond's board of directors unanimously voted to implement a woke policy after the outrage, scrubbing T.C. Williams' influence on the school from history.
The policy targeted individuals "who directly engaged in the trafficking and/or enslavement of others or openly advocated for the enslavement of people.”
President Hallock released the following on the decision to rename the school:
"The Board's decision to adopt the principles and remove building names, while ultimately unanimous, was extremely challenging. In the end, the Board concluded that the decisions outlined above are the best course of action for the University.
"We recognize that some may be disappointed or disagree with this decision," Hallock wrote. "We also recognize the role the Williams family has played here and respect the full and complete history of the institution."