In Honoring Enslaved Laborers, Colleges Seek to Blunt the Force of Their Pro-Slavery Icons

The University of Virginia was founded, conceived, and designed by Thomas Jefferson. But he didn’t build it.

Virginia’s Board of Visitors unanimously approved plans this month for a memorial recognizing the enslaved people who built a university their children and grandchildren would not be allowed to attend.

Marcus Martin, vice president of the university and chief officer for diversity, helped choose a location for what some on campus are calling the Freedom Ring. They wanted it to be hard to miss: a palatial spot that students and visitors will pass as they attend football games, tour the campus, or celebrate graduations.

They settled on a grassy triangle right behind the university’s iconic rotunda.

This spot, at the head of Jefferson’s "academical village," places the memorial in the midst of a university designed by a slave owner — purposeful representation of slavery’s role on the campus.

The memorial is the University of Virginia’s answer to the question many other colleges face: How should an academic institution reconcile its physical ties to slavery or the Confederacy with the desire to become a welcoming campus?

Administrators at some campuses have chosen to remove controversial monuments outright. The University of Virginia decided to endorse adding context to the campus’s symbolic celebration — through the addition of the new monument.