The University of Richmond has removed the name of donor T.C. Williams from its law school, citing student complaints that he allegedly owned slaves more than 175 years ago.
The Williams family now wants the Virginia-based university to give back donations they’ve made throughout the years, with interest, in the amount of $3.6 billion.
Robert Smith, who graduated from the University of Richmond’s (UR) law school that formerly bore his great-great grandfather’s name, told The Epoch Times that if the family name is no longer good enough for the university, neither are their financial contributions.
Smith said in a Jan. 30 letter to university president Kevin Hallock that he arrived at the $3.6 billion figure by adding together the contributions from Williams, his sons, and other relatives, then calculating 150-plus years of compounded returns.
“It might be worthwhile for you to require every woke activist to take a course in finance to appreciate those for whom they want to cancel,” Smith wrote in his January letter to Hallock.
Smith—founder of the legal and financial firm Chartwell Capital Advisors in Richmond, Virginia—said the university has yet to respond to his demand for a refund.
Erasing Slave Owners
The fight began during the 2021-2022 school year. The University formed a commission of students, staff, faculty, alumni, and trustees that recommended naming guidelines for buildings, programs, and professorships, according to a Sept. 23, 2022 notice on the university’s website.
Many universities either renamed or removed statues of historical figures after the death of George Floyd in 2020. Left-wing groups across the country demanded racial justice, and called for removal of historical statues of priests, Christopher Columbus, and even Abraham Lincoln.
Critics contend that removing statues is part of a neo-Marxist cultural revolution that seeks to portray the United States as a systemically racist country founded on slavery. The movement’s ideology sometimes goes by other names, including critical race theory (CRT); diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); or progressivism.
These ideologies promote portraying history with a focus on racial justice, as in the 1619 Project, an initiative by The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, which says its aim is “to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ national narrative.”
Proponents of CRT say America should not whitewash history and that white Americans should repent by giving minorities preference in areas such as hiring and college admittance to make up for acts of racism committed throughout the country’s history.
Building a Case
According to the university’s notice, the rules on how to rename buildings were adopted “after an extensive and inclusive process” with input from 7,500 university and community members.
The notice details the history of T.C. Williams Sr., born in 1831, who operated tobacco businesses in Richmond and elsewhere in Virginia, including Patterson & Williams and Thomas C. Williams & Co.
The university cited records from the 1860 U.S. Federal Census Slave Schedule, which showed 35 enslaved men and boys under the name of Patterson & Williams in the Richmond area.
The notice went on to say that personal property tax records showed Williams’s businesses were taxed on 25-40 slaves. A newspaper account placed by Thomas C. Williams and Co. advertised a reward for the return of two company slaves, Todd and Alex, who escaped a Danville-area farm.
Williams attended the university, then named Richmond College, from 1846–1849. He served as a college trustee from 1881 until his death in 1889, and became a benefactor of the university, the notice said.
In 1890, the Williams family made a memorial gift of $25,000 to the university, creating an endowment that established a strong foundation for the law program’s development, the university statement reads.
Several of Williams’s children—one of whom succeeded him on the school’s Board of Trustees until 1929—also provided generous support to the University and the law school. And in 1920, when Richmond College was re-chartered as the University of Richmond, the law school began consistently using the name T.C. Williams School of Law, according to the notice.
Smith originally calculated that the T.C. Williams, Sr., contribution alone would amount to $51 million with interest, which he outlined in an October letter to Hallock.
“Because these woke people, they hate people like my family. They hate people who are upright, religious, and who are wealthy,” Smith said, comparing the case built against his ancestor to a mob-style assassination. “I mean, they’re jealous.”
Smith, who maintains a “Rob is Right” Facebook page catering to conservatives, has asked the university to provide documentation about the research.
Officials haven’t responded, he said.
“One of the most basic tenets of our Judeo-Christian heritage is gratitude, a concept that is apparently unknown to you and the Board of the University of Richmond,” he wrote in his January missive to university officials.
People should be able to have civil conversations about the history of the United States, and that includes discussions on slavery, he said. But the perspective of that era has been ignored, he added.
Smith said his family has given extensively to causes in Richmond and the university for 200 years. The good his family has done is ignored by those who want to “virtue signal,” he said.
‘Give It All Back’
Jesse Williams, father of T.C. Williams, donated building materials to the First Baptist Church, he said. The family patriarch also donated masonry and other materials for the neighboring First African Baptist Church, Smith wrote in his January letter.
Jesse Williams also contributed to the building needs of the University of Richmond when its campus was started, he said.
It’s only right, Smith said, for the university to turn over its $3.3 billion endowment to Williams descendants. The remaining $300 million owed should be secured with a note using the campus buildings as collateral, he wrote.
“All your woke faculty” should pledge their assets to secure the loan, he added.
“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,” he wrote.
Smith said the family had not filed a lawsuit. Yet.
A Problematic History
The university takes issue with slave ownership, but owned slaves in the 1840s, Smith said.
And the college was founded by a Baptist preacher but now embraces LGBT culture, he said.
The University of Richmond did not respond to attempts by the The Epoch Times seeking comment.
The university could have changed the law school’s name without negatively portraying his family’s legacy, said Stuart Smith, the nephew of Robert Smith.
“It’s easy to take a plaque off a building and issue a press report,” he said. “It’s easy to just nod your head and agree to do whatever your student population, paying $77,000 a year, wants you to do.”
Officials haven’t responded, he said.
* Article from: The Epoch Times
