“Hands Off UVA!” Protest Rally at the UVA Rotunda (July 4, 2025)

Rally opening:
Gathering song "We Shall Be Known" (original by MaMuse), then welcoming remarks as written from Prof. Michelle Kisliuk (UVA Music Dept.) and Dr. Mary Stewart

Welcome. I’m Michelle Kisliuk and I teach here at the University, and I’m Mary Stewart. I grew up in Charlottesville, and then raised five kids here. As a mother of five, I went to UVA and got a BA and then a PhD here.

1:10 So here we are, at this moment. This new day of interdependence — a day of extraordinary pressure against so much of what we hold dear in our lives and in this country, as forces pull each of us towards despair, we come together as the UVa and Charlottesville community to recharge each other’s resolve, to insist on the inalienable freedoms to build a world that we envision. And to do it with passion and with joy and collective creativity.

2:07 A microcosm of the hard hammer of authoritarianism that is taking over the United States has come down harshly on the University this past week, and we are rising to refuse to comply and to pressure the Board of Visitors, the Governor, the Attorney General, and anyone else who might listen, to push back! They work for US, not for Trump. And we stand up en masse and in our full humanity to demonstrate that.

[Dr. Stewart]
3:12 As I was preparing what I wanted to say, I received this invited statement from Pastor Brenda Brown-Grooms, who is the Pastor at New Beginnings Christian Community in Charlottesville, and President of the Charlottesville Clergy Collective. Her words carry the weight of what I wanted to say, much more deeply, so I’m going to read her statement for us. She couldn’t be here today, but she’s with us in spirit.

[The statement from Pastor Brenda Brown-Grooms, read by Dr. Stewart]:

It Takes More Than Aspiration to Fight Tyranny

Dear Mr. Jefferson:

3:46 You are now an Ancestor, so you know what you got wrong. You know exactly where your aspirations fell short, Your lived life was so different from the life I think you aspired to live. As is my, our own.

4:14 You failed to live out the loftiest ideals your language lent to this country’s founding documents. The country continues that same failure. We fail for the same reason you failed. We must agree to be uncomfortable to a degree not native to human beings to live as our best selves. Ideals require moral courage, self-examination and a willingness to forego immediate gratification for our own and the greater good.

4:50 If you loved Sally, it wasn’t enough to free her or your children with her. If you saw the humanity of the enslaved souls (who included my ancestors) who built and made sure Monticello ran to your satisfaction and for your comfort, your ultimate willingness to sacrifice them to the slave block, to pay off your debts after your death, to purchase books and wine while you lived, belies the bedrock of truth in the Preamble and the Constitution of the United States of America. Your words held the loftiest of democratic principles, your lived life did not.

5:33 Your unrealized potential is exactly our unrealized potential today. If we do indeed “hold these truths to be self-evident…” then we need the moral courage, the mental, physical, emotional maturity to recognize the worth of all GOD’S creation and pledge ourselves to sustaining life on this planet. Despite your words and the wisdom to utter them, you chose your own comfort. We too have chosen our own comfort. Except, the time and place and space to live that way have now run out. There are no more uninhabited lands left to “go west “ to. There are no peoples left who welcome colonizers (no one ever did). There are no people on earth who believe that America is still the best and the brightest. Instead, there are uncounted millions who have and are paying the price for the lie of American exceptionalism.

6:37 Today, the world stands poised to see whether or not America is dead. The question for us today is the same as it was for you—will we sacrifice our immediate comfort for the good of our neighbors? The conflict is no longer internal. This battle for the soul of democracy is open for all to see.

7:01 Ancestor Jefferson, pray for us. You know the stakes. IT TAKES MORE THAN ASPIRATION TO FIGHT TYRANNY.

— Brenda Brown-Grooms
4 July 2025

[Michelle Kisliuk]

7:25 Thanks to Brenda Brown-Grooms for that powerful statement. So, just to give you an idea of how the hour or so will go, we'll have about seven more formal speakers, brief speakers, we'll have songs interspersed where we're hoping people will participate, easy songs that we can teach on the spot, helped out by the Wonderground Singers.

7:53 And then we'll have "open mic". And by "open mic" we mean both statements, political statements responding to the moment from your perspective, but also singing a poem limited to about 90 seconds... but we want to have every kind of expression invited.

Preamble to the Constitution Song
(Call and Response led by the Wonderground Singers)

1. John Kluge III comments read in Thomas Jefferson's voice
(introduction by Mary Stewart)

0:00 … activist, and that there was an op-ed that he wrote immediately last Friday in the voice of Thomas Jefferson. Somebody saw it and was really struck by it, and so invited him to speak that at some kind of event, like what this turned into. And also he's been part of our planning process, which is wonderful. So... Mr. Jefferson. [Applause]

0:32 My fellow citizens of Virginia,

I write to you not as a shadow of the past, but as one whose spirit remains tethered to the cause of liberty, learning, and the self-governance of our beloved Commonwealth.

0:52 When I founded the University of Virginia, I did so with a singular purpose: to create a sanctuary of knowledge where the pursuit of truth could thrive, unburdened by the meddling of government.

1:16 Education, I held, is the lifeblood of a free people. And our universities must stand as bastions of free inquiry beyond the reach of political caprice.

1:35 Today that vision is imperiled, and I call upon you to rise in its defense. The federal government has struck a blow against the University of Virginia, forcing the resignation of our president, Jim Ryan. His crime: championing initiatives of diversity, equity, and inclusion, efforts that, foreign in name in my era, echo the pursuit of justice and understanding, I believe essential to a virtuous republic.

2:18 The Trump Administration, brandishing the threat of withheld funding, demanded his removal to settle an investigation into these very initiatives. This is no mere dispute of policy. It is a naked overreach of federal power, an assault [Applause] an assault on the autonomy of our university and the sacred principle of academic freedom.

2:42 This outrage is not confined to Grounds or to Charlottesville. The same federal hand has descended upon Harvard, Colombia, and many other institutions across our country, stripping them of billions in resources and menacing their independence.

3:00 Our universities are not tools to be wielded by those in power. They are the crucibles where ideas are forged and the minds of our future leaders shaped.

But this is just the beginning. If the federal government can dictate who governs our halls of learning, what will prevent it from bending our courts, our press, or the very fabric of our democracy to its will?

3:30 In my day, I stood resolute for the rights of states and institutions to govern themselves, free from the tyranny of a centralized authority. The actions of this Administration are betraying that creed. They seek to transform our universities into instruments of political design, using financial coercion as their weapon. This is a precedent most perilous, my friends, a step toward the erosion of all that keeps our republic free.

4:00 I beseech you, people of Virginia, to see this for what it is, an encroachment upon the foundations of our liberty. The strength of our nation rests upon the independence of its institutions. We must not suffer this injustice and overreach in silence.

4:30 Let us stand as one as we have times in the past to shield our universities from the grasp of federal power and preserve them as sanctuaries of knowledge, not pawns of political machinations.

4:45 This hour, today demands action. Lift your voices against this injustice. Write to your representatives. Lend your support to those who defend our institutions. And proclaim that Virginia will not bend to federal intimidation. [Applause]

5:10 Our universities, our press, our courts are not for sale. All must remain free from the overreach of centralized dominion. In this struggle, we uphold not merely the legacy of our commonwealth, but the very principles that this nation was built.

5:28 In the name of liberty and learning,
-- Thomas Jefferson

[Applause]

5:41 Another thing we all need to be doing is getting together. Communities matter more than ever. But it's also about showing up and then doing things. So, in the spirit of that, we have started a petition for the General Assembly, not just to protect the freedoms of the University of Virginia, but all of our institutions across the Commonwealth, and to send a message that we are not for sale. So, it is circulating, but if you go to change.org/handsoffuva, you can sign the petition. Let's make it happen. Thank you guys.

6:17 Hey Hey DOJ
(echo)Hey Hey DOJ
Get your hands off UVA!
(echo) Get your hands off UVA.

One more time.

Hey, hey, DOJ.
(echo) Hey, hey, DOJ.
Get your hands off UVA.
(echo) Get your hands off UVA.

6:33 [Applause]

Song: “This May be the Last Time” Wonderground Singers
(adaptation of original song by Blind Boys of Alabama)

2. Prof. Frank Dukes (School of Architecture/Engaged UVA) — remarks as written

This is not new!

The history of UVA has always been one that has included both progress and resistance to that progress.

The University of today – our University, your University, for we are a public institution and belong to all of the people of Virginia – has overcome many, many failures.

0:25 Beginning with Jefferson himself, UVA provided for much of the intellectual justification for slavery, and then Jim Crow and segregation, eugenics, and more.

By the 1930s, the poet Karl Shapiro could write, “To hurt the Negro and avoid the Jew. Is the curriculum.”

0:42 And there are those who would like to return us to some of those times.

But we are not going to allow that to happen.

Look down the hill to the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, and know that descendants of those very people whose names are written on the walls now grace the grounds as students, staff, faculty, and returning alumni. We are going to honor their memory, and be inspired by their resilience, and say: not here, not now, not ever.

1:19 I want to speak directly to the attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion means that youth from rural areas, such as Virginia’s Appalachian region, who may not have had the opportunity to take all the advanced placement courses that others in more prosperous regions can take, are offered the support they need to be successful here. Does anyone think that we should take away support for those students?

Diversity, equity, and inclusion means recognizing that youth who would be the first in their family to attend college need assistance to level the playing field. Does anyone think that we should take away support for first generation students?

2:01 Diversity, equity, and inclusion means that our veterans who have been away from their studies can receive assistance as they integrate into an academic environment. Does anyone want to take away that support for our veterans?

2:15 I could go on. Academic freedom is not an abstract concept when there are people who want to stop us from teaching our authentic history, when they want us to stop offering medical care to youth whose parents are supporting their special needs, who want us to hire faculty not on the basis of their knowledge and ability to research and teach but on their political ideology. Academic freedom is not an abstract concept when there are people who want to return us to the days when who you or your daddy knew ensured that you could enroll as a student or be employed as a staff or faculty member.

2:49 I have a final story of resistance. It comes from my mother’s experience as someone who lived through the Nazi occupation of her country, Luxembourg, during World War II. It’s a longer story, but suffice it to say that she was kicked out of one high school for insulting Hitler. Her opportunity to enroll in another school ended when she refused to join Hitler youth. When she was no longer in school, she was then to be forced along with so many others to work in the war factories of Germany or areas farther east. A Luxembourg doctor who lived in Germany wrote her an invented medical condition that kept her from being forced to undertake that labor. When she turned 18 and was required once again to be part of that forced labor, he repeated that lie and that illegal act. An act, by the way, that put him at great personal risk.

3:49 His actions did not end the war. And each of our Individual actions will not stop this hostile takeover of the University. But his actions made an enormous difference, and your actions today and in the future will too. Be that doctor. Make that difference.

[REMOVED FROM THIS DELIVERED TALK DUE TO TIME CONSTRAINT]
I want to tear apart one common myth about DEI.

How many of you heard that black students at UVA are beneficiaries of some sort of racial preference? I don’t mean that you believe it, but you’ve heard people say that? Every year, Virginia high schools graduate around 19,000 African-American students. About 4,000 students, 2/3 of them Virginians, enroll at UVA every year. About 250 to 280 are African-American. Which means that out of these 19,000 African-American high school graduates, we enroll 200 or fewer. Does anyone think that that represents some sort of enormous bias and preference?

3. Prof. George Cohen (UVA Law School) – remarks as written

Thirteen years ago, Terry Sullivan, the president of the University of Virginia, was forced to resign. For no good reason. Now, unbelievably, her successor, Jim Ryan, has been forced to resign. For no good reason. Our beloved university and its distinguished founder, Thomas Jefferson, deserve better. Our community and our commonwealth deserve better. Our great country, whose independence we celebrate today, deserves better. That is why we are here.

0:38 President Ryan’s vision for the University was that it be great and good. By all reasonable measures, he succeeded in implementing that vision. Just over a month ago, at our commencement, the Rector of University proclaimed President Ryan to be the greatest college president in the country. President Ryan oversaw a wildly successful capital campaign. He navigated us through Covid. He helped us heal from the trauma of the 2017 United the Right rally and from the tragedy of murder on Grounds. He helped the University face its troubled past by pointing toward a brighter future. And he did it all with his characteristic grace, humility, good humor, and empathy.

1:35 In light of recent events, however, I would offer a slight but significant revision to President Ryan’s vision. A University cannot be great unless it is also good. Similarly, a country cannot be great unless it is also good.

What does it mean to be good? The Jewish book of ethics, Pirkei Avot, says, based on the prophet Zechariah, that the world rests on three things: on Justice, on Truth, and on Peace. President Ryan understands these values and lives them.

2:27 So did Thomas Jefferson. In his great Declaration of Independence, whose signing we celebrate today, Jefferson mentioned all three. He famously proclaimed self-evident truths, including the equality of all men. He chastised “our British brethren” for being “deaf to the voice of justice.” And he pledged that, despite our differences with the British, we would hold them as well as the rest of mankind “in Peace Friends.”

Where is the Justice in forcing President Ryan’s resignation? Where is the Truth? Where is the Peace? Jefferson in his Declaration stated that if people seek a separation from a country’s leader, “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” Our Board has to date provided no such causes justifying President Ryan’s resignation.

3:27 Instead, we have what appears to be pure intimidation and extortion from our federal government. This is not a reasonable settlement of a legitimate legal dispute. Reasonable settlements make the resolution fit the alleged wrong. And reasonable settlements actually resolve the matter. By contrast, there is no end to extortion. Today, the federal government demands the resignation of our University’s president. Who knows what it will demand of the University tomorrow? This is abuse of power. This is government as racketeering.

4:15 We cannot tolerate this bullying behavior, which is by any standard not “good,” and cannot make us “great.” Jefferson’s reference to “decency” brings to mind perhaps the most famous response to bullying in our history. During the course of a hearing conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954, lawyer Joseph Welch, in response to a smear by McCarthy against one of the lawyers in Welch’s firm, responded: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

4:50 We need to restore decency. We need to restore goodness. We need to restore Justice, Truth, and Peace. On this July 4, let us recommit ourselves to these sacred values.

Song: "I'm Gonna Sing Out" (performed by Ashlynn Manning Teng, a vocalist and music educator)

4. Prof. Deborah McDowell (UVA English Dept)

(comments unavailable)

5. Prof. Christine Mahoney (UVA Batten School of Public Policy)

I'm super excited to see so many brave faces here, and I just wanted to spend a couple minutes calling on us all to mobilize those maybe that feel not so brave right now.

The Trump Administration has politicized everything we see all across the country people that might be aligned with everyone right here but fearful of speaking out. We've got moderate Democrats, moderate Republicans, the huge number of Americans that consider themselves politically independent scared to speak up. Moderate and reasonable people who will no longer say reasonable things.

0:40 They won't say things like:

• "I believe in the First Amendment and I oppose the Trump administration using scare tactics to suppress speech for anyone that believes in equity. [Applause]
• 0:58 We're seeing people terrified to even post on social media that they believe in the rule of law, that they think the executive branch should implement policies passed by the legislative branch.
• 1:08 We see that people are scared to even say that they believe in an independent judiciary.
• 1:15 These are not left-wing ideas. They're not extreme ideas. They're basic tenants of a democratic system that Jefferson and the founding fathers laid out. [Applause]

1:36 The terms tyranny and authoritarianism sound extreme and many in the middle are hesitant to evoke them now. But what we are seeing from Trump is increasingly authoritarianism and it should scare all of us.

1:52 He's suppressing members of his own party, reasonable Republicans that are simply trying to stand up for their constituents and he's threatening to destroy their careers if they don't blindly follow along and support anything he wants.

This should terrify the middle and this should mobilize the middle. And so I'm here to speak up for the middle today to encourage all of you to talk to that aunt, to talk to your colleague, to talk to those friends that are scared to speak up.

2:20 The fact that people are scared to speak up says there's a major major problem.

We need the moderate Americans everywhere to say we don't believe that the president should use his campaign finance troughs to silence the opposition in his own party.

2:44 And we need moderate members of this university community to speak up and say that we don't think that the Trump Administration should use scare tactics and intimidation tactics to suppress academic independence.

3:04 There are tens of millions of Americans that think what is going on is not okay. But we need millions of us speaking in unison if we're going to make sure that they're not going to attempt to silence us through threats of job terminations like they did to President Ryan.

3:23 We need to make sure they don't try to silence us with threats of terminating critical research funding as they've been doing here at UVA.

We need to make sure that they don't silence us with threats of deportation and withheld visas and threats of political violence by their fringe extreme.

3:41 So, I call on all of you today to mobilize your friends and family members that maybe weren't brave enough to come out. We need to make sure that everyone is speaking up so that we can still do that next year. Thanks.

6. Prof. Peter Norton (UVA Engineering Dept.)

[Off-the cuff comments]
0:09 We were asked to introduce ourselves, and my only qualification for being here is that I'm just one of the thousands of people who make the academic mission here possible by committing, from our hearts and our minds, our commitment to that purpose. And we are the people who make the academic mission possible. And to make that academic mission possible, we have to have a say in how it's conducted.

0:35 I'd like to mention also that besides having taught here for 27 years, before that I was pleased to hear the name of Julian Bond mentioned again, because I was his teaching assistant. And as a graduate student in history at that time, I felt like I had the opportunity to apprentice myself to a man who made history, and that's had a lasting effect and taught me that the price of the liberty any one of us enjoys, including me and you, is our commitment to each other and to the liberty of all in our community.

[Remarks as written]
1:20 Happy Independence Day.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for a university community to recommit ourselves to the values that unite us – among them tolerance, free inquiry, and free speech – a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes.

1:40 Let us recommit ourselves to the independence of the academy from political interlopers.

This value – independence – we share, on paper, with the Board of Visitors. I hope every Board member has read the Board’s own “Statement of Visitor Responsibilities,” which they adopted unanimously in 2018. I quote from their statement:

2:08 “Visitors actively safeguard principles of academic freedom for the University and its faculty and endeavor to protect the University from outside influences seeking improperly to shape it.”

Outside influences are improperly seeking to shape our university right now. And we need the Board to protect us from these invasive campaigns, which are as much an affront to conservative values as they are to liberal values.

2:51 This solemn duty – protecting our university from passing political fads – is not a duty that the governing Board of any university has ever had to bear alone.

We cannot expect any Board to do so. Board members are political appointees. They owe their appointments to politicians. No matter which political party holds power, the inevitable effect is to make the Board less able, by itself, to protect the university from political intrusions.

3:24 This difficulty is all the greater whenever every member of the Board has been appointed by politicians of a single party. We have an extraordinary version of this case right now, as all 17 Board members have been appointed by a single man.

There is a principle of academic governance that – when honored – serves as a check on this kind of imbalance. It’s called “shared governance.”

The faculty bear the chief responsibility for the academic mission of the university. We teach the classes, we grade the papers, we conduct the research. And in so doing we are held to high standards, through annual reviews and other means. And we hold each other to high standards as well.

4:17 To fulfill our responsibility to the university’s academic mission, we must have a say in it. We must be partners at the table in matters that concern it. And as partners at the table, we can deflect some of the political pressures that Board members have to deal with – Including unjustifiable interference from Washington.

4:38 The director of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department has compared this invasion of our university to the interventions of the 1960s, when the Justice Department protected the civil rights of qualified black applicants to the universities of Mississippi and Alabama. This is a historically inaccurate comparison, for many reasons. Above all, in no case did the Justice Department attempt to force out a university president.

5:07 What we face – here and now – is radical overreach from Washington into a university administration unlike any we’ve seen before.

The pretext has been an excessive commitment to diversity. Diversity is, of course, a founding value of the United States of American. This value is inscribed on every penny: E pluribus unum – from many, one. (But I understand we will now stop minting pennies.)

5:27 Yet at the same time we are accused of insufficient intellectual diversity. As a teacher who has assigned Milton Friedman, Phyllis Schlafly and Ayn Rand to my students, as well as socialists, radicals and revolutionaries, I take this accusation seriously.

6:03 But now, as an academic, I must ask, “What is the evidence for this charge?”

Board members have not visited my classrooms – and probably not yours either.

I’ve read the accusation from its sources. And the evidence runs like this. For every faculty member at UVa who contributes to a Republican politician, at least 10 contribute to Democrats.

6:28 To this I say, “Look at your whole sample.” The vast majority of us make no significant contributions to politicians, because most of the faculty who do most of the teaching are not in the political contributor class.

6:45 The same cannot be said of Board members. Of the 17 Board members, at least 15 are political contributors, typically in range of tens of thousands of dollars – and all 15 contribute only toward a single political party.

If few academics contribute to the Republican Party, this may be taken as a reassuring sign that moral relativism has little hold on Grounds.

7:08 Conservative faculty members who take their conservative values dearly have good reason to withhold contributions from Republican politicians who approve of insulting our oldest allies, who welcome White House interference in university administrations, or who take no alarm at violent anticonstitutional insurrections.

7:30 Three years ago, even our governor told CBS News: “The invasion of our Capitol is a blight on our democracy.” Surely those who agree with the governor about this have cause to refrain from contributing to a political party that has misrepresented this insurrection as a peaceful assembly of concerned citizens.

If Board members actually visited our classrooms, they might be disappointed with how apolitical they really are. The overwhelming share of our efforts are committed to ensuring that students can write clearly, can speak well, can cite their sources, and check their math. I invite Board members to see for themselves.

8:07 In their most recent statement to our community, the outgoing and incoming rectors said they stand for the “autonomy” of our university. The greatest threat to our autonomy right now comes from the “outside influences” the Board, according to its own principles, has a duty to resist.

With a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our renewed commitment to the academic mission of our university. Thank you.

7. Clay Dickerson (UVA Student Council President, as written, read by Em Gunter)

9:57 We students are often referred to as “customers”. In conversations held in rooms we are rarely invited to, we are quantified and never characterized as students, but as customers.

10:06 On this day, July 4, 2025, the 249th anniversary of our nation, we Students refuse to be categorized as such any longer. We demand our voices be heard not because of our tuition dollar, but because of our humanity. Because of what we have to offer intellectually and culturally, stemming from our ever-diverse backgrounds.

10:26 Our value to this university, this community, this city, is beyond the understanding of any federal oversight. The forced resignation of President Ryan is a disgrace to our supposed nation of democracy. Further, it is a disgrace to the student self-governance that Thomas Jefferson envisioned and decades of leaders have fought to uphold.

10:47 Today, and in the days to follow, we fight to reclaim student self-governance as we know it. We fight to reclaim the University of Virginia that we have come to know and love. And by, “we,” I mean everyone witnessing this message. The faculty who have seen this too many times, the staff whose voices are silenced, the passionate and tireless alumni, and the endlessly resilient Charlottesville community. Together we CAN and WILL be the difference that turns the tide on this war against our University—our home.

11:15 The pen and paper of federal oversight will never outweigh the heart and soul of the student body. No matter what unfolds in the coming months, we remain, and we stand firm. This will always be Our University.

[Em then adds some of her own comments]
11:38 Can I have like a minute 15 seconds? [Applause]

Okay. To build off of what Professor McDowell was saying earlier, I'd like to share another quote from Frederick Douglas: "I hope and trust all will come out right in the end, but the immediate future looks dark and troubled. I cannot shut my eyes to the ugly facts before me."

12:06 These words are as true today as when Frederick Douglas said them 131 years ago. For over a hundred years, United States has been waging wars of terror and imperialism against marginalized communities the world over. Whether it's overthrowing democratically elected leaders in the global south or occupying lands for resource extraction, the United States is a criminal actor. And these actions that we have been waging for a hundred years against others have come home to hit us right in the face: the imperial boomerang has hit us back in the face. [Applause]

12:34 The wars that we are seeing waged in this country against marginalized communities, against immigrants, against those who fight for a free Palestine, against trans kids... they're all one and the same. And these tactics have been tested abroad and are being brought back home. It is important for us to understand that this is not new. This is a repeat of what we have already done.

12:55 So if we want to stop this, you have to stand up now. The old lessons are not going to serve us. Think radically and think beyond. Just as the Black Panthers took up arms to protect themselves from racist cops who kept killing black people, we have to find new ways ourselves. The old methods will not work. They already know how to fight them. Stand up and...figure something out! We got to do this.

13:27 [Prof. Kisliuk] Thank you so much. Great to hear from this generation.

8. Prof. Sally Hudson (UVA Economics Dept.)

…The General Assembly must also undertake the overdue work of reforming the governance and oversight of our university entirely, because the board has never really been structured to serve all of our needs.

0:15 And that's where all of you come in, because we need all of you to treat your members of the general assembly the way any good educator does, with high expectations and high support.

0:32 They are going to have to go back to the drawing board for what a Board of Visitors ought to look like. And every single person in this community ought to have a voice in what that should be.

0:45 Because the board of visitors has always been exclusive to the people who have the most to gain and lose from this school. It has never had a strong faculty voice. It has never had a strong student voice. It has never had a strong community voice. And all of those people deserve a seat at the table.

1:11 So, as we prepare for that new governor and for that general assembly to reconvene next January, all of you have a role to play in talking with each other about what university governance reform ought to look like, so that when they take up that task, they do not tinker around the edges. We are not just rearranging furniture. This is a very old house; we have to tear up the floorboards and do this right. [Applause]

1:43 And while we're at it, let's remember that good governance reform does not stop at the university. [Applause] Because though the General Assembly may be the oldest continually active legislative body in the Western Hemisphere, the Commonwealth of Virginia also maintains some of the most juvenile laws about how we elect our leaders.

2:08 We have a lot of work to do to make our democracy more inclusive and effective for everyone who calls Virginia home. And holding our members of the General Assembly to high expectations with high support about where those laws ought to go is all of our work for the days ahead. So that is my homework for you. [Applause]

2:38 I have some hard news about it, which is the due date is every day. It never really goes away. The duty of protecting and improving our government is a lifelong one. We have to pick it up again every single era. And so we have some work to do now on these specific projects.

3:01 I will be keeping in touch with all of you about how these ideas come together, but please know that we're all preparing to do this for the rest of our lives, but there's nobody I'd rather do it with. So, thank you for being here today, and I look forward to hearing today and in the days ahead from all of you. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Song: "One Foot in Front of the Other" (Wonderground Singers)

“Open Mic” Attendee Comments

9. Prof. Bruce Williams (UVA Media Studies Dept.)
10. Delegate Katrina Callsen (VA House of Delegates)
11. Delegate Amy Laufer (VA House of Delegates)
12. Kathy Harbury
13. Gabrielle Cerberville (UVA Music Dept. grad student)
14. Alicia Lenahan (retired attorney and nonprofit executive)
15. Hugh Collins
16. Mecca Burns
17. Curt Arnold
18. Sage Bradburn (UVA staff)
19. Benjamin Jackson (UVA staff)
20. Donna Charles (independent candidate for Virginia Governor)
21. Leon

Closing Song: "May We Know the Way"
(adapted from the song by Libana, led by Michelle Kisliuk)

— End Program —

Addendum

“After more than an hour of debate at an emergency meeting Friday, the University of Virginia Faculty Senate held a vote of no confidence in the school's governing Board of Visitors for “not protecting the University and its president from outside interference, and for not consulting with the Faculty Senate in a time of crisis."

That crisis, referred to in the resolution the vote approved, refers to President Jim Ryan's resignation under pressure from the Trump administration Department of Justice.

The vote of no confidence passed with 46 in favor, six against and eight abstaining.” -- Daily Progress

About UPRISE!: Formed in 2025, the Uprise! Creative Collective C’ville brings street theatre, participatory singing, dance, and other creative expression to involve the community in engaging with the urgent issues of the moment. On this channel we display video material and offer links to our actions that began in May of 2025. More info at: www.youtube.com/@UpriseCreativeCollectiveCville

DMU Timestamp: July 11, 2025 17:18