by James A. Bacon
Jim Ryan’s vision for the University of Virginia is to build an institution that is both “great and good,” an institution that strives for excellence while also advancing the common welfare. There are many paths to achieving the common good — entrepreneurship, economic development, effective government, strong families, vibrant civic life, for instance — but UVA’s president has settled on something else. He defines a good community as one that strives for social justice.
In 2020 the UVA Board of Visitors adopted most of the recommendations of the Ryan-appointed Racial Equity Task Force, which called for spending $700 million to $950 million to rectify the University’s historical racial injustices. The University has since ramped up its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion bureaucracy and poured millions of dollars into the hiring of far-left faculty who embrace Critical Theory and the intersection-oppression paradigm.
But Ryan has greater aspirations for UVA than merely to be an incubator of social-justice theory. He wants to export that thought into the world at large, starting with UVA’s home communities of Charlottesville and Albemarle County. To advance that aim, he created the Equity Center.
What does the Equity Center do? A core goal, in its own words, is to bring about “racial and socioeconomic equality.” A review of the Center’s website suggests that its 19 employees (one position is vacant at the moment) engage in a lot partnering, collaborating, coordinating, liaising, and awareness creation. But what have they actually accomplished? Has the Center done anything tangible to close the racial equity gap or is it just a playpen for social activists and community organizers?
