by James A. Bacon

Michael Paul Williams, the Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist who won a Pulitzer Prize for his post-George Floyd commentary, is trapped in an ideological bubble and can’t break out. When opining on the departure of Jim Ryan from the University of Virginia presidency in his most recent column, he displays a bare-bones familiarity with the events leading up to Ryan’s resignation but zero understanding — and by zero understanding, I mean none whatsoever — about what motivates those seeking to bring about change at UVA.

Briefly stated, William’s argument is that “MAGA Inc.” wants to “roll back the clock.” He writes: “Whether the intent is to turn UVa into the secular Hillsdale College of the South or to launch the sort of right-wing makeover administered to New College of Florida remains an open question.”

No, it’s not an open question. Let me settle that right now. The Jefferson Council, the alumni organization which played a prominent role in Ryan’s ouster, does not want to remake UVA as a Southern Hillsdale or a secular Liberty University. Nor do we, nor anyone else on our side of the controversy, want to turn Mr. Jefferson’s University into bastion of right-wing thinking. We want to create the most exhilarating university in America to learn, teach and pursue knowledge, and to do that, we do believe UVA needs a sufficient number of conservatives, moderates, classical liberals and free thinkers to contest the orthodoxy maintained by campus leftists.

I see not one iota of evidence that Williams has made any effort to acquaint himself with our thinking or with the reasons that the Department of Justice, Governor Glenn Youngkin, Attorney General Jason Miyares, or the Board of Visitors have done the things they have done. Williams interprets everything through a rigidly ideological lens that attributes incomprehensively malign motives to the people he dislikes.

Williams launches his column by describing a book Ryan wrote in 2010, “Five Miles Away, a World Apart,” which contrasted two high schools, one predominantly White and middle class, the other predominantly Black and poor, one located in Henrico County, the other in the City of Richmond. The separation was frozen into place in 1973 when the courts quashed the consolidation of Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield school districts ordered by federal Judge Robert Merhige.

“One should never pretend that this separation is not a problem simply because there are no easy or obvious solutions.” Williams quotes Ryan as writing. “Indeed, in the field of education law and policy, it was the problem of the last half century, and it remains the central problem of the 21st century.”

Next, the columnist segues to the fact that the first Black student at UVA, Gregory Hayes Swanson, enrolled 75 years ago. Four years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v Board of Education, he had to sue to gain admission.

All of which leads to this: “In this setting, MAGA would roll back the clock, ignoring what remains a central problem.”

He elaborates: “Our history of exclusion far exceeds our brief and imperiled period of inclusion. The history embodied by Swanson and examined by Ryan is unwelcome by MAGA. And political leaders in the birthplace of Massive Resistance, in a sad display of hubris, have arrogantly concluded that any racial redress and progress is too much.”

Williams is vague enough that he can duck, dodge and weave about his meaning when called to account, but his insinuation is clear enough: Those who called for Ryan’s ouster have no sympathy for Black people. He is suggesting that we find “unwelcome” the admittance of Blacks into UVA. These assertions are false and outrageous. They reflect the lamentable ignorance of a mind trapped in an information sphere which, like the boy in the bubble, is hermetically sealed against the intrusion of outside threats.

But Williams compounds one grotesque insult with another. He portrays DOJ as soft on White supremacists:

In targeting UVa, Trump’s Justice Department returned to the scene of a crime — the August 2017 rally of Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and other white nationalists that culminated in the murder of Heather Heyer by a Nazi who plowed his car into a group of counterprotesters following a rally organized by UVa graduate Jason Kessler to protest Charlottesville’s planned removal of its Robert E. Lee statue.

The Trump administration did not launch an investigation of antisemitism after those torch-bearing folks, some carrying flags bearing swastikas, marched across the UVa campus chanting “Jews will not replace us.” Trump assessed the tragic event and saw “some very fine people on both sides.”

So much to unpack! First, Trump has said many outrageous and irresponsible things but his “very fine people on both sides” quote referred to the debate over Civil War statues, not to White supremacy. He explicitly denounced the White supremacists in Charlottesville. These are facts, as anyone who consults the transcript can see, and they remain unalterable no matter how often pundits like Williams repeat the falsehood.

Second, it is a non sequitur to note that the Trump administration did not launch an investigation into the White supremacists. Carrying torches, marching through the UVA grounds, scuffling with counter-protesters and committing other potential violations of local ordinances did not violate federal law. Enforcing federal civil rights law, by contrast, gives DOJ legitimate purview over UVA admissions, recruiting and hiring policies. As for Alex Fields, the man who ran down Heather Heyer with his car, he is now serving a life sentence plus 419 years in prison for state charges and a second life sentence for federal charges.

As an aside, unmentioned by Williams, Tim Heaphy, who subsequently served as UVA university counsel and then lead investigator for the congressional January 6 Committee investigation, wrote a detailed report of the Unite the Right rally and events leading up to it. Heaphy’s report is largely ignored, for it chronicles the run-up to the rally as a series of escalating tit-for-tat incidents involving far leftists and far rightists feeding off each others’ extremism. It doesn’t suit the narrative purposes of Virginia leftists who see themselves as combatants in a war between light versus darkness.

But Williams blunders on… “Eight years [after the Unite the Right fiasco] the idea of UVa furtively practicing diversity, equity and inclusion has created a sense of urgency unseen by this administration in attacking anti-Black racism.”

At no point does Williams acknowledge the underlying issue: UVA’s Board of Visitors ordered Ryan to do two entwined things: end racial preferences and dismantle the DEI bureaucracy that enforced them. What Williams evidently believes but can’t make himself come out and say explicitly is that racial discrimination in favor of Blacks (at the expense of others) — in admissions, the recruitment of graduate students, the hiring of faculty, the inculcation of racial “identity” and imputation of White guilt at UVA — is justified in order to rectify past discrimination against Blacks.

If that’s your point, Michael, fine. Lay your cards on the table and say it: Past discrimination against Blacks justifies not merely an end to discriminatory practices but discrimination in favor of Blacks. Let’s have that debate. But don’t tar people as racist — and that’s exactly what you’re doing — because they believe that all races should be treated equally under the law.

James A. Bacon serves on the executive committee of the Jefferson Council. The ideas expressed here are his own.