By Kristin O’Donoghue It was only a matter of time before the free speech debate was reinvigorated at the University of Virginia. Three years after the Miller Center’s decision to hire Trump administration official Marc Short sparked protests and faculty resignations from the center, the latest round of debate has been ignited by the impending […]
By Kristin O’Donoghue It was only a matter of time before the free speech debate was reinvigorated at the University of Virginia. Three years after the Miller Center’s decision to hire Trump administration official Marc Short sparked protests and faculty resignations from the center, the latest round of debate has been ignited by the impending […]
By Kristin O’Donoghue and Maryann Xue UVA’s McIntire Amphitheater was bathed in the warm glow of hundreds of LED candles on Thursday evening, as members of the UVA and Charlottesville communities gathered for an hour-long vigil to stand in solidarity with Ukraine. The Ukrainian flag was projected at the front of the stage, a show […]
Vultures circle Virginia newspapers A feature story in The Atlantic last month dubbed Alden Global Capital “the hedge fund killing newspapers.” On Monday, Alden announced that it’s hoping to acquire Lee Enterprises, which owns 13 newspapers in Virginia, including The Daily Progress, Richmond Times-Dispatch, and The Roanoke Times. The acquisition should set off alarm bells […]
Charlottesville finally removed its statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in July. Since then, the spaces where the racist monuments once stood have been empty, as the city decides what should go there. During a virtual forum hosted by the UVA Democracy Initiative’s Memory Project last week, Black activists Bree Newsome […]
By Kristin O’Donoghue Tired of government regulations standing in the way of his wife’s whiskey distillery, Denver Riggleman decided to enter “the belly of the beast” and run for public office. Riggleman hoped to help understand the rule-making processes and regulations that affect small businesses. “We need people who understand how that dance happens,” he […]
This week, more than 27,000 undergraduate and graduate students descended on Charlottesville in preparation for the first week of UVA’s fall semester. The two largest spikes in COVID cases in the city occurred during the first two weeks of the fall semester in 2020 and the first two weeks of the spring semester in 2021. […]
This fall, UVA will debut a new app, Rave Guardian, designed to help keep students safe on Grounds. The app is a one-stop shop that allows users to read safety alerts, locate phone numbers for SafeRide, Dean on Call, and CAPS on Call, submit tips to the school’s Just Report It tip line, […]
On Friday, UVA announced that all students, faculty, staff, and contract workers, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, will be required to wear a mask when on UVA property. The policy took effect at the beginning of this week, and the school says it’ll re-evaluate in September. The university made this announcement as cases of the delta […]
The University of Virginia is deeply invested in the study of democracy. On Grounds, you can study democracy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, or the Miller Center of Public Affairs, or the Center for Politics, or the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, or the Democracy Initiative in the College […]
Descendants will have equal say at Montpelier The Montpelier Foundation voted last week to share governance of the historic property with the Montpelier Descendants Committee, an organization comprised of descendants of the enslaved laborers who once lived and worked on the plantation. Montpelier is widely known as the estate of James Madison, the fourth U.S. […]