We should be far too from the discouraging persuasion, that man is fixed, by the law of his nature, at a given point: that his improvement is a chimæra, and the hope delusive of rendering ourselves wiser, happier or better than our forefathers were.
This excerpt is very relevant in UVA’s current climate. While the negative histories of both Jefferson and UVA have always existed, they are receiving more scrutiny now because of the August 11 and 12 events on Grounds and in Charlottesville. I believe Jefferson’s (and the other commissioners’) own words support a solution to this issue. Instead of not drawing attention to this past, the university community should be making a conscious effort to recognize the error of “our forefathers” so we are not “fixed” to duplicate them. Ignoring them, however, runs the risk of us not “rendering ourselves wiser” and slipping into the same atrocities as our university’s founders.