Students at Washington and Lee University’s School of Law have formed a coalition to unite both sides of campus to bring about social change. But it remains unclear if their message has been effective or uniting.
When Danielle Phillips, 2L, arrived on campus for the new year, she had a discussion with a new law student — a member of a more diverse law class, who felt that her African American culture was not welcome on campus.
Phillips said she was hurt by the comment and started to think about how to combat the issue. She wanted to get a united group together, and another leader, Stefanie Evans, 2L, said she started to get the ball rolling on Jan. 16.
The group, named the Coalition for Campus Change, has grown exponentially ever since.
Several students, including Phillips and other leaders Natalie Solopreto, 1L, and Danielle Scott, 1L, got together and came up with some initiatives they felt needed to happen in order to move forward.
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Confederate flag replicas were removed from the main chamber of Lee Chapel in 2014 following discussions wiuth W&L law students who were concerned by the symbols’ impact on students. Now, a different law student coalition recommends that the unviersity move all mandatory student events from Lee Chapel to other venues. Photo courtesy of the Richmond Times-Dispatch
The coalition said its mission is to get equal representation of histories on campus. The members want the history of minorities, particularly African Americans and the slaves who helped build the university, represented alongside the history presented of other university leaders, particularly Robert E. Lee. They also want Lee’s presence on campus contextualized.
“We were waiting and we came to the decision that if we don’t act now, we’re gonna graduate and this problem is going to go away, and everyone is going to forget what happened and there’s going to be no change on campus,” Evans said.
Evans said they gave the school a whole six months before deciding to take action.
One of the criticisms of the coalition is that the university did do something to get the conversation started. Washington and Lee President Will Dudley formed the Commission on Institutional History and Community, made up of faculty, students, staff and alumni, during the summer of 2017.
The commission has been tasked with investigating history on campus and coming up with ways to better present the university’s history. It is expected to present its findings at the end of this school year.
But the coalition feels its presence as a student-led movement is still necessary, even with the presence of the commission.
“The commission is looking at long-term changes or long-term goals, but we looked at things that could be changed now,” Evans said. “What could be done now to make the environment more inclusive?”
The coalition has come up with a set of short-term, medium-term and long-term goals to address issues it perceives on campus.
Members presented an original list of these goals to Dudley at a meeting in January, in which coalition law school leaders were joined by Alexus McGriff, ‘18.
The list includes goals such as: removing mandatory events from Lee Chapel; recognizing the full contextualized history of Lee on the school website and in other admissions materials, including campus tours; renaming Lee House as the ‘President’s House’ and Lee-Jackson House to ‘Freedom House’; and building a museum next to Lee Chapel to commemorate the slaves that helped build the school.
This coalition’s objectives come approximately four years after a similar initiative by a group of black law students known as “The Committee” called for the removal Confederate flags from Lee Chapel.
Then-University President Ken Ruscio eventually agreed to the students’ demands and expressed regret about Washington and Lee’s past ownership of slaves.
The coalition has been told that its goals line up with those of the commission, which has not yet reported its findings or decisions, but Solopreto considers that a bonus. She said the coalition does not have an issue with the commission.
“We think it’s more legitimizing to have a student body movement that shows there is demand for what the commission could propose for the administration,” Solopreto said.
In terms of what the coalition offers that the commission doesn’t fill, Solopreto thinks that’s participation.
“You can’t participate in the commission unless you’re a student in the commission,” Solopreto said. “You can’t participate in the act of moving forward to change if you’re waiting. Waiting is not change, waiting is waiting.”
Evans said in all the years since the Confederacy, the school has not made any significant change to address these racial issues.
Evans also said the last time these issues were publicly discussed—when the Confederate flags were removed from Lee Chapel—the change made to represent slaves—the addition of a small plaque—was put somewhere not entirely visible. It wasn’t enough, she said.
“It wasn’t anything to the grandeur of what we offer Robert E. Lee,” Evans said.
This was a sentiment echoed towards the beginning of the year in an interview with Elizabeth Mugo, ‘19, one of the students serving on the commission.
“The problem that basically in a nutshell we have with the commission is, ‘Can they get the job done?’’ Evans said. “You know, they haven’t been able to do it for the last 148 years, the school hasn’t been able to move forward. Can the commission, which represents the administration, really bring about change? Or are they gonna bring about the kind of change that’s pretend–are they gonna make a few concessions?”
Evans also said the administration has too much to think about—it has to think about students, faculty, the community and alumni. She said the coalition only has to represent its own goals and heart.
The coalition is presenting itself as an apolitical group for change, gathering representatives from several groups at the law school. It recently started reaching out to groups on the undergraduate side, such as the Student Association for Black Unity (SABU) and Amnesty International.
McGriff, the current vice president of SABU, said that SABU’s executive board decided not to partner officially with the coalition after it presented at one of SABU’s meetings.
McGriff said the coalition provides a great opportunity for undergraduate and law students to work together. But SABU felt the coalition was putting the “cart before the horse,” which concerned members. McGriff said the coalition should get to know groups like the commission better, and improve its organizational methods.
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