Sylvia Earle: “We Have a Choice”
As rainy, gray clouds loomed over Monticello, Sylvia Earle – an oceanographer, explorer, author and lecturer named a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress, and this year’s recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Citizen Leadership – gave her keynote address.
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, co-founders of the Tokyo-based firm SANAA, whose major projects span the globe from Tokyo to Paris and Milan.
UVA President Jim Ryan and Leslie Greene Bowman, president and CEO of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello, presented the medals during a lunch in the Rotunda Dome Room. Each of the medalists also gave a public talk, recapped below.
Additional events included a public talk in Old Cabell Hall by historian John Ragosta on “Thomas Jefferson’s Contributions and Contradictions.” Ragosta, a historian at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello and a fellow at Virginia Humanities, discussed the Founding Father’s achievements and the contradictions inherent in his views of human freedom, given that he also owned enslaved laborers and supported the institution of slavery.
A few hours before that talk, Ryan and other members of the University community gathered near the Rotunda for a tree-planting ceremony honoring retiring UVA Vice President and Chief Officer for Diversity and Equity Dr. Marcus L. Martin. The annual Founder’s Day tree-planting celebrates an individual who has made significant and lasting contributions to the University community.
Carlton W. Reeves, a 1989 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and this year’s recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Law, used his speech marking the occasion Thursday to make an appeal.
Reeves asked the capacity audience in the Law School’s Caplin Auditorium, comprising primarily law students, to defend the judiciary.
important voice for upholding the rights of minorities in Mississippi. In Campaign for Southern Equality v. Bryant, a same-sex marriage dispute, and Barber v. Bryant, Reeves ruled in favor of LGBT rights. In his hate-crime sentencing in United States v. Butler, a case that involved the racially motivated killing of an African American man, Reeves gave moving remarks on the related history of lynching in the state.
Reeves prefaced his appeal on behalf of the judiciary with a history of racial injustice in the U.S., mentioning both Mississippi and Virginia. He started with Thomas Jefferson, whom he noted as a singular thinker of his time who furthered ideals of equality, yet also an owner of slaves whose legacy “cannot be separated from an assault on the judiciary.” Reeves wondered what Jefferson might have thought of him receiving the award.
“I’m here today not just as a black man, but a black judge,” he said.
He concluded his history on racial justice in the civil rights era with Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that determined segregated schools to be unconstitutional. Reeves, a native of Yazoo City, Mississippi, was among the first children in that state to receive a desegregated education.
He said with each major stride for racial justice by “brave leaders, judges, plaintiffs,” white supremacy has mustered resistance, including through organized attacks on the courts.
“We are now eyewitnesses to the third great assault on our judiciary,” he said.
But Reeves said he has hope. Not just for racial justice, but justice on all fronts. For every hate-driven letter he receives, he said, he receives 10 others that are positive and appreciative.
— By Eric Williamson
Sylvia Earle: ‘We Have a Choice’
As rainy, gray clouds loomed over Monticello, Sylvia Earle – an oceanographer, explorer, author and lecturer named a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress, and this year’s recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Citizen Leadership – gave her keynote address.
“I wish I could wish Thomas Jefferson a happy birthday,” she said. “I would like to imagine what he would think if he came back today, knowing what he knew about his world then and the world we live in now.”
