Virginia Donors Demand $3.6 Billion From University for Removing Ancestor’s Name

The University of Richmond benefactor purportedly owned slaves in his time

A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is removed from its pedestal on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va. on Sept. 8, 2021. Bob Brown/Getty Images

The University of Richmond has removed the name of donor T.C. Williams from its law school, citing student complaints that he allegedly owned slaves more than 175 years ago.

The Williams family now wants the Virginia university to give back donations they’ve made throughout the years, with interest, in the amount of $3.6 billion.

Robert Smith, who graduated from the law school that formerly bore his great-great-grandfather’s name, told The Epoch Times that if the family name is no longer good enough for the university, neither are the family’s financial contributions.

T.C. Williams Sr. was instrumental in establishing what came to be known as the T.C. Williams School of Law at The University of Richmond. Courtesy of Stuart Smith

Smith wrote in a Jan. 30 letter to university President Kevin Hallock that he arrived at the $3.6 billion figure by adding together the contributions from Williams, his sons, and other relatives, then calculating 150-plus years of compounded returns.

“It might be worthwhile for you to require every woke activist to take a course in finance to appreciate [the numbers] for whom they want to cancel,” Smith wrote in his January letter to Hallock.

Smith—founder of the legal and financial firm Chartwell Capital Advisors in Richmond, Virginia—said the university has yet to respond to his demand for a refund.

Erasing Slave Owners

The fight began during the 2021–22 school year. The university formed a commission of students, staff, faculty, alumni, and trustees that recommended naming guidelines for buildings, programs, and professorships, according to a Sept. 23, 2022, notice on the university’s website.

Many universities either renamed or removed statues of historical figures after the death of George Floyd in 2020. Left-wing groups across the country demanded racial justice and called for the removal of historical statues of priests, Christopher Columbus, and even Abraham Lincoln.

Critics contend that removing statues is part of a neo-Marxist cultural revolution that seeks to portray the United States as a systemically racist country founded on slavery. The movement’s ideology sometimes goes by other names, including critical race theory (CRT); diversity, equity, and inclusion; and progressivism.

These ideologies promote portraying history with a focus on racial justice, as in The 1619 Project, an initiative by The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine that states that its aim is “to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ national narrative.”

New York Times Magazine reporter and creator of The 1619 Project Nikole Hannah-Jones speaks at a rally outside the New York Times headquarters as company workers participate in a strike on Dec. 8, 2022. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

A man stands where a statue of Christopher Columbus was toppled by vandals on the grounds of the state Capitol in St. Paul, Minn., on June 10, 2020. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Proponents of CRT say America shouldn’t whitewash history and that white Americans should repent by giving minorities preference in areas such as hiring and college admittance to make up for acts of racism committed throughout the country’s history.

Building a Case

According to the university’s notice, the rules on how to rename buildings were adopted “after an extensive and inclusive process” with input from 7,500 university and community members.

The notice details the history of T.C. Williams Sr., born in 1831, who operated tobacco businesses in Richmond and elsewhere in Virginia, including Patterson & Williams and Thomas C. Williams & Co.

The university cited records from the 1860 U.S. Federal Census Slave Schedule, which shows 35 enslaved men and boys under the name of Patterson & Williams in the Richmond area.

The notice went on to say that personal property tax records show that Williams’s businesses were taxed on 25 to 40 slaves. A newspaper account placed by Thomas C. Williams & Co. advertised a reward for the return of two company slaves, Todd and Alex, who escaped a Danville-area farm.

Williams attended the university, then named Richmond College, from 1846 to 1849. He served as a college trustee from 1881 until his death in 1889 and became a benefactor of the university, according to the notice.

In 1890, the Williams family made a memorial gift of $25,000 to the university, creating an endowment that established a strong foundation for the law program’s development, the university statement reads.

Several of Williams’s children—one of whom succeeded him on the school’s board of trustees and remained on the board until 1929—also provided generous support to the university and the law school. And in 1920, when Richmond College was rechartered as the University of Richmond, the law school began consistently using the name T.C. Williams School of Law, according to the notice.

Smith originally calculated that the T.C. Williams Sr. contribution alone would amount to $51 million with interest, which he outlined in an October 2022 letter to Hallock.

“Because these woke people, they hate people like my family. They hate people who are upright, religious, and who are wealthy,” Smith said, comparing the case built against his ancestor to a mob-style assassination. “I mean, they’re jealous.”

Activists now are calling for the removal of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington's Lincoln Park, shown here on June 25, 2020,  which depicts a freed slave kneeling at the feet of President Abraham Lincoln. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

Smith, who maintains a “Rob is Right” Facebook page catering to conservatives, has asked the university to provide documentation about the research.

Officials haven’t responded, he said.

“One of the most basic tenets of our Judeo-Christian heritage is gratitude, a concept that is apparently unknown to you and the Board of the University of Richmond,” he wrote in his January missive to university officials.

Robert Smith, an attorney who graduated from the University of Richmond, says the university needs to repay donations because it canceled his family name. Photo courtesy of Robert Smith

People should be able to have civil conversations about the history of the United States, and that includes discussions on slavery, according to Smith. But the perspective of that era has been ignored, he noted.

He said his family has given extensively to causes in Richmond and the university for almost 200 years. The good his family has done is ignored by those who want to “virtue signal,” he said.

‘Give It All Back’

Jesse Williams, father of T.C. Williams, donated building materials to the First Baptist Church, Smith said. The family patriarch also donated masonry and other materials for the neighboring First African Baptist Church, he wrote in his January letter.

Jesse Williams also contributed to the building needs of the University of Richmond when its campus was started, he said.

It’s only right for the university to turn over its $3.3 billion endowment to Williams’s descendants, Smith said. The remaining $300 million owed should be secured with a note using the campus buildings as collateral, he wrote.

“All your woke faculty” should pledge their assets to secure the loan, Smith wrote.

“Since you and your activists went out of your way to discredit the Williams name, and since presumably the Williams family’s money is tainted, demonstrate your ‘virtue’ and give it all back,” he wrote.

Smith said the family hadn’t yet filed a lawsuit.

A Problematic History

The university takes issue with slave ownership but owned slaves in the 1840s, according to Smith.

And the college was founded by a Baptist preacher but now embraces LGBT culture, he said.

The University of Richmond didn’t respond to requests from The Epoch Times for comment.

However, the university’s website noted that it recognized “the role the Williams family has played” and respected the “full and complete history of the institution.”

A guest looks at a census and a muster of Virginia, which mentions the first documented African woman to arrive in the colony, at a historical display in Williamsburg, Va., on Aug. 19, 2019. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

The university could have changed the law school’s name without negatively portraying his family’s legacy, according to Stuart Smith, the nephew of Robert Smith.

“It’s easy to take a plaque off a building and issue a press report,” Stuart Smith said. “It’s easy to just nod your head and agree to do whatever your student population, paying $77,000 a year, wants you to do.”