University President Teresa Sullivan has only quoted Thomas Jefferson in five community-wide emails in the last three years, according to an analysis of 53 emails Sullivan sent between May 2, 2013 and Nov. 11, 2016.
After quoting Jefferson in a post-election email on Nov. 9, Sullivan came under fire from a group of professors and students for citing Jefferson in her call for unity after a contentious campaign.
Many students have expressed anxiety following Donald Trump’s election due to the president-elect’s controversial and divisive rhetoric.
In a letter signed by 469 students and faculty, the signees said they were “disappointed in the use of Thomas Jefferson as a moral compass” and noted Jefferson’s history as a slave owner.
“In the spirit of inclusivity, we would like for our administration to understand that although some members of this community may have come to this university because of Thomas Jefferson's legacy, others of us came here in spite of it,” the letter read. “For many of us, the inclusion of Jefferson quotes in these e-mails undermines the message of unity, equality, and civility that you are attempting to convey.”
Sullivan defended her quoting of Jefferson in a Nov. 14 statement, saying “to quote any person is to acknowledge the potency of that person’s words.”
“Quoting Jefferson (or any historical figure) does not imply an endorsement of all the social structures and beliefs of his time, such as slavery and the exclusion of women and people of color from the University,” Sullivan said.
In the five instances in which she quoted Jefferson in her community emails in the time period studied, two of the quotations were in emails related to the 2016 election.
One of the quotations was in a Jan. 30, 2014 email announcing the creation of the "Age of Jefferson” — a massive open online course on Coursera and iTunes U.
Sullivan quoted Jefferson in an Oct. 24, 2014 email following the discovery of Hannah Graham’s body in Albemarle County.
Neary a month later, after the publication of Rolling Stone’s “A Rape On Campus” on Nov. 19, 2014, Sullivan sent two emails to the University community, the second of which — dated Nov. 22 — included a Jefferson quote.
Sullivan did not specifically quote Jefferson in any 2015 community emails, but she did reference him in a Feb. 14, 2015 email following the murders of three Muslim students at UNC Chapel Hill, in which she wrote of Jefferson’s advocacy for religious freedom.
Of the emails analyzed, Sullivan did not quote Jefferson in messages pertaining to bias-related incidents or in messages urging students to report harassment or sexual assault via the University’s Just Report It system, including her May 2, 2013 email, which pertained to an instance of biased writing on Beta Bridge.
It is unclear how or when Sullivan decides to quote Jefferson. She did not return requests for comment Wednesday.
Xara Davies contributed to the reporting of this article.
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