A Virginia lawyer is demanding the University of Richmond pay his family $3.6 billion after it removed his ancestor’s name from its law school because the benefactor had owned slaves. Lawyer Robert C. Smith wrote in a letter to the school, “It might be worthwhile for you to require every woke activist to take a course in finance to appreciate those for whom they want to cancel.”
Last year, the university’s board of trustees voted to change the name of its law school from T.C. Williams Law School to the University of Richmond School of Law in response to student and faculty protests over benefactor T.C. Williams, a tobacco business owner, having owned slaves, according to a report by Richmond.com.
“We recognize that some may be disappointed or disagree with this decision,” university President Kevin Hallock and the board said at the time. “We also recognize the role the Williams family has played here and respect the full and complete history of the institution.”
Now, local lawyer Robert C. Smith, a descendant of Williams, is calling on the university to pay back his family after it removed his ancestor’s name from the law school.
In a letter to University of Richmond president Kevin Hallock, published in Real Clear Markets, Smith said the school’s decision to “dename” the T.C. Williams Law School is “shameful,” and that “the university needs to be exposed for its lack of GRATITUDE and infantile, woke reasoning.”
Smith went on to explain that his family members were responsible for developing much of early Richmond, and had contributed to the school. T.C. Williams Sr. had also attended the university from 1846 to 1849, and served on its board.
“We know in 1888, he gave $10,000 to re-establish the Law School and at his death in 1889 his estate contributed $25,000 to the Law School,” Smith wrote. “A conservative estimate of these gifts, just from the end of the War to his death exceeds $65,000.”
“To give one perspective of the magnitude of this benevolence, in 1880 land in nearby Hanover County sold for an average of $9/acre. At his death, he was the largest contributor in the history of the University,” he added.
Moreover, his relatives continued donating money to the university after T.C. Williams Sr.’s death, said Smith, who calculated that his ancestors have given a total of $3.6 billion to the school in 2023 dollars.
“Using these conservative values, the present value of these gifts is $3.6 billion,” he said, adding that “150 plus years of compounded returns add up.”
“Numbers don’t lie,” Smith affirmed. “It might be worthwhile for you to require every woke activist to take a course in finance to appreciate those for whom they want to cancel.”
“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,” Smith declared.
Last year, the University of Richmond reportedly changed the name of six other buildings in response to protests.
Among the buildings renamed were Ryland Hall and Freeman Hall, because Robert Ryland, the school’s first president in 1840, had owned slaves, and Freeman, a trustee from 1925 to 1950, had advocated for segregation, eugenics, and prohibiting interracial marriage.
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