'They Changed the Script'

White Supremacists March in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 11 and 12, 2017. When most people begin a job at a new organization, they have a little time to settle in. That wasn’t the case for Martin Davidson, senior associate dean and global chief director of diversity at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business in Charlottesville. When he assumed his new post last July, his first order of business was no small task—he was to help the school respond to two white supremacist marches scheduled to occur in Charlottesville that summer.

The first, on Saturday, July 8, was planned by the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; the second, on August 12, was organized by Unite the Right, an extreme right-wing organization. Both organizations were coming to Charlottesville to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. The statue stood in Emancipation Park, formerly known as Robert E. Lee Park, located a few miles from campus.

“Welcome to my new job!” says Davidson. “But I do a lot of work on difference and diversity as part of my scholarship and thought leadership. Given the situation, it was helpful that I had past experience with these kinds of things.”

Although UVA administrators knew of these events in advance, they did not expect the campus to be directly affected. “We knew full well that these marches would challenge people intellectually and emotionally,” says Davidson. “But we were thinking about them not from a social unrest perspective, but from an educational perspective.” In response, the Darden School scheduled two “community conversations” for the Mondays following both weekend rallies. The intention was to provide forums where its community could talk about the social issues driving the rallies.

As it turned out, these conversations took on heightened significance when the August rally turned violent. Suddenly, the University of Virginia found itself at the center of a national conversation about race relations in America.

A Change in Plans

The KKK rally on July 8 was held at Justice Park, just more than a mile from the UVA campus. It attracted about 1,000 people and resulted in 23 arrests, but overall the event went as expected. Administrators expected about 25 people to attend Darden’s first community conversation on July 10, but “to our surprise, 75 people poured into the room,” says Davidson. “People of all backgrounds told their personal stories.”

No one in Charlottesville expected the August 12 march to go any differently. Unite the Right had a permit to gather at McIntire Park, about three miles from UVA. “We had a game plan,” says Davidson. “The university’s preparations were actually fairly extensive, and there was going to be a National Guard presence in the area.” But that plan was disrupted when Unite the Right leaders quickly mobilized on Friday night, August 11, in an unplanned march that came unexpectedly to UVA.

Although the march took the campus by surprise, it has started new conversations, about both ensuring student safety and bringing issues of race and diversity to the forefront.

“Should the university have been on top of that? Absolutely,” says Davidson. “But the marchers changed the script at the last minute. It was less about the university’s lack of preparation than it was about a very nimble protest movement. Little did we know it would become as destructive and lethal as it did.” Marchers came to campus carrying torches, with the unrest continuing into Saturday, when a man with ties to white supremacist groups drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring 19.

Darden administrators had no idea how necessary the school’s August 14 gathering would be. About 300 students, faculty, staff, and alumni indicated they would be attending, requiring the school to move the event to an auditorium large enough to accommodate the crowd. As it happened, the march occurred at the beginning of Darden’s orientation for full-time MBA students, and all of its executive MBA students were on campus. Many international students had just been in Charlottesville a few weeks, and this show of violence was one of their first experiences at the school. Scott Beardsley, Darden’s dean, was one of the first to speak to the crowd, stating that “We at the University of Virginia and the Darden Graduate School of Business are not defined by the hate this weekend.”

Davidson facilitated conversation among attendees, both in small groups and in the larger forum. Some talked about their own experiences with racism—including what it was like to live through the civil rights era in the 1960s; some stood up for the police officers who had to protect the marchers. Others reminded the group that racial injustice was a far bigger problem than a single violent rally—that people in America have been experiencing racial injustice for decades. Many international students wanted to know the historical context that had led to the rally in the first place.

“People of color spoke, white students spoke. They talked about times when our classrooms didn’t seem inclusive, when comments were made or when so-called microaggressions happened that made people feel discounted by virtue of their race or gender or sexual orientation,” says Davidson. “Some people pointed out areas where the university could be more active in its efforts around diversity and education, such as bringing in more faculty of diverse backgrounds.”

He notes that the conversation seemed to be the “start of an energy, a sense of momentum.” Although the march took the campus by surprise, it has started new conversations, about both ensuring student safety and bringing issues of race and diversity to the forefront.

Greater Awareness

In the week after the march, many criticized the university for what was interpreted as an inadequate response— especially regarding the slowness with which it informed its community of Unite the Right’s change in plans. UVA already had adopted a system of notifying its community of an emergency via text, email, campus displays, and public address, features put in place after a 23-year-old gunman shot and killed 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech in 2007. However, the university is now refining its policies involving how—and when—to use that system.

“As we look back, we know the system could have been used more efficiently when the first torch bearers began walking around,” says Davidson. “The university wants to make sure those official notices go out sooner, so that the community is aware of what is happening and can mobilize more quickly.” UVA also is re-evaluating its campus safety measures, from the sufficiency of pathway lighting to the distribution of emergency call boxes, to ensure that people feel secure and can notify police quickly if they need assistance.

“This event has opened up a dialogue. We’re asking, ‘What does it really mean to value difference and diversity? What’s most important in terms of equity and inclusion?’”

Since the march, the business school has held sessions with faculty to explore how they can address issues related to diversity in their classes, even in subjects that might not immediately lend themselves to the topic. Administrators also have made themselves as accessible as possible to students, many of whom will remember the march as one of their very first experiences at Darden.

“We’ve been discussing with students long-term institutional changes that we can make toward adopting more inclusive practices,” says Davidson. “This event has opened up a dialogue. We’re asking, ‘What does it really mean to value difference and diversity? What’s most important in terms of equity and inclusion?’”

A group of students has suggested several ideas for change, including creating formal forums where they can discuss issues of diversity and discord. “Our students are saying that we need to stop pretending that none of this is happening—that these feelings aren’t out there in the world as part of some weird fringe radical movement. Frankly, they’re among us here in the building, carried by people within our walls.”

Davidson has been most surprised by the resilience and energy of the school’s community in the face of these turbulent events. “People are saying, ‘Let’s roll up our sleeves and deal with this, because this is not OK,’” says Davidson. “That’s been really exciting.”