a people's history of the University of Virginia

The University of Virginia has a recently revamped website. One new feature of this website is a section called U.VA. for Kids. In the history section, the University has a very interesting hypothesis for its more than a century of discrimination against women and minorities.

"In the days of Thomas Jefferson, no one thought that black people would want to attend a university. No one thought women would want to go to a university, either. One hundred years later, though, both black people and women made it clear that they wanted to be students at the University of Virginia, too."

U.VA. for kids makes no attempt at explaining Mr. Jefferson's connections to slavery. Or that it took, not 100, but 150 years for the University to admit women. For the first time UVA "would admit students without regard to sex in the Fall of 1972."