AS
THE BULLETIN• MONDAY, MARCH 23, 2015
IN FOCUS:SWEET BRIAR COLLEGE
Anger and activism over plan
to close a liberal arts college By Sheryl Gay Stolberg New York Times News Service
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S WEET BRIAR, V a . Here at bucolic Sweet Briar
College, equestrians awaken
r
at dawn and trek to the sta-
bles to ride on 18 miles of trails through wooded countryside, fields and dells. Women study on the boathouse dock at sunset as geese squawk over a
r
g~ 4!I ',lI gl
r f
i
lake. Pearls are still in fash-
f
ion, and men must have escorts. Students call it"the pink bubble." Now, all of a sudden, the bubble has burst. The abrupt decision early Travis Dove /The New York Times this month by the Sweet Briar Lydia Lewis, a senior, part of the school's final graduating class, board to close the 114-year-old hugs a fellow student at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, where an women's liberal arts school abrupt decision two weeks ago by the Sweet Briar board to close at the end of this term "as a the school has transformed the tranquil community into a hotbed result of i nsurmountable fi- of activism. A new alumnae group, Saving Sweet Briar, has raised nancial challenges" — with no $3 million and is threatening legal action. advance warning to students, parents,alumnae or professors — has transformed this vania. "We're at a liberal arts or so studying overseas — is tranquil community into a hot- college that empowers wom- playing out against a backbed of anger and activism. en. Now we're finding ways to drop of wrenching changes A new alumnae group, Sav- use that education to empower for small liberal arts schools, ing Sweet Briar, has raised $3 ourselves." especiallythoseinruralareas, million and intends to demand How far they will get is an and women's colleges, which this week t hat t h e s c hool open question. A lawyer for face particular challenges in make its finances public — or the alumnae, citing a simi- recruiting. face legal action. The faculty lar uprising that derailed the Fifty years ago, there were voted unanimously last week threatened closing of Wilson 230 women's colleges in the to oppose the "unilateral de- College in Pennsylvania in United States, according to the cision" to close the school and 1979, said there was a legal Women's College Coalition, demanded to meet with the road map to keep Sweet Briar a nonprofit group. Last year, board. Students, fresh from open. there were 46. But Chatham spring break, plastered their College administrators are University in Pittsburgh is set cars with a rallying cryholding firm. to admit men this fall, drop"The school is going to ping the number to 45. WithP SaveSweetBriar — i n t h e school colors, pink and green. close," the school's interim out Sweet Briar, there will be "I now know more about president, James Jones Jr., de- 44. nonprofit law than I feel I clared flatly. Jones says he understands "the emotion" and "the hype," know about chemistry — and The drama at Sweet Briar I'm a chemistry major," said — a tiny school, with just 532 but he insists that the camLeah Humenuck, a senior students on a sprawling 3,250- paign to save Sweet Briar is from New Freedom, Pennsyl- acre campus, and another 170 going nowhere.
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Plates Continued from A1 "They bused in high school kids," recalled Granvel Block,
TEXAS
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ONFED ERATe
a former commander of the
heritage group's Texas division. "They had preachers. It was a circus."
Among those who spoke up against allowing the Conf ederate symbol
Rev. George Clark, 82, an
Texas Department of Motor Vehicles via The New York Times
African-American m i n i ster. "It saddens me," he told the
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a challenge to a decision by the
board, "that the possibility even exists that I might still
plate with a Confederate flag. Nine other states have allowed such
board of Texas' motor vehicles department not to allow a license
T he b o ar d t h e n v o t e d unanimously to reject the li-
cense plate. In the process, it weighed in on a part of Civil War history that continues to
reverberateacross thenation, from a fraternity at the Uni-
versity of Oklahoma to South Carolina's state Capitol, 150 years later.
"A significant portion of the public," the board explained, "associates the Confederate
flag with organizations advocating expressions of hate directed toward p eople or
groups that is demeaning to those people or groups." The Sons of Confederate Veterans filed a First Amend-
ment challenge, winning in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in New Or-
leans. The court said Texas had discriminated against the
group's view that "the Confederate flag is a symbol of sacrifice, independence and Southern heritage." Ben J ones,
a
n at i o nal
spokesman for the group, described its mission. "It's a heritage organization," he said. "It's not a bunch of racists. It's
Jones, who three decades tion in all facets of life, from ago played the mechanic the voting booth to the wedCooter Davenport in the CBS ding chapel." television series "The Dukes But censorship, the group o f Hazzard," said that t h e said, was not justified. "However reasonable this Confederate flag had been featured without controver- distaste for a symbol of racsy on top of the General Lee, ism," the brief said, "the Conthe orange Dodge Charger stitution does not permit the featured in the show's chases state to discriminate against and stunts. messages in a forum it has Today, the flag appears on createdforprivate speech." license plates in Alabama, A brief from the libertarGeorgia, Louisiana, Mary- ian Cato Institute, the satiland, Mississippi, North Caro- rist P.J. O'Rourke and three lina, South Carolina, Tennes- prominent advocates for free see and Virginia. expression — Martin GarSherrilyn Ifill, president of
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bus, Nat Hentoff and Nadine
the NAACP Legal Defense Strossen — urged the court and Educational Fund, said to protect caustic speech at the Confederate flag has only a time when it is under atone fundamental meaning. tack around the w orld. "It "It's a powerful symbol of the would be offensive to the First oppression of black people," Amendment to allow Texas to she said in an interview. tell us what is offensive," the Texas has mounted a vig- brief said. orous defenseof its decision Texas responded that stateto reject the plates. "Our fun- ments on specialty license damental right to free speech plates, which typically cost must be protected, but that an extra $30, are the governright does not include compel- ment's speech, not that of the ling the state of Texas to ap- car's owner. If that is correct, prove any image on state-is- the Supreme Court has said, sued license plates," said Cyn- the First Amendment largely thia Meyer, a spokeswoman drops out of the analysis, as for the state's attorney gener- the government is free to say al, Ken Paxton.
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what it likes.
a group that longs for reconIn 2011, not long before the Texas said it should not be ciliation and progress but will motor vehicles department required to endorse all sorts not forget the past." rejected the plates, Gov. Rick of distasteful messages. "A state is fully within its Jones, a Democrat who Perry indicated he supported served two terms in Congress such a move. "We don't need rights to exclude swastikas, representing Georgia, said to be scraping old wounds," sacrilege and overt racism the Confederate flag "rep- he said. from s t a te-issued l i c ense resents the independent spirit Civil liberties groups and plates that bear th e state's of the South, no matter what First A m e ndment s p ecial- name and imprimatur," the race you are." ists have filed briefs in the state's brief said. "Likewise, H is group says it h a s Supreme Court supporting a state can exclude less per30,000 members and is open the Southern heritage group. nicious but still-controversial to "any male descendants The briefs acknowledge that symbols such as the Confedof any veteran who served the flag is offensive to many erate battle flag." honorably in the confederate people. It said the Sons of Confed"The armed forces." Confederate bat- erate Veterans should convey "There are black members, tle flag was the banner for its views on bumper stickers, Hispanic members, Jewish those who supported slavery window decals or paint jobs. "States that i ssue 'Fight members and Native Amer- and sought to break our naican members," Jones said, tion apart," a brief filed by Terrorism' specialty plates adding that he could not pro- the American Civil Liberties are notrequired to offerspevide numbers and doubted Union said. "It later served as cialty plates with messages that such b reakdowns are a rallying sign for those seek- that praise terrorist organizakept. ing to maintain racial separa- tions," the state's brief added.
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Michelle Eastlick
BC-HIS,AAS CEO/Boerd (ertified Hearing Instrument Specialist
HIS Hearing Instrument Specialist
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