Gentlemen from Virginia

Thomas Jefferson's fine old University of Virginia is a state-run institution, but it has long maintained the flavor of a small, exclusive private college. Traditionally, it has drawn more big wheels from prep schools than public schools, has been the happy hunting ground for sons of the F.F.V.s (First Families of Virginia) and members of the F.F.U. (First Fraternities of the University). But in recent years the gentleman's-club tradition has found itself challenged by a serious-minded administration and by a more down-to-earth sector of the student body. Last spring the campus erupted in a controversy that has since engulfed administration, students, faculty, the F.F.V.s--and has shaken Charlottesville to its historic foundations.

The lid blew off with a sex scandal. On a hilarious Saturday night following the traditional varsity-alumni football game, a student brought a girl into East Lawn dormitory. During the night a dozen students and alumni were in and out of the room; when the girl finally got home Monday, her socially prominent parents called the university in outrage.

To Richard Fletcher, 47, director of student affairs, fell the job of investigation; he swiftly recommended disciplinary action. Virginia's able President Colgate Darden, onetime state governor, heard the evidence, expelled four undergraduates, suspended seven more for one' year and withheld the diploma of a recent graduate. A special investigating committee of the university's board of visitors backed him up. So did the full board in principle, although it shortened some of the suspensions.

Countercampaign. Normally, the matter would have ended right there, but the issue of the punishment was, by now, thoroughly entangled in the effort to defend tradition. Most of the suspended students came from distinguished families, and the families hired distinguished lawyers to carry on the fight. Meanwhile, a group of students led by newly elected Student Council President William L. Tazewell began a countercampaign to get Fletcher fired from his job of student director. At semester's end Tazewell reported to his council: "A majority of the student body have neither faith . . . nor trust in ... the administration."

In June the board of visitors discussed the case again, and tried mightily to postpone the issue until fall by asking its committee to bring in another report Sept. 10. But Tazewell's anti-administration forces continued their attack during summer school. Last week 24 members of the faculty openly joined the battle for the first time, issued a statement publicly backing the administration.

Smug Group. In his campus office, President Darden, 57, a broad-shouldered, good-humored man, made no attempt to duck the basic issues. Said he: "There is a deep-seated cleavage over my purpose to relate the university to the public-school system of the state. It disturbs the smug group that wants to maintain a self-satisfied and narrow view of the university. They want to make it a sort of Princeton in the absurd social sense in which-Princeton is pictured sometimes--a sort of F. Scott Fitzgerald Princeton.

"If the university remains a sort of small, smug club, it is of much less value to the people and the state and it does the students a disservice. They fail to realize that the university must serve as the capstone for public education in Virginia if it is to realize its destiny and the purpose of its founder. Those who quote Jefferson on liberty forget that when Jefferson was rector, he expelled 14 students out of a total enrollment of 84 after a riot in 1825. If you have liberty, you must also accept the responsibility of self-discipline."

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