An important part of University of Virginias ongoing commitment to free expression and to fully and honestly explore UVAs complex history is moving forward this week with the creation of two new committees.

UVA President Jim Ryan and Provost Liz Magill have announced the creation of one committee to articulate the Universitys commitment to free expression and free inquiry, and another to examine naming and memorials on Grounds.

We are working to give voice to our commitment as an educational institution to the free and open exchange of ideas, and to grapple with the complexities of our Universitys history and the names that we honor, Ryan said. These committees will help us forge a path forward as we continue to address these issues as a community and as a nation.

First Amendment expert Leslie Kendrick, White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs and vice dean at UVAs School of Law, will chair the Committee on Free Expression and Free Inquiry. The group will craft a statement that identifies the role that free expression and free inquiry play in UVAs academic enterprise and how they shape engagement with the ideas of others. The statement will reflect the Universitys values, its history and its legal obligations as a public institution.

Free expression and free inquiry are the lifeblood of universities; these principles underpin this Universitys educational missions of producing knowledge, developing citizen leaders, and serving, Magill said.In a moment where the country is experiencing heightened conflict, we believe its essential to concisely articulate those foundational commitments of University life.

The members of the Committee on Free Expression and Free Inquiry are:

University Counsel Tim Heaphy will serve as counsel to the committee, whose work will begin soon.

President Ryan and Provost Magill have assembled a highly accomplished and diverse group of scholars and University representatives to consider these important topics, Kendrick said. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the committee.

Michael Suarez, English professor and executive director of the Rare Book School, will chair the Naming and Memorials Committee, which is a reconfiguration and reconstitution of a previously existing committee. The group is charged with delineating principles and protocols for naming and, under certain limited circumstances, renaming buildings on Grounds. The committee is also tasked with making recommendations about the status and contextualization of memorials.

In each case, the committee will carefully review and develop recommendations that will then be sent to President Ryan for his review and, if advanced, to the Board of Visitors.

Our University, as a public institution of higher education, is not a place stuck in time, but a dynamic community where history is alive and ever-changing, Suarez said. We have a responsibility not only to record that history, but also to interpret it for current and future generations, to give it context and meaning. The Naming and Memorials Committee has been entrusted with an extraordinary educational opportunity: to help the University to continue to tell our long and complex story.

The formation of the committee comes on the heels of the Board of Visitors approval in September of five recommendations from UVAs Racial Equity Task Force regarding changes to UVAs historic landscape.

The members of the Naming and Memorials Committee are:

The committees consultants are:

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University Names New Committees on Free Speech and the Historic Landscape at UVA - UVA Today