The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Thomas Neale, President, The Jefferson Council; The Jefferson Council Composed Of UVA Alumni

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Thomas Neale, President, The Jefferson Council The Jefferson Council Composed Of UVA Alumni Is UVA Tarnishing Thomas Jefferson’s Legacy? Is The UVA Honor System Being Watered Down? Analyze UVA’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Efforts Did UVA Manage Pro Palestine Protest Correctly? Letters Of No Confidence From UVA Health Docs UVA Tour Guide Suspension – Was It Right Move? Future Of Greek Life + Out Of State Tuition Costs Thomas M. Neale, President of The Jefferson Council, joined Jerry Miller live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Good Thursday afternoon, guys. My name is Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on the I Love Seville Show. It's great to connect with you guys wherever you get your social media or podcasting content. This show, the I Love Seville Show, airs less than two miles from Thomas Jefferson's University. We are in downtown Charlottesville, our studio, where we host Monday through Friday, 1230 to 130, content that is local to Charlottesville,

local to Albemarle County, local to Central Virginia, and of course, local to the University of Virginia. I have very much looked forward to the interview that we will have today with Tom Neal, the president of the Jefferson Council. I have watched from afar. The president, who you will see in a matter of about 45 seconds, is in Baltimore. His organization, a robust group of alumni from the University of Virginia that are now organized, strategized, and vocalized

and looking to make change at UVA. They are concerned with some of the changes that have happened at the university. I have seen from afar the Jefferson Council already have a significant impact. They are doing a fantastic job papering the trail, voicing their concerns, and influencing the narrative, whether that's media coverage, whether that's Board of Visitors attention, whether that's C-suite attention at the University of Virginia, or whether it's how alumni at the university look at what the university has become in 2024. I want to thank some of the partners that make the program possible. Charlottesville Business Brokers, online at charlottesvillebusinessbrokers.com.

Our friends at Mexicali Restaurant on West Main Street, where they have 50 parking spots on site. And of course, the fantastic Pro Renata Brewery started in Crozet, now locations in the Shenandoah Valley and in downtown Stanton. Judah Wickhauer behind the camera. If you can welcome Tom Neal to the show

with what looks like a 14-state audience watching us right now. Tom, you are live. The show is yours. The first question I ask is the same of all our guests. Introduce yourself to the viewers and listeners. Sure. I'll give you a brief bio. It might help. I knew vaguely a little bit about Virginia. I was two years behind your father. I was class of 74.

So I went to a Jesuit high school in Buffalo called Canisius. I was all set to go to Georgetown where my dad went. So that's off to the people in Georgetown. What did it for me, Jerry, and it's antithetical to the way a lot of the kids look at it now, when I took the tour of the lawn and the rotunda, that sold me. And the reason I went, my oldest is a retired uh combat army colonel between tours and now they sent him there he said don't go to georgetown go to virginia my younger sister went there two of our three daughters went there all out of state so strong ties would really launch

djc uh i get the cavalar daily to see what football team we're going to lose to the next day and september 11th of 20 that came out with the racial equity task force and what got me going was uh the contextualization of thomas jefferson uh burd ellis whom i think you know i didn't know him at that point he came across just walking down the lawn uh that now infamous fuva signed i reserved it we crossed paths within week, I sent a letter to President Ryan, then Dean of Student Groves, and every member of the board. I got 200 signatures of people I know protesting that and saying, we can't contextualize Jefferson. Burt got that, and we merged forces and got going. So that's kind of my brief history. That's how we started.

Fortunately, now Burt's on the board. We have other allies on the board that we're speaking to. I certainly, we're not egotistical enough to think all the change is coming from us. But a couple things I think we can take credit for. The lawn tour change. We've been screaming about that for three years. And the quick analogy I'll give, I think you'll appreciate. As you know, President Ryan went to Yale undergrad.

I've taken the Yale tour with a daughter. Thankfully, she didn't get in and she went to Virginia. But they don't mention on that tour, they stole the land from the Mohican Indians. And Elijah Yale, who was one of the number one slave traders in the world, was the founder. So you don't sell a university by telling things out of context and history and i think that's our core point intellectual diversity civility and judge people in the context of their times and that's kind of it in a nutshell um i have i i'm going to give you guys credit for a lot um i've seen the media coverage reference you on the i love Seville show. We talk about you guys all the time.

Frankly, as the owner of an advertising agency, we own a few businesses. I've been incredibly impressed with what you have done from a social media content where you're taking clips from board of visitors meetings and chopping them down or editing them into digestible time stamps or time frames for people to see what's going on you guys um i think got coverage in virginia papers uh or or accolades um for the university guide suspension um now the guides are reporting to the office of admissions and and and basically are being trained with what they can do with future prospective students and their parents with the content they can offer in these tour guides moving forward.

So a lot I want to cover with you, including what's going on at UVA Health, including the legacy of Thomas Jefferson and how I think it's being tarnished, including the single-sanction honor code, which seems to me it's being watered down where when i was there it was not the case before we get into all these topics including diversity equity and inclusion bloated payroll especially at the administrator level and the obscene cost

of tuition for out-of-state students i would love an opportunity for you to highlight the network that makes up the jefferson council the alumni and the jefferson council the reach that you guys have yeah i'd say roughly 90 to 95 percent of our members and we have 3 000 members about 800 active donors are uva alumni the rest are parents students and some faculty as you would imagine during the faculty have to keep a low profile for obvious reasons. But we have a very active student liaison committee. We have a very active off-the-record names withheld connection with a number of professors. So a lot of the information we get is not apocryphal, it's direct, what's happening in the classrooms. And I wouldn't say there's been a sea change, but I think we've had an effect in highlighting a lot of the god-awful things that have happened.

You know about the Morgan Bettinger story. We really helped counsel her, arranged for her. Didn't do it directly because we shouldn't and we can't. Arranged for her to speak to a lawyer, and she settled out of court. We've been very supportive of Mattan Goldstein and the Jewish parents. I reached out to them directly. So our network is pretty broad. I'd say 85% of what we do, I can't divulge, it's off the record, but we have real input. We're not making stuff up.

We'll talk about the Morgan Benninger story. We covered this on the I Love Seville show. This was a travesty. There was a female student at the University of Virginia named Morgan Benninger, I believe the daughter of a police officer. She's on Water Street in downtown Charlottesville in her vehicle. On Water Street at the time, while she's in her car, there was a Black Women Matter protest that was going on. It was being led by Zianna Bryant of Charlottesville. Zianna Bryant is a name that the Central Virginia community knows well. She was one of the leaders or the driving forces behind the removal of the Lee statue in what is now Market Street Park, formerly Lee Park in downtown Charlottesville, which is literally a block and a half away from where I am sitting right now.

And Morgan Benninger, the white female UVA student in her car, the rumor mill had her make a comment about the protesters that were in front of her. I'll paraphrase it. The rumor mill had her saying to a man that was in a Charlottesville truck that was blocking or offering protection for the protesters that if your truck was not here, these protesters would be potentially speed bumps. And that was taken to a level of out of context that led to Morgan Benninger having honor charges brought up against her and Charlottesville activist Diana Bryant utilizing her hundreds of thousands of social media followers

to mobilize against Benninger to the point where she was so outcasted and scarlet-lettered at Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia that she had to leave and has now or recently in the past brought a lawsuit against UVA that's since been settled. Fill in the details, offer more perspective on this, because we were flabbergasted by this sort of events. Yeah, I spent a couple minutes because it's worth it. So back to thinking of her father just makes it more tragic. She's first generation college. Her father was a Charlottesville police officer, died of cancer when she was 16. Her mother was a nurse.

I'm not sure where, Jerry. I think Martha Jefferson. It doesn't matter. Next year, she had a debilitating injury. She's on long-term disability. So this kid lost a parent as a disabled parent. He's going to UVA, and what she said is 100% true. It was after the George Floyd riots.

So Zanna Brown was leading students for BLM. She meant that comment in a laudatory way. Thank God you're here. It was a construction worker. Or I would have hit the kids. It would have been speed bumps. Zina Brian took it out of context. They descended out of her car.

They were pounding on it. She backed up, called 911, got home. Here's the part which is really going to curl your toes. So she gets home, thinks it's over. Next morning, she gets up. She gets a call from a friend. Are you okay, Morgan? I'm fine, what do you mean?

There were over 1,000 threats on social media, some of which were threatening her life. She went to Dean Groves. This is 100% accurate. Went to President Ryan, asked for their help. Do you know what their suggestion was? Can't do anything, that's free speech. You can go to class with some guys and protect you. And it went to the, I'm not sure what this stands for,

but it's the Civil Rights Army of the University of EOCR. They threw it out as baseless. Zina Bryant's friends controlled the Judiciary Committee, and they tried to get her expelled. One of our members, Buddy Weber, went with her, not in a legal sense, but as an advisor, and she got convicted. And then she got legal help because she had to, to protect her life. She did graduate. She's doing fine. We gave her an award.

I don't know if you were at her annual meeting. We gave her an award at the annual meeting, and she was crying. So, to me, of all the things that have happened as a father of three daughters, I won't tell you what I would do to President Ryan if he did that to one of my kids. I'd be in jail. You know, it's bad enough you back somebody like Zina Bryant, who's lying. She should have been kicked out. You're throwing a girl under the bus. How could you do that when you know it's a falsehood? I mean, it's despicable. And you know a lot about what's happening to Jewish students and students

for justice in Palestine. So rather ironic that you can have free speech if you're supporting a Hamas genocidal invasion, but you can't have free speech if you're Morgan Battengour or Matan. I find that rather hypocritical. I concur. I agree. President Jim Ryan, I'll start with an open-ended question. The Jefferson Council or Tom Neal's perspective or view on how the president is doing at the University of Virginia? Do they give a grade lower than an F?

Look, I'll seriously comment. I'll give the devil his due. He's a very bright guy. My daughters loved him. He's disarming. He does, you know, what's a jog with Jim, you know, he's very self-deprecating. But what he did to Morgan, what he's doing to the Jewish students, what he's allowed to happen, and this is public knowledge, the medical thing.

I can't tell you the details, but I have seen the documents. I reached out to the group that represents him. I'll just tell you it's 100 percent accurate. It's mismanagement. There's insurance fraud. This was made known to him through a member of the board a year ago. The rector and President Ryan knew it and did nothing. So now they have a subset of the board of two doctors and two other, one of whom is

a lawyer by training, all young appointees. I don't think this is going to take long to come out in the open. And when it does, the Morgan Bettenger and Matan thing, as terrible as it is, to me that's a moral issue. This is a legal issue. And ironically, the dean was let go, or pushed out, rather, from a prior job for something very similar. And the CEO, there was a letter, I don't recall, Jerry, it might have been Ohio State.

It was Ohio State. That's what I thought. There was a letter of non-support there as well. So how do you hire two people with black marks on their record, and they're replicating this at a university that Mr. Jefferson founded that theoretically is an honor code? I mean, are you kidding me? So how could the president and rector know about that? Even if it's self-preservation, not the right thing to do.

And take that in the open. So that's not something, we had nothing to do with that. That's just a comment. I would offer that Claudine Gay looks like Joan of Arc compared to what's going on at UVA because we should be held to a higher standard than Harvard. We're founded by Jefferson with an honor code, and it's not being adhered to. We've been covering the University Physicians Group and the 128 anonymous doctors who have now authored three letters of no confidence.

A random. Yeah, as it applies to the University of Virginia health system, its CEO, its dean, and other C-suite and upper higher ranking professionals within UVA health. A couple of days after we first started covering the story, and I have not said this yet on the show, I arrived to the studio after dropping our son off at school, and outside the studio was a box, a gift bag. And in this gift box was a bottle of whiskey and a card that said,

Thank you, UPG 128. And then I have gotten more intel on the 128 and I am not going to say who it is but they have indicated to us some of the names that are a part of the 128 and we're talking heavy hitters in the community that have the clout and community standing that is institutional

and has community equity that the CEO and the Dean of the school certainly do not have because they're new to the community. So these are folks that are reputable and established stakeholders in Albemarle and Charlottesville and in Central Virginia. I'm going to get out of your way on this. President Ryan wrote a letter immediately after the first one that I thought was terrible PR that basically marginalized the efforts of the 128 and chalked their efforts up as being basically disgruntled teenagers that did not get invited to the high school prom. Right. Totally agree. One,escending, two blatantly inaccurate. How can you dismiss 128 faculty who only kept their names anonymous for fear of retribution?

And this is all public information. It's now over 200. I know off the record that more have signed it. You don't have that kind of, this isn't disgruntled people who think the air conditioning doesn't work. You know, these are people whose careers are in jeopardy when they speak up. They see something wrong in a management or a billing issue, and they just want to talk about it, and they're told to shut up. I was in business 40 years, Jerry, and if one of my managers, when I ran a division at a large bank, did that, I'd fire him on the spot. Intellectual diversity means allowing discord and trying to solve problems.

It doesn't mean telling people to shut up, especially when what they're saying is valid. So this is a scandal of the first degree, and I don't think it's going to percolate long. And then, you know, I won't go into it because nobody knows what the situation is. Nobody knows what's in that sealed indictment of, you know, Jones who killed the three players. I don't think President Ryan and the university would have swept that under a rug if it were laudatory of what he's done. So that's going to come out in February. How do you survive those body blows?

It's not up to us to tell the board what to do or Governor Youngkin, but man, we need somebody who's open, honest, and is a true leader. And I just think there's too many strikes on his record, but that's just me. I appreciate your straightforwardness. Interestingly, his presidency started in the most

approachable and humanized fashion. He helped lead the University of Virginia through the pandemic and COVID. Jim Ryan, the president, did a fantastic job in the pandemic while perched against his desk in the president's office, his sleeves rolled up on his button down Oxford around his elbows, his tie at half mass, and offering the type of commentary that was localized and humanized and personalized for student body and their parents. He was very relatable. The jogging around grounds and encouraging students to meet with him and to jog grounds with him in the morning and how he created volunteer committees with stakeholders

in the Charlottesville and Alamaro County community to help UVA understand where the position of the university was in the community. It was so very impressive. Then over the last 24 months Then over the last 24 months, over the last 24 months, we've seen the murder, the mass killing of three football players on grounds, an investigative report that was not released to the community. It raised eyebrows for all of us. We saw the pro-Palestine protest on grounds finish with the state police militarized and pepper spraying students. We saw this UVA health debacle and how it was mismanaged by the president after the first

letter was released. We see clearly some friction on the board of visitors where Youngkin, I believe, has 13 appointments on the board that are in a lot of ways in disagreement with what the president is doing. I'll ask you a very straightforward question. It's a question that's been asked to me before, and it's a question that's fair considering the pay he is receiving and considering that in a lot of ways he's the face of the University of the Commonwealth here. Does President Ryan, is he the president of the University of Virginia 12 months from now, 24 months from now? I'm not dodging the question. Honestly, I don't know.

You know, you need, I don't know what the majority vote is, but your comments on him, you know, give him praise where he should. You're right. He did a heck of a job there. He relates to the students, but the actions of the last two years proved to me diversity is a one-way street. Diversity of opinion is a one-way street. And one very specific thing, and I could be wrong on this because we didn't tape it, but did you see the live conference, Jerry, after the shooting when Chief Longo came? Somebody asked Tim Longo, who my brother knows very well. He's a good man.

He's a good man. Did you know about this? And I'm pretty sure I'm right in this. He made it clear that he was not brought in in September. And two months later, three kids were killed. That complaint, and a girl filed to the system they have at UVA. This kid said he's got a gun. This kid said he's going to shoot somebody.

It went to the Judiciary Committee. I mean, are you kidding me? You should have had, if not University, Charlottesville police in the next day. Two months went by. So, you know, that's criminal. So I suspect, I don't know, I suspect that's what's going to come out, you know, validation of that. So, yes, I mean, that, everything else, there's a leadership vacuum. And, you know, no surprise, maybe you're categorized this way.

We're all categorized as old white racists. Well, I'm old and white, but I'm not a racist. We're not looking for UVA to become Liberty University. I'll give you two very quick anecdotes from when I was there. So I attended UVA in an Army ROTC scholarship. He went to drill on Wednesdays. Showed up in a uniform. Now, this was 1970.

And we weren't Berkeley, Jerry, but we had a lot of anti-Vietnam teachers and kids not once and i'm then i was 5'9 and 165 i have a few more pounds now but nobody went up to me spit in my face call me a baby killer drop the f-bomb that because president shannon who was against the war by the way would not allow it uh i had a quick one i had a i took a i was a history major, but took a course, the history of economics. Teacher comes in the first day and he says, full disclosure, I'm a Marxist economist. But I will not throw my views at you. We'll have open discussion. It was a small seminar of 25 people.

It's one of the best courses I ever took because we debated capitalism, communism, and socialism in an open way without screaming. That's the UBA I want. We're not saying shut down liberal thought. We're saying open it to people who have other opinions. And do not persecute kids and don't make them afraid to speak up in class. We even know cases of professors who were withheld tenure because they were, you know, not not strident but vocal about having a moderate conservative viewpoint i mean how does that work no and it's not 50 of them we have we have a number that that happened to tom neal our guest guys the president of the jefferson council you you

mentioned that you're a student at the university of virginia on an rotc scholarship i entered it yeah i uh i stupidly dropped it after my second year because I got in an argument with one of the professors of military. But I wish I wouldn't have been active because they would cut back. I would have been reserved. But I was in it two years and I've come from a military family. My two brothers are vets. The three nephews served in the Green Beret 82nd and Rangers. But I entered on a ROTC scholarship, yeah. This is a natural segue into the Theta Chi pledge.

Right. Who was ROTC at the University of Virginia, interrogated by an administrator in student affairs. Yeah. Yeah. The Accountability Department of Student Affairs, Yeah. Yeah. The Accountability Department of Student Affairs. The Jefferson Council. We played the audio on the Jefferson Council YouTube channel, what, two days ago on the talk show?

I think it was two days ago on I Love Seville. We gave the Jefferson Council credit for this audio. I have so many questions with this. If you missed that episode of the I Love Seville show, it's wherever you get your podcasting content. I'll give the who, what, when, where, why, and then get out of the way of Tom Neal, the president of the Jefferson Council, so he can offer some commentary. Theta Chi had its fraternal order of agreement suspended. The earliest that they can come back as a fraternity at the University of Virginia is 2028, 2029. One of the primary reasons the agreement was suspended was because of hazing.

One pledge, who was a ROTC scholarship student at the University of Virginia, was aggressively interrogated, and that's putting it lightly. I call it blackmail. I call it bullying. I call it just disgusting, especially if his parents are not there or if an attorney is not present. And this administrator said, I'm going to report you to your ROTC commander. I'm going to have your scholarship revoked. You're going to have to pay back the scholarship that you got for the time you've been here. I'm going to make an example of you, was dropping F-bombs to the kid, was threatening the kid, was basically saying he was going to humiliate the kid, said to the student, and I said kid, I shouldn't say kid, said to the young man who's on a ROTC scholarship, I'm smarter than you. I've worked with prosecutors and dealt with killers and murderers and those who have assaulted others, and you're nothing compared to them, and said, you better give me what I'm looking for, or your tail is mine. And that's literally what happened.

Interestingly, the audio of that investigation, that interrogation was recorded and then passed on to the Jefferson Council. Give us the play-by-play of what you saw here, how you got the audio, your thoughts on that interrogation that looked like blackmail to me. The man that was doing the interrogating has since resigned and stepped down, as the Cavalier Daily reported within the last 48 hours. I mean, I think the credit in a lot of ways goes to the Jefferson Council for exposing that audio of why this admin, this guy in accountability, stepped down from UVA. I'm out of your way here. The show is yours. You're right.

So here's what happened. Obviously, the student doesn't want his name revealed. He was even a little reluctant to say ROTC. I don't think that's a problem that won't cause any issues. So we have a guy on a part-time basis, mid-30s, does all our social media. The student didn't give that to us. He saw it because his kid released it, and there were over a thousand views. It was appalling. And I think he'll agree with this. You would have thought Joseph Goebbels was in charge of this. It was despicable, not just bullying, threatening the kid's life, career, and scholarship. So we released an

article on a Thursday or Friday morning. We got it out there on the web, and we notified the board and everybody else. Jim Bacon, who I should have mentioned earlier, terrific guy. Jim, Bert, and I were really the three founders. He gives us all the content because of Bacon's Rebellion. Over the weekend, he went out, and this guy's webpage had been removed. He went to, and I'm not sure, I think it might have been Guard, but one of the communications people at the university, what happened? He just said, he's no longer here. I think if we hadn't released that video and written that article, he'd still be here terrorizing the students.

And think about what he did. Was what Thadakai did sophomoric? Yes. Was it violent? No. They put something in a drink and two kids threw up. Yet they allow students for justice in Palestine to spit at Jewish students, remove their yarmulkes, rip the Israeli flag out from a time goal.

That's okay. That's okay. But two guys in a fraternity throw up during it, and they suspend them for three years. There have been nine fraternities suspended and kicked off grounds in the last four years. So is there intellectual diversity at UVA? Don't think so.

You know, the fraternity I was in didn't have hazing, but that kind of hazing is not putting a kid into a psychological bubble for 40 years or endangering his life. They're out to get fraternities because they don't like fraternities. And to terrorize this kid and threaten his life, that's like my comment earlier

on Morgan, Jerry. Who does that? Who does that? So that guy's blissfully gone gone but who's going to take his place and you and you did ryan do that no but ryan put that guy in charge you know when i was in business and you know this as well as i do the ceo of a company doesn't get away with having a division head screw up it's his job truman said the buck stops here the buck stops with ryan and you let a despicable guy like that terrorize young men. And the only reason he's gone is because he was outed.

And we did. I was a Phi Kappa Psi at the University of Virginia, the fraternity house right at the end of the Mad Bull on Rugby Road. We went through hazing that was significantly more severe. And now that I have children and two boys, I understand. I am concerned about hazing. But to Tom's point, the hazing that I went through, significantly more severe, the hazing that happened at Theta Chi pretty much consisted of eating some habaneros,

wearing some embarrassing clothing, learning and memorizing the fraternity creed doing wall sits push-ups and bows and toes i mean that type of activity is the same activity that's being done by varsity athletes with any of the sports teams at the university of virginia they're going through training camp and having to train to the point of exhaustion, maybe the point of vomiting. They're doing push-ups, bows and toes, sit-ups. They're having to learn the history and the mantras of their programs. And to say the hazing that's happening in 2024 at the University of Virginia is to the point of criminal, I find that to be an exaggeration. And my concern is, as a UVA guy and as a fraternity guy and as a father, my concern is it's really more of an ulterior motive the university has as it applies to the Greek system.

I think the University of Virginia is trying to eradicate or eviscerate the Greek system at the University of Virginia. And I don't understand why that is the case. Can you help me understand or enlighten me why you think that is? Correct me if I'm wrong. Wasn't your fraternity the one in the... Rolling Stone. That was in the Rolling Stone, yeah.

And, you know, it was a quote by one of the kids. And that was Sullivan. They assumed that they were guilty, I guess because they're, you know, white fraternity guys. One of the guys came out after it was turned out the girl had a mental problem. And he said, who can restore my honor? I'll never forget that. So why? You know, the assumption is, I guess, everybody that went to UVA came from a wealthy Southern family that was racist.

Well, I came from a not wealthy at all Northern family who loved Jefferson. So there's a knee jerk, pejorative stereotype of everybody that went to Virginia, which not only is wrong, it's inaccurate. So you're selectively allowing diversity of opinion. I'll touch on this briefly, but I lived it. Our two daughters got out in 14 and 17. All in cost then was low 60s to high 60s, low 70s. Third and fourth year in the college, what they call cost of attendance, room, board, apartments, or fees, $84,000. We're more expensive than Harvard.

But you only get aid up to $100,000. Under 50, I think it's free. tuition up to 100 150 you get two thousand dollars he's talking about he's talking about you're talking about family household income there correct so i know jim ryan didn't take finance but did he take math if you're a family making $175,000 to $250,000, which is pretty good compensation, under what world of delusion do you think you can pay $85,000 a year, much less if you have two or three kids like we did? You can't. So what do they care about? They care about ethnic diversity, and I'm all for that. I'm glad there are more international kids, and I'm glad there's more people of color. That's a good thing. But you don't exclude the middle class, which is what they have done. So you really

got to be wrong in the exact figure. I think the upper 5% of American family incomes are like over 275. So you're getting the upper 5%. You're getting lower middle class. Where's the economic diversity? He doesn't care. And one thing, I don't know about the Jefferson, I'm personally not against doing away with legacy, even though my kids, you know, theoretically got in on it.

My kids would have gotten in anyway, but you can't say on one side, you have to have a merit-based system and then say the legacy kids get an advantage. I understand that. And I'm behind that. But that doesn't mean you exclude de facto middle-class families that can't afford 85 000 84 000 a year that's insane and it's you alluded to it's the bloat it's not just dei it's that's five percent of it it's the administrative bloat oh i He's on point here. So I'll put what he said in a nutshell.

Out-of-state students, $85,000 a year to attend the University of Virginia, everything if they're out of state. I want Charlottesville and Alamaro County and Central Virginia residents, folks that are not tied to UVA, that just live in the area. When the out-of-state student body is at an $85,000 a year total cost clip to attend UVA and Charlottesville, this is undoubtedly causing significant gentrification of our community. It is rapidly gentrifying the community. It is shrinking the middle class in Charlottesville and Alamaro. You have one percenters with their parents' bank accounts spending significant money cannibalizing housing, and many of them are having their best four years of their lives here in Charlottesville,

choosing to return back to Charlottesville after some professional experience in either starting businesses or working hybrid or remote. So what Tom is saying is having gentrifying impacts on the community as well. I'll throw this to you here. Do you attribute, and we have questions coming in, which I'll get to. Viewers and listeners, if you have questions for the president of the Jefferson Council, I see about a half a dozen already. I'm happy to relay them to him live on air. Do you attribute this $85,000 a year out-of-state total cost to the bloat on the payroll as it applies to admins, deans, C-suite, anybody?

You highlighted something on the Jefferson Council that it's just too many people at the T to the cow when it comes to a paycheck. Well, yes, yes. And I'll give you one anecdote that could be multiplied by 12 times. We know the former dean of the Batten School. And when he was there, he had a I think I have this associate dean and administrative assistant. Ian Solomon, who was brought in, a bright guy, advisor to Obama, now has 11. Well, one can only come to a conclusion. People who have never been in business don't even understand business are taking over this thing, and they think the way to get ahead, because now you have so many things that you're doing now that have nothing to do with educating kids, DI among them.

The administrative bloat is just out. And it's not just here. I'm also the chairman of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance. There are 27 chapters, Virginia, W&L, Cornell, Davidson, and Princeton were the first five. Same thing at all these schools. And the alumni are going crazy. And, you know, this has been creeping along for years, Jerry. College is now unaffordable.

And if you look at it as you and I did in finance from a return on investment, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. And what I would offer, this is a little off topic, but what I would offer, universities have to have skin in the game. So what I would say, they don't care to increase because a kid takes out a student loan

and depending on who gets elected, they want to write off the student loans. Make the universities responsible for 25% of the loan. You think they'd start cutting expenses? It's insane. They don't care. But you're right. One of the defining competitive edges of UVA, and you know this, when I was there, it was 50% out of state. Now it's 33%. Carolina's 10%. Nothing wrong with that. But I came to Virginia because exactly the reason you said. Georgetown then and still is kind of a Catholic Harvard and very expensive.

It was all upper class kids. Kids on full scholarship. I wanted to go somewhere where I had in-state kids who came from, you know, I had a much richer experience because of that and the out-of-state kids when i went there were driving used buicks in the 60s my daughter was in a sorority i'd give my left leg to have half the cars those kids were driving in out-of-state you know i mean it's it's it's insane because and they you know my my kid was jokingly referred to as the poor girl because she was driving a used Patriot Jeep. And that made pretty good money, but not the kind of money where that didn't put a dent in my retirement.

And it's just wrong. I was, my brother and I, second generation UVA. We come from a entrepreneur's middle class family where both my mom and my dad worked in a small accounting firm that my dad owned. My mom greeted the clients and was the admins, and my dad was the CPA that did the work. And my brother and I grew up in what was then the copier room where businesses needed rooms for copiers that were the size of twin beds, basically. And when we went to the University of Virginia, my brother and I, it was my parents saying, you're going to stay in the Commonwealth to go to college because that's what we can afford and we need in-state tuition.

My brother was a resident advisor, an RA, which allowed him to get free board and a little bit of money. He then worked at the Biltmore as a waiter. I was a waiter and bartender and host at what was Ruby Tuesdays in Barracks Road, which is now Chopped Salad. And we walked to and from our jobs. And I remember distinctly while waiting tables or bartending at Ruby Tuesdays in Barracks Road, having fraternity brothers of mine at Phi Kappa Psi come in and get hammered and tip me and also heckle me for having a job while they were on a Sunday watching football and getting absolutely blitzed.

But that's what we had to do, and we left the University of Virginia without any student loans because we worked there. So I empathize for this position. I am concerned that the University of Virginia, and I'll get out of your way on this, has become a playground for either the uber, uber rich or those that are on the financial margin. And the middle class, even the upper middle class, no longer has a voice or position at this school. Yeah. Well, i worked at lucky seven if you remember that i love lucky seven absolutely yeah um yeah i'll give you you just nailed it i'll give you very specific anecdotes so i live in baltimore the public schools are horrific

so people already take out mortgages to put their kids in private catholic or non-catholic schools you know who's getting our students now? Georgia, Carolina, and Florida. I did, if you haven't seen it, I'll send it to you after the show. I did an analysis. Last September, I think her name was J.J. Harris, had this presentation to the board. And she's saying how cheap UVA is, but cheaper than any other state college. You know what she was comparing?

In-state Virginia tuition to out-of-state. Texas and Georgia. So I emailed the entire board in Ryan. I said, great point. Who cares? I did a chart that showed the in-state and the out-of-state. The only one that's close to us is Michigan. Carolina is about 20,000 less than we are.

Florida is about 35 less. Georgia is about 35 less. So kids coming out of private schools here, and the parents already paying $20,000 to $35,000 for the private school, where would you go unless you were Jefferson, you know, blindly pro-Jefferson? If you could go to UNC, Florida, and Georgia's ranked about 45th, Carolina's ranked ahead of us now, Florida's two behind us. So we're losing competitive, middle-class, out-of-state kids. And'm not sure of the academic term for this, Jerry, but the percent of kids who attend who are accepted, we've charted that.

It's going like this. Why? Cost. Now, I guess Jim Ryan doesn't understand competition. In the world I lived in for 40 years in business, you don't beat the competition by overpricing the product. Eventually, the product starts to go down, and you lose the business. And that's what's happening right now. But there's still enough people who are oblivious to what's happening or who are wealthy enough where it doesn't matter to fill it. That doesn't mean it's right. This question comes in for you. Please ask your guest what he thinks about the FIRE ranking with UVA being so high on free speech.

I believe the number one free speech school in the nation, according to FIRE. Our viewer and listener says that seems an odd result to him. And FIRE, an acronym for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, it's an organization that gauges free speech at schools. UVA got number one, was ranked number one. It was interesting because that was right in the shadows or the very near aftermath of the pro-Palestine protest debacle. Yeah, I know all about it. We're very familiar with FIRE. One of the guys, a good guy, Senior Executive Conor Murnane spoke two years ago at

our annual meeting. I'll give you the punchline line that's like being the tallest pickle uh you have to look behind the ranking we ranked in the high 200s uh with to me the number one criterion and that was students feel free to speak up in class we rank like 270 so yes we rank number one harvard ranked the lowest every single school that was ranked. The point is you shouldn't even have the ranking anymore. It's a joke. As I said, I'm chair of this other group where there's 27 like-minded alumni from Harvard, Yale, Davidson, all these other schools. It's the same thing.

So we ranked number one. It means nothing. However, I did email and spoke to the president of Fox. We still got him? It's frozen here. We're good. We're good. Keep going.

Yep. In many ways, it seems to invalidate everything we're saying. But you have to look at it. It's all accessible. Go on the FIRE website, open it up, and see the 25 criteria that go into the number one ranking. We're terrible. It just means we're first. It'd be like going to Leavenworth and getting 20 guys on death row and saying,

You're all going to die, but you're the least heinous of the 20. It's ludicrous. On Twitter, you're getting props from Ginny Hu. She says, I appreciate that Jefferson Council is shedding light on issues UVA wants to sweep under the rug. She's an alum of the University of Virginia. You have three newspapers, one locally and two across the state, and a TV station watching in the media right now. Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia and how his legacy is being portrayed to current alumni, to donors, prospective students, and their parents. We can spend an entire show on this one. Tom Neal, Thomas Jefferson's legacy. I'll go right to his presidency.

I mean, we all know what he did. Ironically, and as I said, I was a history major, got an MBA, went into finance later. But in 1807, and I don't remember the exact name of the law, Jerry, he pushed forward since really before he was president and got approved through Congress the law forbidding the importation of slaves. Now, morons today who never took history would say, well, gosh, you don't have slaves. That's super critical. Judge people in the context of their times. Jefferson, as you know, was not terribly good on fiscal management. Theoretically, he was talking about releasing his slaves. He didn't.

We could all cast dispersions. But he banned the importation of slaves. That was viewed to be Kamala Harris-like in 1807. So look at the man. Look at what he did. Look at his founding principles for UVA. Look for everything it stood for and we used to stand for. And what really gets me going, and that's why I started this thing,

when they say that America is systemically racist, as is UVA. Yeah, 1963, you betcha. I was there when Edgar Shannon took a coed, brought in, as we well should have, African American students. We're a heck of a lot better at that now. Judge people and judge institutions in the context of their times. And if you think he's racist, we better change the name of FDR Drive, because FDR presided over a segregated military and illegal prison, hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens. It's crazy. Next to Washington is the most outstanding founding father, period. End of discussion. And he has to be looked upon as that.

I had the former mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia on this talk show. She was in studio sitting right next to me. Her name is Nakia Walker. And the former mayor of Charlottesville, Nakia Walker, said on this talk show, we have the audio, that Thomas Jefferson should be completely removed and eradicated from the University of Virginia in all capacities. All capacities, almost exact words of what she said on this show. How does Jefferson's legacy persevere, or how is it preserved, at a time when not just the UVA community, not just the UVA alumni, not just UVA staff, admins, deans, C-suite, but all of us are challenged or being challenged by our history and how it applies to today? That's a complicated question. I'm curious of your thoughts on that.

Yeah, no, fair question. Look, I do institutions lean left. I had no clue until I formed this organization how bad it is. As we all know, Governor Yunkin got elected on CRT K-12 because of that god-awful incident in Loudoun County, which we don't have to go into. I would offer, and I think they're doing it, we've got to focus as much on the colleges, and not just here at VMI. We're close to those guys. What's happening there is a travesty. So the problem, Jerry, is that really our academic system, and I now understand this, from K through college, is dominated by people, a lot of whom truly think we're a systemically racist nation. You know, nothing's changed in their minds, and it's ludicrous. So, you know, we've had 70 years of affirmative action.

The UVA has the highest graduation rate of any state university for black kids. We should be proud of that. We're getting good kids. Yet the Racial Equity Task Force, and if you haven't read it, please read it, demanded, this is four years ago, they haven't done it yet, that the demographics for faculty, students, and mirror the demographics of the Commonwealth of Virginia, which is roughly 18%. Well, I'm half English, quarter Irish, quarter Norwegian. You couldn't find enough Norwegians to fill that. It's crazy.

It's not written anywhere that a white, black, brown, or red person has a right to go to UVA. You ought to go there on merit, and if you're treated badly because of your skin color, any kid that did that, kick them out. But that just doesn't happen. You know, Ryan forms these things about, for the best example, the religious task force on anti-Semitism and anti-Islamophobia. And I don't remember the guy's name, I think it was Ubawaki.

Quick. And then we got a video of him, we've shown on social media. He thinks that Christianity was and is a systemically racist religion. I mean, that's the guy you put in charge of a religious diversity task force? So, you know, it's insane. So the only way you change it is you change leadership. And then below that, in the world you and I lived in, you change division heads. Here you change deans. That's not my call, but I can tell you if I were on the board, that's what I'd be looking for. Can you put in perspective Jewish students at the University of Virginia and the level of concern or safety or fear they are feeling right now. We hear from a number of students at the University of Virginia,

and they said that it is a fragile environment for them. Yeah, for those, if you don't mind, editorial quickly. It's well documented. Our website is www.jeffersoncouncil.org. I'd encourage everybody who's listening to this, go under topic in intellectual diversity and look at Mattan Goldstein. I reached out to them. A lot of the parents didn't know who we were. I reached out to them really after October 7th. And that statement, the SJP came out with it, and I think 70 faculty signatories.

This was before Netanyahu lifted a finger. And they were praising the invasion of colonialist Israel. They're not afraid. They're paranoid. And we have not had Colombia yet where kids are getting beat up. But we have had Matan as a prime example. When SJP had their, this is the best answer, SJP had their thing on the rotunda. Matan showed up prime example, when SJP had their, this is the best answer, SJP had their thing on

the rotunda. Matan showed up, didn't say anything. He showed up with an Israeli flag very quietly. They tried to rip the flag out of his hands. They ripped his yarmulke off. They spit on him. As I said, now he's undertaking a lawsuit. On February 14th, and this is all documented, four, I think it was four, maybe five of the parents and their kids had a meeting with Ryan Provost Baucom and the Dean of Students and the Dean of Student Affairs. They laid it all out. I've seen the document, all factual. Baucom went up to a couple of them, embraced them, said, I'm a father. This is terrible. We'll take care of it. Nothing happened. They went back. Something's got to happen. Nothing happened. They swept it under a rug.

So here you have proven, virulent anti-Semitism. Not theoretical. Nothing has been done. So what other conclusion can you come to? To not only not do that, but to praise the invasion is justified because Israel has been a colonial... Read a history book. but to praise the invasion is justified because Israel has been a colonialism? Read a history book.

I think it was the Assyrians in 800 B.C. took over Israel, and they've been chased ever since then. I mean, it's ludicrous. So the kids are very justifiably paranoid. I don't think any of you pulled out, Jerry, but the parents were just distraught, to put it politely. And they've had to redress. They went to Ryan in February.

And as far as I can see, at least last semester, nothing was done. Hopefully it will be this fall. Do you find it, I'm curious of your perspective, your opinion, do you find it irregular or out of touch or difficult to understand why the University of Virginia is taking positions on geopolitical turmoil all the way across the globe? Like why City Council in Charlottesville, for example, was bullied by a very vocal minority in our community and a vocal minority in our community and a vocal minority in our community

bullied five elected officials that make $18,000 a year. The mayor makes 20,000 a year to take a stance on Israel and Palestine. And I had the take on this show here. These are elected officials in a 48,000 person community. Why are they offering a stance on geopolitical warfare? Like, why is the University of Virginia even wading into said, come out and support us, that's not the purview of the city council. I think it gets a little more muddy with the university. I don't think you proactively come out. But if somebody asked Jim Ryan, do you support the invasion of Israel?

I would say on a personal basis, no. Hamas tortured 1,200 people. But I wouldn't come out proactively and say, we stand for Israel. You shouldn't do that. And, you know, to be fair, I don't think they've said, we stand for Palestine. But I think you remain neutral on that. You have to. If you start taking positions

on geopolitical issues, neutrality is obliterated. You just can't do that. Early May, pro-Palestine protests that ends in pepper spraying with a militarized state police and teenagers wiping pepper spray from their faces and arrests being made that were later dropped. It was one of the, I think, darkest days in UVA history, right in the category, not on the same level, but in the category of August 11th and August 12th, 2017, here in Charlottesville and on grounds. What'd you make

of the pro-Palestine protest on grounds? Well, they, you know, I think I have this right, about a week before they changed the rules and made that illegal to put the tents up. I'd say broadly two things. One, a lot of people don't know this, the Lawton Rotunda are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. So forget about UVA and Jefferson. You can't go to the Taj Mahal and put a yellow sticky saying Mahatma Gandhi sucks. So you can't do that. You can't put tents out. But specifically to that point, I'll go back to President Ryan. He and Baucom were in, they called it a command center. I don't know where that was, but it was blocks away. Jerry, if you're the leader of the university, don't you think that's the time? You trot down from Carrs Hill, which is 100 yards away, stand up in front of the students

and say, I'm asking you as the president of the university to leave. You're breaking the regulations. If you don't leave, we have no choice but to arrest you. Now, who knows what would have happened? If he had done that, perhaps it would have dispersed, but he didn't do it. And so Youngkin and A.G. Meares had to call in the state police. They had no choice. So the kids broke it. And, you know, I get that. So there, Tom. Yeah, can you hear me? I got you. Keep going. We got you.

Yeah. One student came out and was you know saying i was persecuted and i'm having trauma well actions have consequences you knew you were breaking the regulations you were told not to do it so it uh i think the whole sjp thing is not just at uva they have 300 chappers across the u.s anybody who thinks they're benign people out for the palestinians and don't understand that they're out for the eradication. Half of those kids don't even know what from river to the sea means. So it does get a little murky when you allow a group that openly supports genocide. But I still think UVA ought to remain neutral on that.

You ought to allow them to say what they want. But that doesn't mean you openly support them against the Jewish kids. And it certainly doesn't mean you don't protect the Jewish kids who are being terrorized. And that's happening. And that's a fact. I am in direct contact with the Jewish parents. I know that. I got to ask you about the honor code.

Tom Neal is our guest, guys, president of the Jefferson Council. The honor code seems to go from single sanction when you were there, when my dad was there, when my brother and I were there, I mean, single sanction, seven, as early as five, six, seven years ago, to now an honor code of forgiveness and empathy and second chances. The University of Virginia is rooted in a single sanction honor code. It's one of the flags to champion of UVA. Now that is no longer the case, what's going on with the honor code? Well, I can tell you, to the Neal family, it's a big deal. Our oldest daughter was on the honor committee at University of Richmond. Our middle daughter was on the honor committee at UVA, and the youngest one was president of the honor committee at her high school.

Ironically, she didn't make the cut at UVA, and I suspect when she was asked about the single sanction, she said, I'm all for it. It's better to have what we have now than have nothing, but if you lie, cheat, or steal, and you're allowed to go away for a year, or you're lying or cheating or stealing is not deemed to be significant, then you don't have an article. When I was there, I was on Lefevre Dorm.

I had a very good friend across the hall. We were pals. I caught him cheating. We had a take-home exam. We both signed it. It was a math exam. And I said, how are you? Are you done?

Have you signed it? Yes, I have. And I said, I think I got this question wrong. Can you tell me? And I did, and I got a 93 on the exam. He was a little bit of an arrogant guy he goes let me go through the rest of it he got to another question and i so actually you got that wrong and i could see the look on his face if you got a hundred you were exempt from the final you get the grades back you got a hundred so i went to an honor advisor and he said tom you can turn him in but you won't get prosecuted this is a very good friend but that's how much I believed in the honor code.

When I confronted him, I said, I'm not going to turn him in, but I know you cheated. He burst into tears. So he cheated. If you don't want the honor code, you don't want to live in a community of honor, don't go to UVA. If you don't want to serve in the military and you don't want to have an honor code, don't go to a military academy. Plenty of places you can go.

Don't go to a university with a tradition like the honor code and then screw it up. So I wish it would go back to single sanction. I think that's probably a bridge too far. But we can certainly start to prosecute true honor violations and not give people timeouts. We'll close with this. You've been fantastic. We've gone in an hour here, Tom. I really appreciate your time. I'm going to offer you an opportunity to offer commentary or perspective on anything you want, anything we have covered, anything we have not covered,

anything that should be on the record. You have a lot of people watching here. And then we'll close the program by asking you how folks can follow the Jefferson Council, get to know the Jefferson Council, join, support, donate. But first, the time is yours, sir. We appreciate your time anywhere you want to go on the talk show. Yeah, just real quickly. I think the governor, for the most part, has put very good people on the board. I can tell you we're in touch with them. I think you really are going to see change. It's not going to happen overnight because it just doesn't. But they're working very hard to address everything we've talked about, Jerry. And I have faith in the board and faith that that's going to happen.

So we've been pounding on a table for almost four years now. I think a lot of what we've been pushing for, a lot of the information we feed these people off the record is going to benefit. What I'd ask people here, obviously we're not for profit. I'm a volunteer. We are looking for a full-time executive director. My part-time job is probably working as hard as I was when I was in private equity. But I'm doing it because I believe in it. And I'll tell you on a personal level, we're now grandparents.

I'm not doing it for me. I'm doing it for our grandkids. I don't want our kids walking into this kind of thing, you know, in 18 years. So I'd ask people, if you can, excuse me, join our group. We're not asking people to fork over $5,000. All that would be nice. But we can't survive without support. So, as I said, our website is

www.jeffersoncouncil.org. I think you'll find a wealth of information on there in our news section. We've chronicled all of this, and I think you'll find what we've dug up to be very illuminating and also appalling. Everything you've talked about and I've talked about, I've not exaggerated one thing, and I believe in the honor code. So it's even worse than what I've said because it's stuff I can't tell people about. We've got to change this for our grandkids, our kids, and for Mr. Jefferson. Tom, I appreciate your time today. I enjoyed putting a face to the emails, and thank you for spending an hour with our with our viewers and listeners sir thanks very much and if you don't mind uh just email me on how i can access this we'd like to

post this on our website absolutely judah judah will send uh the package in the show to you after the show well jerry thanks i really appreciate you taking the time okay take care. Tom Neal, guys. President, the Jefferson Council. And, you know, I think the Jefferson Council is moving thechievous and precocious first year in Dabney Old Dorms 101. So I've been in this community for 24 years now. And in the 24 years I've gone from first year at UVA to business owner, launched a company 16 years ago, to husband, and now father of two. It's crazy that happens in 24 years. So I've had a perspective shift on so many things. And as my perspective has shifted, and with the benefit of history, and with the benefit of experience, and being actively involved with not just the UVA,

Charlottesville, but also Albemarle County communities, a lot of me does not even recognize our community or the school that I love dearly, the University of Virginia. I do not recognize Charlottesville. I do not recognize UVA. It was not, the current form is not the form that I first experienced in the year 2000. And I understand change is inevitable. It's right there with death and taxes. But not all change is good. And they're individuals and organizations that understand that not all change is good and that change can be corrected or repositioned. I think that's what

the Jefferson Council is looking to do with its efforts. And I'm very curious to see what happens with the University of Virginia with 13 Glenn Youngkin appointees on the Board of Visitors, including one of them, the co-founder of the organization, the Jefferson Council, we just spent an hour with, and that's Bert Ellis. iloveceville.com on every social media platform and wherever you get your podcasting content. Judah, if you could, please send that to Tom Neal, the raw file and the link from I Love Seville. I want them to have the raw file because I would imagine that they're going to edit some of this to publish on their YouTube channels and their website. tomorrow's programming real talk with Keith Smith at 10.15am and the I Love Seville show at 12.30

we have the downtown spotlight with Greer Achenbach and the Friends of Seville non-profit today at 2.30 remember next week the network is off because we're on vacation the team is on vacation and regularly scheduled programming returns the following Monday Remember, next week the network is off because we're on vacation. The team is on vacation.

And regularly scheduled programming returns the following Monday, which is the 14th of October. This is the I Love Seville Show. We are less than two miles from Thomas Jefferson's University, our studio, right here in downtown Charlottesville. For Judah Wickhauer, my name is Jerry Miller.