City of Richmond sells building to Planned Parenthood for $10 and more Virginia headlines
BY: STAFF REPORT - JULY 24, 2024 5:23 AM

• “The nearly forgotten law that kept Virginia universities segregated for 30 years.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch

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The nearly forgotten law that kept Virginia universities segregated for 30 years
Leah Shepard Jul 23, 2024



Alice Jackson Stuart is shown in her Virginia Union University cap and gown, in Richmond, Va., in this 1934 handout file photo. Stuart, who obtained her undergraduate degree from Virginia Union, was denied admission to the University of Virginia graduate school in a letter citing the state's long-standing segregation laws and "other good and sufficient reasons not necessary to be herein enumerated." (AP Photo/University of Virginia, File)

In 1935, Richmond native Alice Jackson was the first Black student to apply for graduate school at the University of Virginia. ... Jackson, who graduated from Virginia Union University in 1934 with her bachelor’s degree in education, wanted to pursue a master’s degree in French at UVA. She had already completed a year of postgraduate studies at Smith College in Massachusetts.

Her application was rejected on the grounds that racially integrated schools were “contrary to the long-established and fixed policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia.” They also cited other “good and sufficient reasons not necessary to be herein enumerated.”

Jackson wouldn’t take no for an answer. She pushed the issue, and the NAACP and then-lawyer Thurgood Marshall became involved in the pushback. ... In a letter to the admission’s board at UVA, Jackson urged the board to specify what “other reasons” they had for not admitting her. She wrote, “the ‘other good and sufficient reasons’ may be such that I can remove them by additional information.”



As a response, the General Assembly of Virginia created a law that would become known as the Dovell Act, which paid tuition and traveling expenses of Black academics to attend out-of-state schools. ... After the Dovell Act passed, Jackson went on to receive her master’s degree from Columbia University. She taught in higher education for five decades.

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University of Virginia Library Online Exhibits * Breaking and Making Tradition: Women at the University of Virginia



As an institution rooted firmly in tradition, the University of Virginia had been slow to welcome changes that appeared contradictory to its longstanding customs. Thus, through the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, women and minorities encountered much resistance when they sought entry to the University. ... The application of Alice C. Jackson, an African-American female, to the University in 1935 flew in the face of the school's tradition as an institution for "Southern Gentlemen." The Board of Visitors rejected her application.

Following Jackson's application and the media attention it generated, the Commonwealth began to offer additional-but separate-higher education opportunities to African Americans across the state. In 1935 a graduate school for African Americans was established at Virginia State University in Petersburg. The following year the General Assembly passed a bill providing scholarship funds for African-American students to attend educational institutions outside of the state.

The University admitted its first African-American student in 1950 with the enrollment of Gregory Swanson in the School of Law. His application opened the doors to African Americans at the University and signaled a gradual change to the prevailing ideas of who could be a U.Va. student. More African Americans enrolled at the school throughout the 1950s, and greater numbers of women became students at the University each year. The School of Nursing accepted its first African-American student, Mavis Claytor, in 1968.

Today, African Americans comprise nine percent of undergraduates, Asian Americans eleven percent, and Hispanics three percent.

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