A steady hand for the transition
Kenneth P. Ruscio '76 has been named as the interim president to replace the departing William Dudley. A solid, interim choice, but hard work remains.
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1 min read
We Are Not Unmindful of the Future
A champion for change at W&L and beyond. Anti racist. Anti fascist. Anti ignorance.
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Honor, integrity, and civility
Washington and Lee's presidential profile is more serious than expected, but its emphasis on civility reveals a load-bearing contradiction.
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3 min read
Thoughts on the next president
As Washington and Lee undertakes this critical search, we must articulate the qualities needed to lead the university through necessary evolution while preserving what makes it genuinely excellent.
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4 min read
Help support Not Unmindful
Help support Not Unmindful and keep the alive and producing commentary.
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1 min read
Latest Posts
Philip Meredith freed his own damn self
There is no portrait of Philip Meredith, only an X on a government form. Lee wouldn't file the paperwork to free him, so Meredith filed it himself.
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6 min read
Lemon was a man
William & Mary owned a man named Lemon. It named a scholarship for him and reckoned, at last, with its slaveholding past. The Justice Department has now entered that reckoning into evidence—and opened a civil-rights investigation into the college for it.
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4 min read
McMahon's call to action, and what it means for W&L
The Secretary of the Department of Education, Linda McMahon, just asked every college—W&L included, for the first time— o publish reform pledges by year's end. The talking points for those against academic freedom now come with a federal deadline attached.
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2 min read
The Board was the weapon
Three Virginia university leaders were forced out by Youngkin-appointed boards doing the Trump administration's DEI dirty work. George Mason's Gregory Washington survived. The difference was a new governor.
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7 min read
"Rigged": every accusation is a confession
The same lie, the same program, the same state, for a decade. When Donald Trump calls California's elections rigged, he isn't describing fraud. He's describing mail ballots, extended counting windows, and automatic distribution—the machinery of access.
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3 min read
Jim Crow returns: the maps were ready
The Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais ruling gutted the Voting Rights Act on April 29. By nightfall, Florida had a new congressional map. Mississippi had scheduled its special session before the opinion was written. The racism wasn't created by Callais—it was waiting for permission.
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4 min read
A steady hand for the transition
Kenneth P. Ruscio '76 has been named as the interim president to replace the departing William Dudley. A solid, interim choice, but hard work remains.
·
1 min read
Veneration is not history
The Lost Cause didn't need a museum. It had something better: an entire campus organized around a single, uncontested interpretation. Immersion without interpretation isn't education. It's indoctrination.
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4 min read
