Bert Ellis is a rich man from Atlanta who owns TV stations and an investment firm. He’s also an outspoken critic of UVA where he studied economics as an undergraduate and business at the Darden School. He recently complained that the board of visitors focused too much on diversity, equity and inclusion, not enough on teaching.
The effort to diversity faculty and the student body, to teach about racism and sexism has served UVA well according to student council vice president Jaden Evans.
"The university is more diverse than it has ever been. It’s also seeing more success than it’s ever had," he explains. "It’s harder to get into the university. It is the number one health system in the state of Virginia, so I think such claims are frankly ridiculous."
And he recalls with dismay the day Ellis came to town to confront an unhappy student who had put a profane sign on her lawn-side residence.
"It said, ‘F*** UVA on the sign,” and Ellis, as just an interested alumnus, actually traveled across state lines to the university to confront this student at their residence with a razor blade, which we thought was entirely inappropriate."
Ellis said he planned to use that blade to cut the naughty word from that sign, and when the student refused to speak with him, he stood outside her closed door complaining. Now, president Ceci Cain says student council would like Ellis to resign.
"This is something we felt strong enough to say something about," she says. "We waited a little bit to see if other UVA institutions would say anything about it, and when no one did speak up, we decided it was our place to do so."
Council executive Gabriela Hernandez agrees Ellis must go.
"You know we have a duty to ensure that students feel safe about being here on grounds, and I feel like we should have confidence in the people who are making these big picture decisions."
She hopes other students will join in calling for a resignation, and Cain wants the public to pay closer attention to other appointments by Governor Glenn Youngkin.
"I think this was a really irresponsible and negligent decision to make, and he has a lot more decisions and appointments to make in terms of UVA and education generally, and so hopefully this will force people to pay a little more attention to these decisions as well."
Ellis started an alumni group called the Jefferson Council, to preserve the legacy of UVA’s founder, but Council President Cain says this is not just Mr. Jefferson’s university.
"Women are here now. People with less wealth are here now. Black people are here now, and it’s just as much our university as it was Jefferson’s or is Bert Ellis’s, and so we’re going to continue to make these changes. He can’t intimidate and bring blades to the doors of students to scare us out of this university."
We reached out to Bert Ellis, but he did not return our call.