A dispute between the Montpelier Foundation board and the Montpelier Descendants Committee over a power-sharing agreement reached last summer has now snowballed into what appears to be a full-on revolt by staff at the fourth U.S. president’s historic estate.
“By revoking parity with the MDC and by firing and suspending staff, TMF has attempted to co-opt the meaning of this ancestral space, and in the process has done irreparable harm to the security of and accessibility to these culturally significant resources,” reads a statement released Saturday, April 23, on a new website, montpelierstaff.com, and signed by “a majority of full-time staff and a growing number of part-time staff.”
The controversy erupted in late March when the Montpelier Foundation board voted to reverse its June 2021 decision to rewrite the bylaws granting the MDC the right to recommend at least half the members of the board. The stated goal was to create “structural parity” by giving descendants of the enslaved workers who built and ran Montpelier equal say in determining the future of the site.
The reversal prompted immediate backlash from the MDC, Montpelier staff, and historic preservation groups including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which owns Montpelier and leases it to the foundation.
Foundation Board Chair Gene Hickok insisted the board would still create structural parity by appointing descendants itself; he blamed the situation on the MDC for refusing to recognize two descendants put forth by the board as contributing to structural parity.
“That’s not partnership. It’s not collegiality. And that’s not what the original understanding of our relationship would be,” he said in an interview earlier this month. Neither Hickok nor Montpelier CEO Roy Young responded to a request for comment for this article.
The situation further deteriorated last week when Young fired multiple high-level staff members including Executive Vice President and Chief Curator Elizabeth Chew and Director of Archaeology and Landscape Restoration Matt Reeves.
According to the statement from remaining Montpelier staff, those firings came in retaliation for public statements in support of the MDC and have created a “culture of fear” for those staff members who remain.
Hickok initially released a statement defending the board’s actions and placing the blame on MDC. After last week’s firings, the foundation board released a new statement with an offered compromise. MDC could put forth a list of 15 people from which nine would be chosen to serve on the board. Half would begin serving July 1 and the other half would be installed on October 1.
MDC attorney Greg Werkheiser said that was a move in the right direction, but he said the delay in installing some of the MDC-recommended board members was a deal-breaker.
“The reason they would do that is because by splitting up these new board members, they maintain their two-thirds majority,” Werkheiser says. “And in those four months, they will not rehire the fired staff. They will fire additional staff. They will take actions against the current serving MDC board members, and they have the power with a two-thirds majority to actually expand the board and dilute any new MDC members they put on.”
The Montpelier staff also reject the foundation’s compromise, and do so using charged language.
“In short, the Board is offering a type of ‘three fifths compromise’ which will allow TMF to retain full control and sideline the MDC as an equal steward of the site,” staff write, referring to the agreement in the U.S. Constitution that said three-fifths of the enslaved population would be counted when determining taxation and representation.
The staff statement describes the devastation wrought by the foundation’s actions.
“TMF has defiled archaeological ethics and museum best practices by endangering the data and research of the site,” it reads. “At present, there are open excavation units that are abandoned mid-excavation. Artifacts and other archaeological samples remain unprocessed.”
The foundation’s actions are not just “unethical and immoral,” the staffers claim, they also violate federal law.
“Archaeology is an inherently destructive science which rests entirely on proper recording and protection of data and the direct involvement of a site’s cultural descendants,” the statement reads. “By leaving this site abandoned and removing staff with institutional knowledge, Montpelier’s ‘leadership’ has put the property’s cultural heritage at risk, the stories at risk, and the ability for this information to be shared at risk.”
The MDC has previously called for Young and Hickok to resign; the National Trust released a statement condemning the firings and suggesting the foundation change leadership.
The National Trust did not respond to a request for comment on whether the Montpelier lease could be revoked.
The Montpelier staff statement repeats the call for foundation leadership to resign and says there is only one acceptable path forward.
“There is no justifiable reason to trust any proposal that does not begin with immediate parity with the MDC and the reinstatement of fired staff who steward Montpelier’s historic resources,” it reads.
Courteney Stuart is the host of “Charlottesville Right Now” on WINA. You can hear interviews with Greg Werkheiser and Gene Hickok at wina.com.