Risa Goluboff – C-VILLE Weekly

In brief: Some kids lobby, some get married and some listen to Drake

Mental health focus

Lucas Johnson isn’t old enough to vote yet, but the 17-year-old Monticello High senior and his peers from two other county high schools—Choetsow Tenzin at Albemarle and Alex Moreno at Western Albemarle—didn’t let that stop them from demanding the General Assembly support more school instruction on mental health.

“I had a best friend who admitted to me she wanted to drive her car through a guardrail,” says Johnson. “That really shook me. Alex had to go to two funerals for people who’d committed suicide. And Choetsow had numerous friends who struggled with mental health.”

The teens want more time devoted to mental health in ninth and 10th grade health classes, and they have proposed changes to the Code of Virginia to say mental health must be included. “We came out of our health classes knowing nothing about mental health,” says Johnson. “We were concerned we didn’t know how to help.”

The three met at the Sorensen Institute High School Leaders Program last summer, and did preliminary work on the bill there. They met with state Senator Creigh Deeds, who has been a leading advocate for strengthening mental health services in Virginia after his son, Gus, committed suicide in 2013.

And they have powerful allies in the House of Delegates, where Rob Bell is patron of the bill and Delegate Steve Landes, chair of the House Education Committee, is copatron.

“We went to Richmond on January 27 to lobby,” says Johnson, and they have been two other times since the General Assembly has been in session, scheduling a “slew of meetings” to get copatrons and testifying.

Their efforts appear to have paid off. The Deeds-backed Senate bill passed 39-1 February 13, and the House bill got a unanimous nod that same day.

Johnson has been interested in politics and policy for years and says this “has only furthered” his interest, especially as it could bring actual change.

“We came out of our health classes knowing nothing about mental health.” Monticello High school student Lucas Johnson

Flu fatality

The first flu-related death in the Charlottesville area was reported February 16 at the University of Virginia Health System, where clinicians have categorized this flu season as “moderately heavy,” and have seen 450 confirmed cases since October.

Credit Image: © Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via ZUMA Press

University regs

After the summer’s white supremacist torch rally that ended in a brawl on Grounds, UVA School of Law Dean Risa Goluboff is leading the charge to re-examine how the school regulates events. Her recommendations to the faculty senate require people who aren’t students, faculty or staff to reserve their space ahead of time, with reservations capped at 25 people for up to two hours on weekdays.

Stops and frisks

Charlottesville Police detentions of those who are not arrested continue to be predominantly African-American (around 70 percent), and have increased, according to documents civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. He says last year’s 151 detentions far exceed previous years, and that former chief Al Thomas ordered tracking of the stops halted.

Cat’s out of the bag

Scottsville Town Council voted on a trap-neuter-return program as a humane way to deal with the town’s feral cat colonies on February 20 after C-VILLE Weekly went to press. Scottsville Weekly reported in 2013 that the town’s Cat Man—Bud Woodward—had trapped more than 100 cats and taken them to be spayed. Apparently the problem persists.

Run, Kate, run

Kate Fletcher, a 43-year-old English teacher at Louisa County High School, will attempt to run for 24 continuous hours starting at the high school’s track at 8:30am on March 29, in an effort to raise money for the LCHS newspaper class and college-bound seniors.

Quote of the Week: “8th grade to now…still get the butterflies. I love you #2/18/18 @AlexaJenkins_” —UVA sophomore guard Kyle Guy proposes to his longtime girlfriend during the No. 1 basketball team’s eight-day break

Tracking top songs

Based on the results of C-VILLE’s online poll, rock hits and rap wits share common ground when it comes to the unique blend of area high schooler’s musical taste, showing the world that the next generation of humans might not be so doomed after all. And even if they are, they’ll have some awesome playlists to accompany the apocalypse.

Drake took the No. 1 spot with his song “God’s Plan,” followed closely by Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow.” And a surprising tie for third was a mix of old and new, with Billy Joel and Frank Ocean fans making their voices heard. Rounding out the results was an eclectic mix of genres ranging from Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and Queen’s “Killer Queen,” to Lil Skies’ “Nowadays” and Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect.”

‘Poetic justice:’ First black UVA student celebrated

In the midst of a national controversy surrounding racial inequality and civil rights, members of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Bar Association unveiled a 150-pound bronze marker July 12 to commemorate the first African-American student ever admitted to the University of Virginia.

When Danville native Gregory Hayes Swanson, a 26-year-old practicing lawyer, applied for admission to UVA’s School of Law in 1949, faculty voted unanimously to admit him, though the university was white-only. On the advice of the state attorney general, the school’s Board of Visitors then denied Swanson’s acceptance.

Swanson and his legal team—comprised of well-known NAACP members Thurgood Marshall, Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill—filed suit against the university’s rector and BOV. His case was heard and a judge ruled in Swanson’s favor on September 5, 1950, in the very room where bar association members hung the plaque in his honor. While it is now called the McIntire Room in the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library, then it was home to the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia.

McIntire Plack — The plaque commemorating Gregory Swanson was unveiled by the Charlottesville-Albemarle Bar Association July 12. Staff photo

The nearly $3,000 plaque was made possible by the dues of 417 bar association members. Charlottesville public defender Jim Hingeley, who spearheaded the commemoration project, said at the unveiling that he remembered practicing law in that very room in the late 1970s when he first started practicing law. The marker, he said, now hangs on the wall behind the podium in which the judge’s bench once sat.

“I don’t think commemoration is only celebration,” said Risa Goluboff at the event, who had been dean of the university’s law school for just 12 days. “There’s something more sober.”

Though she said she feels proud to be a part of the school that broke the color barrier at UVA, she added that it is also important to acknowledge regret and “a past that isn’t always comfortable” when commemorating history.

Charlottesville has been doing a lot of that lately.

In March, Mayor Mike Signer called for a Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Places after a massive controversy was sparked by Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy, who called for the removal of the General Robert E. Lee statue from Lee Park. The commission’s objective is to recommend to City Council how to approach those topics, including Confederate memorials.

“One of the really exciting things about that plaque in the library is that it’s uncovering history that a lot of people don’t know,” says City Councilor Kristin Szakos, who also supports removing the Lee statue. “I hate to compare [the plaque] to other monuments because there’s plenty of history to go around, but I will say that the big statue monuments that we have in town are not about local history. They’re more about ideas, whereas this is really about something that happened right here.”

Lewis Martin was the bar president the majority of the year that the commemoration project was underway, and he says recognizing important historical figures can bring a community together.

“We don’t want to tear down historic monuments because that’s divisive to the community,” he says. “What we want to do is recognize historical actions and the people who were involved in those actions.”

And doing so, in the very room that Gregory Hayes Swanson v. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia was decided, is what Swanson’s nephew, Evans Hopkins, called “poetic justice.”

This year’s General Assembly passed Delegate Jennifer McClellan’s resolution that commemorates the life and legacy of Swanson, who helped pave the way for Brown v. Board of Education, which eventually declared laws requiring blacks and whites to attend separate schools unconstitutional.

“This is over 50 years late, but better late than never,” McClellan said at the unveiling while presenting Hopkins with a framed resolution certificate.

Echoing the words his uncle said after he won his case and was admitted to UVA’s law school, Hopkins said, “Justice starts right here.”