Slavery, Ancestors, UVA Law: Part 2

Before Spring Break, I wrote an article in Law Weekly about how I discovered that two of my ancestors (Confederate officers and prominent slaveholders Matthew Whitaker Ransom and Thomas Williams Mason) were associated with the University of Virginia School of Law. Normally, that would be pretty cool, but these ancestors only appeared in my family tree because they had enslaved other ancestors. I wrote that article in part to come to terms with my own feelings, and in part as a response to recent federal efforts to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. I wanted people to understand how recently this all happened in American history.

Since the publication of my last article, the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors unanimously voted to end its DEI Office,[1] partly in response to President Donald Trump’s Executive Order No. 14173 and recent guidance by the U.S. Department of Education. The U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. threatened Georgetown Law, refusing to hire any law school graduate who attended a university that teaches DEI.[2] In response, Georgetown Dean William Treanor wrote that “[g]iven the First Amendment’s protection of a university’s freedom to determine its own curriculum and how to deliver it, the constitutional violation behind this threat is clear.”[3]

The attacks on DEI contain more than a good-faith debate over whether government policy should promote “equality of opportunity” or “equality of outcomes.” The President’s rhetoric about dismantling DEI programs in order to “restore merit-based opportunities”[4] is belied by the current makeup of the Trump Administration.[5] Governor Glenn Younkin claimed in his statement praising the closing of UVA’s DEI office that “[s]tudents at Mr. Jefferson’s University…deserve unlimited intellectual freedom.” If so, then why do opponents seek to eliminate DEI and, in the case of Georgetown Law, try to place limits on what university faculty can teach?

Instead, the dismantling of DEI across the country is little more than what those with power have always sought to do: silence the powerless.

Revisiting my ancestors

In my last article about my ancestors, I contributed to this dynamic. I wrote almost exclusively about the white slaveholding ancestors and little about the men and women they enslaved. Thank you to everyone who texted or emailed me for the rest of their stories.

My third-great-grandmother, Emma Outland, was born into slavery around 1840 or 1844 in Northampton County, North Carolina on Matthew Ransom’s Verona plantation. He fathered Douglas Ransom, my great-great-grandfather, with her. My other third-great-grandmother, Alice Simms was born into slavery in approximately 1848 on the Mason family plantation, Longview. Probably around 1862, Thomas Mason fathered Nannie Mason, my great-great-grandmother, with Alice Simms.

And that’s basically everything I know about my enslaved ancestors. I spent years researching them just to compile those few sentences. There is nothing else about them that was recorded for history. I read several biographies of Matthew Ransom; no mention by name of the people he enslaved. I read thousands of pages of personal correspondence for both Matthew Ransom and Thomas Mason; no mention by name of those they held in bondage.

Society did not view the lives of Alice Simms and Emma Outland as valuable; their experiences, deeds, adventures, hopes, dreams, fears, letters, personal possessions, photos, etc. were not recorded or passed down. I can go to the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia and see portraits of Matthew Ransom in a museum. Nobody even knows where Alice Simms is buried.

[1] Dmitry Martirosov, UVa abolishes DEI Office, The Daily Progress (Mar. 7, 2025), https://dailyprogress.com/news/local/education/higher-education/uva/article_6a8d06b2-fba8-11ef-bd8d-4f0249999773.html.

[2] Spencer S. Hsu and Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, D.C. U.S. attorney tells Georgetown he won’t hire from any school with ‘DEI’, The Washington Post (Mar. 5, 2025), https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/03/05/dc-us-attorney-ed-martin-georgetown-law-dei/.

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/06480bde-06ed-419f-841e-762c8198b508.pdf.

[4] Hsu and Rosenzweig-Ziff, supra note 2.

[5] E.g. does anybody seriously think Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is remotely qualified to lead Health and Human Services?