Photo: Snapper Tams, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A lawyer who graduated from the then-T.C. Williams School of Law at Richmond University is demanding $3.6 billion from his alma mater after they removed his grandfather's name from the school.
Robert C. Smith is the great-great-grandson of T.C. Williams, whose family donated $25,000 to the school after his death in 1890.
In September, the university's board voted unanimously to change the name of the law school to the University of Richmond School of Law after it was revealed that Williams owned up to 40 slaves on his tobacco plantations. The board justified removing his name from school because of a policy that prohibits the school from naming any building or program after a person "who directly engaged in the trafficking and/or enslavement of others or openly advocated for the enslavement of people."
When Smith learned that the school was changing his name, he was livid and penned a five-page letter to the school, asking them to return all of the money his family donated over the years. He wants the money adjusted for inflation plus an additional 6% interest.
"Since you and your activists went out of your way to discredit the Williams name and since presumably the Williams family money is tainted, demonstrate your 'virtue' and give it all back," Smith wrote in the letter, which was obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "I suggest you immediately turn over the [school's] entire $3.3 billion endowment to the current descendants of T.C. Williams Sr."
The university has not responded to his letter, and Smith told the Washington Post that he has not decided if he will take legal action against the school.