In April this year, Virginia revealed three new designs, two of which featured sword handles. In doing so, the school deliberately made the handles of the sword a reference to the serpentine walls found on campus. At first glance it seemed like a nice nod to the school, but people quickly started to criticize the design.
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Virginia athletics director Carla Williams announced earlier this week the university removed the curves that were added to the handles.
Here’s Williams’ statement in full:
The reference was subtle, but the change was minor enough where Virginia felt it was right to remove it.
As for how the serpentine walls are a reference to slavery, we’ll cite Virginia’s own report on that issue. In 2013, Teresa Sullivan (president of UVA at the time) formed the President’s Commission on Slavery to look into the school’s history. In 2018, a full report was created.
From the report:
The report found that the walls didn’t work as intended, but they were built with the specific purpose of keeping enslaved people separated from the student bodt. So honoring those walls was a bad look to represent on the school’s logo, which is why Virginia ultimately removed them.
