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The University of Virginia Board of Visitors voted to implement some of the changes called for in the report the university issued addressing what it could have done better during and leading up to the August violence and protests in Charlottesville.
Although the violence at the “Unite the Right” rally that left one woman dead occurred off-campus, white supremacists who were gathered for the protest marched through UVA's campus the night before, torches in hand, chanting “You will not replace us,” and “Jews will not replace us.” According to a timeline compiled by a university working group, campus police arrested one person during the nighttime incident and declared it an unlawful assembly before breaking it up.
Last week, the working group released a report on what the university could have done better in response to the white supremacist protests. Among its recommendations were enforcing the “open-flame” policy and state law that should have prevented people from marching with torches.
The board voted to strengthen the open-flame policy and apply it specifically to the Lawn, according to local media. It also voted to make the Lawn an official campus facility, which the report said would allow more regulations -- such as a weapons ban -- to apply there.
The new policies would not bring about one of the report’s other suggestions, which was the adoption of “constitutionally permissible time, place, and manner regulations” for protests using university space.
The board also voted on the fate of plaques and tablets on the university rotunda honoring UVA students and alumni who died in the Civil War fighting for the Confederacy, stating in a resolution that it favored relocating the tablets to a place where their history can be better contextualized.
The board also called for students and alumni who fought for the Confederacy to be honored in a different way, possibly with a different tablet that could be placed on the rotunda.
