The University of Virginia and leaders from Monticello on Tuesday honored the chief justice of the United States, the host of PBS’ “Finding Your Roots,” and an architect named one of the most influential people in the world with Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medals as part of 鶹ƽ Founder’s Day festivities.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Jeanne Gang received awards for their contributions in law, citizen leadership and architecture, respectively.
Held in the Rotunda’s Dome Room, the awards are the centerpiece of this year’s Founder’s Day observances, a commemoration of UVA founder and third U.S. President Thomas Jefferson’s April 13 birthday. The annual awards, sponsored by the University and Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Monticello, honor luminaries in the three areas Jefferson held in high regard.
“The remarkable medalists whom we are celebrating today embody Jefferson’s call to leadership in the work they have chosen,” UVA President Scott C. Beardsley said. “The University does not grant honorary degrees, so these medals represent the highest honor that UVA can offer.”
The winner of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Citizen Leadership, Gates exhorts a Rotunda audience to remember “radical proposition that rights are not granted by kings or churches or bloodlines, but are inherent in the human person.” (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)
A Harvard University professor and researcher, Gates is best known for the genealogy detective television series in which he and his research team explore the ancestry of celebrities and influencers from different backgrounds. He’s also one of the country’s foremost experts on African American literature and literary traditions, an award-winning producer of films and television series and the author of numerous books.
In accepting the award, Gates said the country, and the world, should look to Jefferson for both what he was and what he professed.
“That full record reveals a deeply, painfully contradictory man who reached into the political philosophy of his age and pulled out something that had never been made the foundation of a nation state: the radical proposition that rights are not granted by kings or churches or bloodlines, but are inherent in the human person,” Gates said.
“Jefferson didn’t invent that idea, but he made it constitutional. He made it dangerous. He made it the kind of thing that, once written down, could be turned against every subsequent injustice,” he said.
Roberts recounts Jefferson’s difficulties with the nation’s fourth chief justice of the United States. Roberts made his comments after being named the winner of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Law. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)
The winner of the medal for law, Roberts earned a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1979 and served as a law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2005, President George W. Bush nominated Roberts , filling the chief justice slot vacated by Rehnquist.
Roberts has recently defended other judges and justices who have faced criticism and, in turn, has received criticism himself. In accepting the award, he noted that conflict between the branches is not uncommon; even Jefferson had issues with the fourth chief justice of the United States, John Marshall.
“It’s because of the difference between liberty, which is what Jefferson represented, and order, which is really Marshall’s contribution, and the difficulty is in reconciling the two,” Roberts said. “The challenge, not only to me, but to my colleagues on the court, is, ‘Where does this case fall? How does this shake out? Is this one where we’re going to be defending liberties because it is more like Jefferson, or is it one where we’re going to be defending order, like Marshall?’”
Renowned architect Jeanne Gang, winner of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture, tells the Founder’s Day luncheon guests that Jefferson’s influence can be seen in ways that interior and exterior spaces work together to create a social atmosphere. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)
The architecture award went to Gang, the Kajima Professor in Practice of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the founding partner of international architecture and urban design practice . She has been named one of Time magazine’s most influential people in the world.
In accepting the award, Gang said Jefferson is a reminder that architecture can express not just a personal vision, but also serve as a framework for collective knowledge and vision.
