Photos by Peggy Harrison

University President John T. Casteen III addresses a group of concerned students hours after Student Council President candidate Daisy Lundy reported being attacked.

March 11, 2003

Staff Report

After a week of spring break, the University community is moving from initial shock and outrage at the report of a racially motivated assault on a student to efforts at healing and raising awareness of the need for diversity.

President John T. Casteen III, who met with parents of African-American students Sunday, distributed a letter to students yesterday detailing both immediate and long-term efforts to address the attack. He urged students to get involved, learn the University’s history and work toward openness and understanding.

"By facing hard issues, working together and building on the strengths of the community, we can together bring about positive change," he said. (Casteen’s full statement is posted on the University’s "Voices of Diversity" Web site, http://www.virginia.edu/uvadiversity)

On Feb. 26, Daisy Lundy, a candidate for Student Council who is of African-American and Korean heritage, reported being attacked shortly before 2 a.m. in Poe Alley by an assailant who allegedly used a racial slur in reference to the hotly contested election. She was treated for minor injuries at the U.Va. Medical Center and released.

The incident is being investigated as a hate crime, and the FBI is working with University Police. Rewards amounting to $22,750 from various groups, including the U.Va. administration, have been offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Students from a coalition of minority groups listen to Casteen’s remarks. Several groups are banding together this week to assert their opposition to Lundy’s attack and sponsor a series of mass meetings to address diversity issues on Grounds.

Third-year student Ed Hallen also sounded the theme of healing when he announced Monday that he was withdrawing as a candidate for president of Student Council. He and Lundy were locked in a two-day runoff when the assault occurred. The election was postponed until after spring break, and with Hallen's withdrawal Student Council announced Lundy the winner.

"The race for the Student Council presidency began with a focus on our ability as students to make this University a better place," Hallen said in a statement. "While the events of these past few weeks have obscured this focus, the race must end with its initial emphasis. Our coming together as a community is far more important than a divisive student election."

Lundy, who said she received more than 1,000 e-mails and letters over spring break, said too much attention has been focused on her and not enough on "the larger problem of exclusion that has plagued our University for far too long."

"This is the story of our University undergoing change and learning how to weave diversity into its everyday fabric. Understanding the story, the history of what led to this incident, is imperative in moving forward," she said.

The need to come together as a community led University officials to respond within hours of the attack by meeting with students and reassuring them about safety measures, condemning the assault and emphasizing the need to channel sadness and anger in constructive ways.

Patricia M. Lampkin, vice president for student affairs, pledged, "People at all levels of the institution are committed to bringing about positive change that goes beyond mere talk about diversity."

Students returned from break to find Casteen’s message, a round of "mass meetings for change" and a march and vigil among events scheduled for the week.

Tomorrow’s "march against racial hatred" and vigil are organized by the Committee for Progress on Race, a group of Law School students and faculty formed immediately after the assault.

"This is a beginning, not an end," said Michael Signer, CPR’s coordinator. "The March will serve to show our spirit and purpose in the face of this outrage, but it will only lead in to a series of long-term initiatives to address systemic problems of race at the law school — in the curriculum, the faculty, and the student body."

The march will start from three points around the University at 6:30, 7 and 7:30 p.m. and converge at the Rotunda for the vigil (see details about this and other activities at the "Voices of Diversity" Web site).

Signer said, "We hope to achieve a unifying, strong and vocal demonstration both for ourselves and for the general public that U.Va. is a place with zero tolerance for racial hatred."