Rebecca Rimel
President & CEO, Pew Charitable Trusts
"Jefferson's Legacy: A Call to Civic Responsibility"
November 3, 1999 

Rebecca Rimel: Probably the best thing I could do right now is sit down. Dan, that was pretty exceptional and normally when someone introduces me and says all those wonderful things, I ask them if they've been talking to my mother. In this case, I think it's most likely that you have.

It really is great to be home. I love Philadelphia, but there is no place like home. No place has the pull like Charlottesville and particularly on a day like today. But you know, that's what legacy and rootedness is all about. Having been born, bred, and educated here, I got a great start in life and that great start was more than the sum of those parts. The reasons are many and I'd like to just identify a few. First and foremost, my parents. They gave us a great start in life. They taught us that a strong sense of values, a strong sense of moorings and inner self, would serve us well as we navigated what life had in store for us and so for all the sacrifices they made, I will always be eternally blessed. That's why it's a special treat to have you here today, Tabby, your sister, my nephew, and my partner in life, my husband Patrick.

I was also fortunate to have this institution take a big bet on me early in life. They provided a great education, a heavy dose of pride which I still carry for this institution and a strong commitment to public service. I grew up with the rootedness of place. That's what Charlottesville is all about. It's about history. You can't help but be influenced by the unbelievable architecture and the symbolism that's all around us. Of course, like all Americans, I also got a heavy dose of civic heritage, perhaps from Virginia's greatest citizen, Thomas Jefferson, and that's why I've chosen to base my talk today on his legacy and how it impacts us today.

Our national vernacular tells us that each and every one of us is going to have 15 minutes of fame sometime. You know, once upon a time, that was a pretty outrageous exaggeration. You know, I think today's it's turning out to be pretty darn close to possible. With the means of new communication, cable, Internet and the like, the public podium seems ours for the taking, anyone's at any time. We've come to value fame and celebrity in our society. I think we value them often for their own sake, but you know, every now and again, we realize that celebrity may not include substance. As we perceive that emptiness, I believe it's leading to a cynicism that's really much around us in this era.

That's where I think we find our first lesson from home, from Mr. Jefferson. Think about it. Governor of Virginia, minister to France, first Secretary of State, second Vice President, third President. He could've provided a year's work of material for the biography channel alone. In fact, however, he didn't want to squander his 15 minutes on the acclaim of high office. He was adamant, both before he served in these posts and afterwards. A public official should not be in quest of applause, he said. He expanded on the idea of pomp and spectacle to James Monroe. "I'm decidedly against it," he says, "as it makes the citizens in his own eye exalting his functionary and creating a distance between the two which does not tend to aid the morals of either." Jefferson simply distrusted blind praise. It leads public officials to think they actually deserve it, and in fact, they become much more susceptible to their own interests, their own needs, their own demands, than those of the public they've been elected to serve.

As for him, Jefferson professed neither an inclination nor an ambition to govern. It was hard to do. It made him enemies and I don't think it brought him happiness, so he said. Nor because he refused to permit it, did he benefit financially from public office. Others perceived him as incorruptible. He was emphatic about that aspect of his reputation as he was about any other. All he wanted was the earned approbation of his fellow citizens. I emphasize the word "earned." He trusted the will of a people, a phrase he used frequently. Not a mob, rather a people endowed with liberty, educated and able to freely draw upon their deep sources of spirituality. That is, a people trained to make civic decisions in a democracy. In his own day, he did not always succeed in gaining public applause as we know. Certainly not compared to the almost mythic stature he has gained since then, but that really didn't matter to him. He called the vice presidency honorable and easy and he called the presidency a splendid misery. Maybe he was being a bit ironic. Even so, he didn't want his legacy to rest on his service in any public office, easy or rigorous.

They were more mere public duties, if you will, an act of civic stewardship. They were a calling in the basic meaning of that word. He was called to office by his fellow citizens and then he returned to his beloved Monticello when he was finished. In his view, holding public office alone did not amount to a personal achievement. To know how to remember him, however, we need to look no further that his epitaph on his grave at Monticello. There, on the obelisk had designed contains the words he wrote. "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia." Two documents and an act. We can trust his choices. As Dan tells us he was always a very precise writer.

Furthermore, we can take the epitaph of Jefferson's definition as the ultimate public servants. He once wrote that he wished the terms excellency, honor, worship, esquire, would forever disappear among us and only the title Mr. be used. Jefferson felt that his greatest contributions were to institutions and to principles that transcended him as a person.

Well, let's just try on each of those accomplishments for size. The Declaration of Independence is no doubt the most sacred text of American civic and civil religion. It was not always so. According to some historians, it had no immediate impact, but it began gathering the halo long before Jefferson died and it even began to transcend the time and circumstances that had produced it. Jefferson himself had more than a little to do with this. In his last written words, this founding father hoped that the Declaration would inspire the establishment of democracies all over the world, in republics yet to be envisioned. To assume the blessings and security of self government, he wrote, adding all eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man." Of course, that document has continued to inspire Americans in areas where the founding fathers themselves had chosen to limit the rights of man. The Declaration, and in particular, the ringing phrase all men are created equal has been called a promissory note that became deliverable when we as a nation woke up to the fact that many citizens, African Americans, women among them, were shortchanged in the civil roles allotted to them by the Constitution. This nation over the years has responded to several such wake-up calls and it has emerged as an improved republic for each and every ??. Jefferson anticipated his historical evolution too when he said that the rights of man will come to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all.

The Declaration has stood ever in front of us as a touchstone and it's still there in our time of need. Well, I would submit to you that currently we are in just such a time of need. In a representative democracy like ours, voting is the single act that comes closest to the requisite of citizenship. Through voting, Americans not only choose their leaders but they evaluate their past and they signal their future priorities. It is by their votes that people exercise their sovereignty Jefferson wrote. As a nation, I think we've not been doing a very good job of exercising our sovereignty. Voting turnout has been embarrassingly low through most of the last century. Since World War II, it's averaged only 56% of the eligible voters in presidential elections, at or near the bottom of the world's advanced democracies. Worse, the turnout trend is downward. Despite an explosion in communications and technology, despite the expansion of public education, despite the entrance of women and minorities into the political system, we still continue to decline. In 1996, for the first time in 70 years, more eligible voters stayed home than exercised their right and responsibility to vote. The figures look bad in large measure because young adults are avoiding the polls altogether. Turnout among 21 to 24-years-olds has steadily declined from 51% in 1964 to 33% in 1996. Turnout among 25 to 34-year-olds in that same time frame dropped from 65% to slightly above 40%.

Low voting rates make it harder to hold public officials account accountable. In turn, elected officials are more likely to write off the concerns of the citizens and particularly the young. Why bother? They don't vote. Their voice doesn't matter. Moreover, people who vote generally participate in other forms that are important to our civic life. Those who don't check out. Poor turnout is both a travesty, I think, and it is a symptom of an ailing and diseased public life.

There're many reasons for this situation that we're experiencing in this country. Young adults have experienced a very short list of things to be proud of and to pull them into public life. Think about it. The major headlines since 1970 when today's 29-year-olds were born--Watergate, the stagflation of the late '70s, the ballooning budget deficit of the '80s, the AIDs epidemic, the Persian Gulf War, and most recently, the president's sexual scandal and subsequent impeachment, and it's not only these events themselves. In that same time frame, the new media has increasingly focused on the negative. The negative sells. Controversy pays. Or they presented politics as an insider's game for those who live inside the beltway. A game of partisan strategy and conflict. Citizens would be better served, I think, by good information on key issues that they can use in their everyday life.

So, young people get a cynical message about civic participation and they get another message by omission. Few states, including the Commonwealth, provide good public education in civics. Effective civics has fallen victim to stretched school budgets and partisan politics. Many people believe it comes too close to values, a parental responsibility rather than a public good. Most elementary or high school courses avoid contemporary topics altogether. Don't get near the controversy and even most college courses fail to address the practical issue of citizenship.

Most distressingly, young people don't always get the right signals from all of us in this room, from adults. Too many Americans who passed the age of 29 some time ago think politics is distant if not dirty. Solving problems can be, let's face it, very messy. Feeling uninformed and unwanted at the table, many people have written off involvement. A learned helplessness if you will. You've heard all the complaints. The problems are too complicated. The experts will solve them. There's no place for me. My vote, my voice, it doesn't matter. This surrender leads us to some very unattractive conclusions about participatory or representative democracy. The rising generation picks up this attitude and they parrot the idea that it's cool to be out of it. What other conclusion are they likely to draw? Their vote doesn't matter. You ought to be skeptical of anything that involves government or public issues or creative thinking or the social good, for that matter, so it's no surprise that young people are disaffected. They've heard it long enough and adults have reinforced it often enough that they believe it.

It is a learned helplessness, and it's reinforced by an alarmingly high degree of civic illiteracy. In a survey conducted recently by the Freedom Forum, less than half of the American public could name one of the first Amendment's five freedoms and should we see if we can get them all in this room? John Charles--help us.

John Charles: Speech.

Rebecca Rimel: Speech. Press. Religion. Assembly, and petition. Half of the American public cannot give us one. Perhaps no legacy could be more unhealthy. Now, I'm not saying that all the problems in this country are a piece of cake and all we need to do is join hands and exercise our vote and they will be solved, but if we're going to approach them creatively, we have to assume that they're worth tackling in the first place, whether it's the future health of our environment, global warming, how to provide affordable health care to every American, how to improve our poor schools. I'm sure your list could go on as could mine. We have to get the message to young people that we need their talent. We need their time and we need them to answer the call to public service.

There's one small bright side. Young people are involving themselves in volunteerism in record numbers. They're giving freely of their time and they're eager and willing to serve. The hitch is we haven't figured out how to tie together their interest in volunteerism with broader civic activism. We want young people to understand that using the power of their voice and their vote, they can and will make a difference, and I believe Mr. Jefferson would've warned us that the future depends on it.

Of the three achievements that Jefferson recognizes, the Statute on Religious Freedom is sometimes considered the most curious and probably the least known. Originally, it was not a national document, yet some scholars of Jefferson rank it with the Declaration as a pillar of our democracy. Even so, they are actually surprised that it was so important to him. You know, I bet their surprise is an attitude of the second half the 20th century and this probably brought on by the judicial insistence of the separation between church and state. As many of you recognize, the phrase itself comes from Jefferson. In effect, he gave us both sides of the issue. He eloquently described the role of profound beliefs of citizens in a democracy and phrases the rationale for dividing the spiritual from the political realms.

With so much controversy and misinterpretation, it's important that we take very close look at Jefferson's statute. It's actually quite straightforward. The government may not enforce or impose religion on its citizens and citizens shall not suffer in any way on account of their religious beliefs. One's civil liberties shall have nothing to do with one's religious opinions. Jefferson did not mean that citizens themselves should leave their religious opinions at home when they venture into the public square. He knew that religious beliefs would underlie and shape the way they approach their civic life and the arguments that they bring to it. The results, he believed, would enrich the dialogue. We've now had decades of bitter church state debates, but not because Jefferson called for a separation of our spiritual and public lives. Rather, we're the victim of a narrow way that I believe we've shaped the issue.

Jefferson said in another context, "I've sworn upon the altar of God hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." He didn't live two lives, one religious, one political. He connected them and they had a common enemy. Jefferson's contemporaries felt safe making that connection, too. George Washington in his presidential farewell address to the nation stated, "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports." Forty years later, Alexis de Tocqueville called the connection an American trait. Religion in American takes no direct part in the government of society but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions. He added, "despotism may govern without faith but liberty cannot." Somewhere we lost that power of inform the civic with the spiritual and the religious. We keep them separate politically and even further, recent wisdom in America advises that certain topics of conversation are too be avoided at all costs as though they're too explosive to discuss rationally and still leave those talking civilly toward each other and in good temper.

Religion is clearly one of those topics. It's considered a conversation stopper. Better avoid it altogether. Keep it private. That restraint, however, is artificial and probably makes many an occasion stilted if not superficial, because, in fact, religion matters a lot and a lot to a lot of Americans. We are the most religious nation on the face of the earth. As our founding fathers knew, it is often the underlying premise for all of our actions, deeds and words.

Until recently, Americans seemed to have forgotten that link. We've managed to secularize our institution, even many of the universities founded by religious groups and on very strong religious principles. We've secularized our public conversation. In the past 20 years or so, however, many other nations have gone just the other way. They've become case studies in religion's influential role in shaping political, economic and social destinies. In short, influencing what happens in our public square. This trend is beginning to affect the United States, I think, too, where religions is reemerging as a player in the public space. It's returning to the role Jefferson gave it as a basis for good citizenship. We're rediscovering that religious freedom not only assures freedom to worship, but fosters an involved attitude.

Studies indicate that churches, synagogues and temples are the single most important source of social connectedness. Religious attendance is the most common route to volunteerism. People who attend religious service tend to immerse themselves in their communities. They create social capital, social connectedness that we need so desperately. They're more likely to socialize, join organizations and go to meetings, vote, serve on juries, give to charity and become community leaders.

Politically speaking, our nation desperately needs that involvement. Our political and public choices should be informed, I believe, by the principles of moral reasoning. Where there's a tension between public policy and the religiously motivated, we should discuss it openly and without pretense. There is evidence that today's teenagers and college students are returning to religion in unexpected ways. Several national newspapers have recently reported the surge in interest. Johns Hopkins University, which was founded on secular principles, opened its first prayer center recently. The University of Southern California hired its first dean of religious life. Religious colleges are enjoying a collective enrollment jump of 40% compared with 4% in secular colleges. The Washington Post reported in April that enrollment in religion courses at this very University doubled in the last decade.

A lot of this data is anecdotal but more and more students seem to be seeking intense religious experiences. Perhaps they want help in navigating what life holds for them in a complicated society. Perhaps they simply are seeking something larger than themselves. People are starved for this, said one chaplain. Evidence suggests that Americans are beginning to restore religion's role in matters of general welfare and public good. Religion, of course, is not always a force for good, but in this country, it is an element of an inclusive society and we better understand it. A strong public expression of religious faith and an open pluralistic public square as Mr. Jefferson reminds us need not be mutually exclusive.

The third of Jefferson's trinity of achievements was this very institution. To him, the equation was quite simple and unalterable. Because citizens form the government they must be educated in order to carry out their responsibilities. Life and liberty go together. He could not have said it or worded it more compellingly or more clearly. For Jefferson, education was also much more. It was vital for personal development. It was the basis of career pursuits and it led to a better life. Education produced the leaders of the next generation. I kind of think of it as democracy's farm team. Accordingly, it reached out to all economic classes, assuring an aristocracy of virtue and talent rather than an aristocracy of wealth.

Well, Jefferson wasn't perfect. He should've been far more inclusive in class alone, but his broad educational ideals, like the Declaration of Independence and the Statute for Religious Freedom provided a basis for expansion of the educational franchise when American society at large was ready to face it and confront it. Jefferson's ideas were the visionary architecture for this University and his hand created the actual architecture. Nothing indicates his devotion to this institution more than his visits to it when it was under construction. He was old. He was sick, and he could hardly make it through the bad weather, but he came more often than not and he did his best to brush off his ailments just to personally see this project through to completion.

This building, the Rotunda, is important to every Virginian and Professor Richard Guy Wilson has described why it was so important to Jefferson and subsequently to the entire world of higher education. "To Jefferson," Mr. Wilson says, "the Rotunda was overtly symbolic. Its source was the Pantheon in Rome, a religious symbol. Jefferson made it the dome of enlightenment. Even more about housing the library in such a distinctive building, Jefferson created the model for the American college and university system we have today with the library as the central image and symbol.

I was surprised to realize that last week marked the anniversary of the disastrous fire which over night reduced the University's library by two-thirds. Yet the tragic event had a bright side. It enabled the school to reconsider the limitations of Jefferson's original building and look forward to larger contemporary needs. As Mr. Wilson also points out, the reconstruction forced the University to face another weakness, especially in organizational structure and external relations. The result was a new building that respected the monumentality and beauty of the original and a stronger institutional structure as well. Through the disaster, the University of Virginia recreated itself to become a national institution, one in which Jefferson would be enormously proud. That's been the character of this institution--to seize a problematic moment, see it through, all the while creating a better place.

I witnessed one of these moments first hand--the painful and long overdue decision to admit women. I received an excellent education at this University and a lot more. They showed faith in me back then and it demonstrated institutions can nurture as well as educate. Because of all the women who've benefitted from an education here, the University has benefitted much more. Mr. Jefferson's great achievement is all the stronger, a healthier institution, for its decision to admit women.

Another moment came in the 1980s with the more proactive drive to put away the vestiges of segregation and more widely open up the Grounds to minority students and faculty. This work is far from done, but the University has the leadership to continue doing the right thing. That's at least how I interpreted the recent decision by the Board of Visitors, reaffirming the policy to pursue racial diversity. Rector Ackerly was dead right when he said, "a diverse community brings indisputable benefits," and cultivating that goal takes commitment and that commitment at the University is extraordinary. You should be very proud.

Yet another current crucial moment in the University's life involves the embattled Honor Code. I admire the ideals of that Code. They live up to Jefferson's standards. The Code has had a lasting impression on me and on most graduates throughout their lives. The questions of fairness or function ought to be examined. That, too, is very Jeffersonian. Tyranny can take many forms and there's no room for any of it at Mr. Jefferson's University. The code, of course is right out of Mr. Jefferson's book on self-government. Virginia students have been enjoined as the Code's stewards. John Casteen has a good recommendation for students who questioned its provisions. He's encouraged them to step up to their stewardship responsibility and make the Code relevant in these times, a living legacy for the University and for them.

John, I think, was making a comment about leadership and that, too, is right out of Mr. Jefferson's script. You know, it's pretty easy to lead in good times. The real work comes in tough times when problems are difficult, personal risks are high and the outcomes are very uncertain. John Casteen, I believe, has embodied the will and commitment to lead as have you who've stood up to be counted. You're continuing to build a great university and to take stands on such issues as diversity, a strong student body, and a strong and healthy Honor Code. I think this would please Mr. Jefferson a great deal.

Well, there's a whole lot of Jeffersonian leadership in this room today. I'll recognize just a couple. Justice John Charles Thomas, you've brought so much to the Virginia Supreme Court and you continue to bring much love and admiration to this institution. In fact, I think I understand that congratulations are in order for the Lifetime of its Citizenship Award that was recently bestowed on you. They selected very well. You are the consummate scholar, lawyer, poet and dear friend.

There're many others that contributed to the University and to life in the Commonwealth. If you'll allow me just one more note. Mr. Jefferson can rest very easy that his beloved Monticello is in very good hands, the strong hands of Dan Jordan and his staff at Monticello. It truly is an international treasure and I think we have more and more visitors every year. You're helping us understand this complicated man in contemporary ways and in new ways which is important for all of us. The Sally Hemmings Jefferson issue exemplifies, I believe, your leadership. As a historian, you once doubted the link but now you're providing the scholarly leadership with your colleagues at Monticello to reassess the facts in light of new evidence and recently you reminded all of us on the Board that the Foundation would follow truth wherever it would take us.

In closing, it would be very foolhardy for me to try to synthesize Jefferson and his achievements, but it's worth noting the continuing relevance of his ideas on citizenship, stewardship and leadership. The world offers us 15 minutes of fame. In the face of that temptation, how would we like to be judged. Jefferson made his choices very clear. I believe we should too. What could be more compelling or satisfying than a lifetime committed to citizenship and to the stewardship of ideas, ideals and institutions that we hold most dear. We must answer the call to civic leadership with humility, grace and conviction. Mr. Jefferson would've expected nothing less. Thank you very much.