Challenge To Rename Hunton Andrews Kurth Hall At University of Virginia Law School

ATLANTA, Nov. 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — In a letter to Dean Risa L. Goluboff of the University of Virginia Law School in Charlottesville,  Daniel H. Kolber, an Atlanta sole practictioner at the Law Office of Daniel H. Kolber, P.C. and a 1978 graduate of the Law School, seeks to remove the name of Hunton Andrews Kurth from the main hall of the Law School. The letter is reprinted below:                                        

Dear Dean Goluboff:  

Congratulations on your amazing leadership especially with respect to the diversity of the Law School’s student body and your recent success in causing the Board of Visitors to remove former Confederate soldier Henry Withers’ name from Withers-Brown Hall.  

This is a request that you form an ad hoc committee to consider renaming Hunton Andews Kurth Hall at the Law School Quadrangle, pursuant to the University’s Naming Policies as outlined by the April 22, 2020 Report to the University’s Committee on Names. Although the law firm of Hunton Andrews Kurth has been a financial supporter of the Law School, according to the Naming Policies, financial support is only one of several factors to be considered in the naming of buildings at the University.

Because of your extraordinary and unprecedented efforts, The Law School’s current first year class is the most diverse in its history – 52% women, 8% self-identify as LGBTQ and 33% identify themselves as people of color.  The name of the Law School main hall should reflect an authentic commitment to this diversity.

The renaming of the hall will also send a strong message that the Law School’s mission is shifting away from primarily being a training ground for lawyers to enter profit-motivated Big Law firms to a law school that prioritizes the pursuit of diversity and public service.  Hunton Andrews Kurth may be a fine firm.  However, its name should remain on the hall only after being approved as the result of additional research and due diligence mandated by the Committee on Names.

Respectfully submitted,
Daniel H. Kolber, Law ’78

SOURCE Law Office of Daniel H. Kolber, P.C.