Editor’s note: This article is a humor column.
Following University-led litigation against the Jefferson Scholars Foundation, Echols Scholars are set to be renamed to Jefferson Scholars and vice versa, effective immediately. A secretive pressure campaign from the Jefferson Council preceded this change, and its consequences have left many University community members — and newly Jeffersonified scholars — confused and irritated.
In late February, University administrators began to take aim at the Foundation, claiming it was “morally wrong for certain independent organizations bearing the name of Thomas Jefferson” to influence student life at the University. This culminated in a legal effort to reclaim the term “Jefferson Scholar” as a label for the College of Arts & Sciences’ honors students…