On Dec. 9, 2024, The Paladin published an article covering the return of the Kappa Alpha fraternity to campus after a four-year suspension, which kicked off a passionate discourse on the fraternity’s identity, history and future place in Greek life on campus. The main point of contention, though, is the fraternities’ continued association with Robert E. Lee – slave owner, commander of the Confederate Army and, later, president of Washington & Lee University.
According to the fraternity’s website, Robert E. Lee is the “Order’s Spiritual Founder,” in large part thanks to his “exemplary ideals, values, strong leadership, courtesy, respect for others and gentlemanly conduct.”
Any organization that holds up Robert E. Lee as a paragon of virtue has no place on our campus or within Furman’s social life.
While Kappa Alpha does acknowledge Robert E. Lee’s time as a Confederate general, it asks us not to focus on his role as an active participant, leader, and defender of the enslavement of millions but instead on his time as the President of Washington and Lee University.
“We don’t agree with the idea of Robert E. Lee as the Confederate general. If we ever align with him, it would be with him as a university president of Washington and Lee University. Through that role, he showed how to become a gentleman,” said Michael Diaz, then-president of the Furman Kappa Alpha chapter.
Even though Lee was never a member of the order, their website claims that Kappa Alpha’s “early environment” at Washington College “determined its nature.”
In general, any person who was an active participant in enslaving human beings, much less one who fought a war for his right to do so, should not be considered a role model. Still, if Lee helped create a campus environment that promoted his “exemplary ideals,” “strong leadership,” and “respect for others,” this might be considered commendable. After all, our university is still in the process of making amends for its racist history, and perhaps Lee strove to do the same.
For certain, Lee did make sweeping changes to Washington College during his tenure, including the creation of business, journalism, law, and applied mathematics programs.
However, there is still a part of this history that is hard to reconcile with Kappa Alpha’s claims. As president of Washington College, Lee maintained his white supremacist views, testifying before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction that “Virginia would be improved by the removal of its Black population,” as described by John M. McClure in Virginia’s Civil War.
Lee also made no serious effort to curtail students’ antagonism against the local Black population. Washington and Lee students, most of whom were former Confederate soldiers, were notorious in Lexington for being “consistent sexual predators,” abducting and raping Black school girls. Lee’s response to this behavior was lacking, to say the least. As historian Elizabeth Pryor writes in her history of Robert E. Lee, Reading the Man, “The number of accusations against Washington College boys indicates that he either punished the racial harassment more laxly than other misdemeanors, or turned a blind eye to it.”
This was the early environment that would set the course of Kappa Alpha’s trajectory. Up until the 1950s, chapters of the order referred to themselves as Klans and remain notorious for flying the Confederate flag, according to historian Taulby Edmondson.
Even today, Kappa Alpha refuses to publicly address this history. Andrew Cooter, a non-Greek life student delegate to the Interfraternity Council expansion committee, requested a public town hall to address their legacy as a condition of their acceptance. K.A.’s refusal to speak to the community as a whole seems to indicate a tacit acceptance of past behavior.
As a liberal arts university, an institution committed to truth and justice, the welcoming of Kappa Alpha back on campus flies in the face of our own purported values. In 2018, a group of faculty undertook an effort to seriously reckon with Furman’s history with slavery under the name of the “Seeking Abraham Project,” demonstrating a preliminary commitment towards making amends.
In contrast, Kappa Alpha still proudly claims Robert E. Lee as a “spiritual founder,” extolling his virtues while choosing to ignore the blatant racism that shaped his life. An organization that celebrates the legacy of a Confederate general is not one that belongs on our campus. Until Furman’s chapter of Kappa Alpha breaks with its national association and condemns, in full, the legacy of Robert E. Lee, its invitation should be revoked by the IFC.
Kappa Alpha’s refusal to host a town hall addressing its relationship with Robert E. Lee has made one thing clear: no amount of dialogue or discourse can bridge the gap toward Confederate apologetics. Students, then, must recognize Kappa Alpha’s invitation for what it is – an attempt to invite white supremacy onto our campus.
