SALLY WIANT April 9, 1996 — Mame Warren, interviewer Warren: This is Mame Warren. I'm in Lexington, Virginia, with Sally Wiant, in the Lewis Law School at Washington and Lee University. Today is April 9, 1996. I think we should start with a basic question. Why did you come to Washington and Lee in the first place? What drew you here? Wiant: I was drawn here because I was invited and pursued to interview for the position of—I don't even recall what it's title—I guess assistant librarian. The university had decided to improve the law school. As I understand, the American Bar Association had had a relatively recent accreditation reinspection and found the university lacking in many regards; among them, that the building was inadequate, the collection was below the minimum standards, there was not much of a library staff, there were no women in the student body, and the university set about to improve the law school. I believe this inspection may have taken place in the late sixties. The university hired Roy Steinheimer, who had been associated with the University of Michigan and was a leading scholar in the UCC. He had come to be dean. It was he who built the faculty, who, with Bob Huntley, built this building, and built the library. Those plans were just in their early stages when I was recruited to come to the university . I came for an interview. I had read about the university , but the impact of no women really did not hit until I was on campus for the interview. Nonetheless, the then librarian, Peyton Neal, and Roy Steinheimer talked me into taking the position as 1 assistant librarian. Part of the negotiation included law school. The deal was that I would go to law school for six years. It would be good for me, it would be good for the school. Because we had no evening classes nor summer school, it was going to take me six years, going part time, working as a full-time assistant librarian, working on building the library collection and working on the library aspects of building Lewis Hall. Warren: Help me with years. What year did you arrive? Wiant: I arrived in August of 1972. Warren: Were you one of the first women to arrive at the law school, or were you the first? Wiant: Well, as far as students, I had several other classmates. Warren: But you were the first year, all of you? Wiant: All of us were in the first year. Most of my other classmates had some association with Washington and Lee, a father, a brother, a grandfather, etc., who had come to this university , and they knew of the university and its reputation and were drawn, and were fully aware that they would be among the women in the first class of students that had women. This was nothing I set out to do; this is just something that happened to me fortuitously. Warren: Tell me about those classmates and that they did have connections. Was there a feeling among them of being pioneers, among all of you, of being pioneers? Wiant: I would say, yes, there was. Anytime that there is a change so significant as that to a university with the history and the traditions that this one held dear, you would have to be adventuresome to agree to be part of that first class. Although I think there were many trials for us, our classmates, in particular, were more like older brothers who looked after us very carefully. There were clearly students in the upper classes who did not welcome our joining the university , but I would venture to say that the majority of my classmates were very protective of us, and although we encountered 2 some difficulties, I think the next couple of classes of women had far more trouble being assimilated into the university than we did. I guess, in part, we were so new that no one quite knew how to think or respond to us. Once the newness wore off, things were not always pleasant for the women in the law school. Warren: What do you mean? What happened? Wiant: Well, there was certainly the impression among the women that there was a quota of women, and when the law school moved into Lewis Hall, the women were still so few in numbers that it was very difficult to have collegial relations. By that time the newness had worn off and there was very little of the normal social exchange between male and female students. Sometimes very unkind remarks were made. It was very difficult to deal with certain aspects of the university , particularly the gym. Nothing had been done on campus that would acknowledge that there were now women on campus. The campus was still dark, the security was still a problem. In the old law school, even rest room facilities had not been thought through. The campus health facilities had made no plans for women's health issues. So all of those kinds of things led to a rather chilly environment that didn't change for a number of years. Warren: Would you be willing to share, or do you remember, specific unkind remarks? Wiant: One classmate in particular had gone to Wellesley and was a strident feminist and was constantly the butt of jokes, but I cannot specifically recall any other than she was someone that students loved to taunt. The problems with the gym were very real. The university administration and, more particularly, the athletic administration told us that we could not swim in the large pool because that was used both for classes and for competitive swimming. That was clearly understandable. We were also precluded from swimming in the small gym, which at the time was available to anyone who would swim with a buddy. Traditionally it had been the practice that swimmers wore no suits. That didn't seem, to me particularly, or some of my classmates, to be a problem. We had decided that were 3 we permitted to swim, that we would simply wear suits and if the males chose not to wear suits, that was fine. The University argued that there was no access to the pool other than through the men's locker room. Of course, that's been changed simply by adding a door. That was just one more front that was put to dissuade us from using the athletic facilities. Then we were told that we might embarrass undergraduate men if we were to be swimming at the same time they were swimming. It seemed to me, as somebody who was paying an equal amount of tuition and that was part of the services, that these facilities ought to be made available to us as well. It took the better part of two years before we were allowed access to the swimming pools. Warren: Amazing. I remember hearing a story about Ann Unverzat. Wiant: Ann Unverzat, I believe, was the first woman faculty hired by the law school. She came to us from practice in Wisconsin. I believe her law degree is from Stanford. Especially bright, capable woman who had an unusual zest for life. She was an extraordinary colleague, as both my first woman law faculty member and a good friend. She brought to us this enthusiasm for the law and an awareness of the role that women could play in the law, and was quite a role model. She did stand Lexington on its ear when she became involved with one of her students whom she ultimately married, and moved to Cleveland, where I believe he has been in practice with the same firm since they left the university , and she made the decision to become a mother and be able to stay home and rear her children. Warren: Lucky children. Wiant: Lucky children. Warren: Wasn't there a story related to her in the gym, some breakthroughs that she made in the gym? Wiant: I don't recall any stories that related to her. Among the most vocal in the battle with the gym was a woman who was in the class following me, whose name is Toni 4 (now) Datos [phonetic]. She was particularly vehement in her battle with the gym, to be able to swim there. But I don't recall any stories about Ann in the gym. Warren: Shall I tell you? Wiant: Yes, yes. Warren: What Barbara Vandegrift told me, that Ann was frustrated because at that time they did your laundry for you, they washed your gym clothes. Wiant: Yes. Warren: And Ann was frustrated because they wouldn't wash her gym clothes, and the excuse they finally came up with was that they were afraid that the hooks on her bra would get tangled up in the mesh bags and ruin everything, tear everything apart. You know how your bras ruin everything in the laundry all the time. Wiant: Yes, yes. Warren: And when she finally understood what the issue was, she came up and she said, "I promise I will hook my bra before I put it in the bag." And they lost their argument, and that was the end of that, and they did her laundry from then on. Wiant: They used to do mine, but their machines have "scalding hot" or "off," and I typically chose just to take my own laundry after that. Warren: Easier that way. Wiant: But speaking of laundry—and I don't know whether the laundry service is still offered, but the University Cleaners, who has been around and servicing students with their laundry and dry cleaning needs for I don't know how many years, when I first came, was offering a laundry service, and every year I would get this letter addressed to me, since I was an adult and on my own capacity, so the letter was not going to my parents, addressed to me, with clearly a feminine name, where the letter would then go on to say, "Your son," and then offer the services for sheet and towel services so that "your son" would not have to worry about those aspects of his existence in the university . 5 Invariably, the Alumni Office would write to "Mr. Sarah K. Wiant." Once word processing was here, at least memory typewriters, it seemed to me that the university could have, at the very least, achieved a proper style of address now that it had women members of the alumni group. Warren: How long did that take to rectify that? Years, I take it. Wiant: Years. Absolutely years. Warren: That's an interesting story. When you first arrived, you were still in Tucker Hall. Wiant: Still in Tucker Hall. Warren: Take me through Tucker Hall. What was Tucker Hall like? Wiant: It was so crowded that we all virtually lived on top of each other. There were books everywhere. Even adding a piece of technology, which by then was a required piece of technology, a photocopier, was a major event. The building had one of the first central air-conditioning systems that had ever been designed for buildings in the South, as I understand. When the building was first opened, the system was turned on and the system nearly shook the building off its foundation and was turned off. The entire core of this building was comprised of this massive air-conditioning system which, in the total years of the building, never worked. The law school so desperately needed space that they tried to figure out how to remove that system and recapture some of the space. This was prior to the decision that they actually were going to build a new building. It was finally that fact that forced them to build the building. As faculty were added and as the classes were expanded in Tucker, I believe my class was seventy-six in number, so the total student body was approximately three times that. There simply wasn't space, and as we added books, we moved into the house that had been [James G.] Leyburn's house, did some terrible damage in attaching bookshelves to the wall of that lovely old house, dividing the rooms with just the most 6 minimalistic of dividers. The Law Review was essentially in the kitchen that had been the slave kitchen, and every space was used. Essentially there were classrooms on the third floor, and the large classroom was the Old South Room, which by the end of the day, on a hot day, it had had all the air breathed. The sound of the lawn mowers on the front campus was constant, and the faculty member, whoever it was, had to speak above the lawn mowers into this very warm room, without air-conditioning, and these giant black wasps. This was the room in which Roy Steinheimer taught and for all his years in Tucker taught the Uniform Commercial Code. He normally taught that at eight o'clock in the morning. Tucker was frequently by dogs, many of whom would go to class, knowing exactly when class began and almost to the minute when class ought to be over. These dogs would go over and sit by the door, announcing the end of class. They were more regular than the bells on the chapel. During those early days, it was the period of time in the country where "Laugh In" had captured the attention of college campuses, and throwing pies in the face was something that was not at all uncommon. On one occasion—and it was a class taught by Charles Laughlin, who had taught here for thirty-five years, had taught labor law and had taught evidence, and his Football Theory of the Burden of Presumptions and Persuasions was just legendary, and whether or not he was teaching that specific topic the day a student, who was president of the Student Bar Association, was called to the door, out of class, and a pie was hurled in his student's face, and the meringue or whipped cream, or whatever it was, not only got all over the student and all over the books that were shelved in the middle of the hall, and this beloved professor stood there with absolute amazement on his face. Why anyone would want to be called out of his class, two, why anyone would want to be called out of his class to be struck in the face with a pie, and he was so discombobulated that he could not finish the rest of the class. 7 There are wonderful tales of Charles Laughlin. As I say, he taught here for thirty-five years, and even up 'til his death, although he had retired from active teaching, he still was interested in the law and was always willing to sit down and discuss some new point of law or to help someone think through a difficult issue. He probably, of all of us who were then ready to move into the law school, had more recollections about Tucker Hall, and in leaving Tucker Hall, we did a candlelight vigil at which Charles Laughlin spoke and reminisced about what it was like to be in Tucker Hall. It was an extraordinary moment as we all filed out with our candles. He, unlike Mrs. McDowell, who said that she would never step within the walls of Lewis Hall, Charles willingly moved over to Lewis Hall and even taught in Lewis Hall, and on the occasion of his last day of teaching, the students hosted a champagne party at the end of class and toasted him in the classroom for all his years of service to the university . Warren: Oh, what a lovely story. Wiant: I presume there are some good tales in the alumni magazine of those two events. Warren: Mrs. McDowell said she would never come over here? Wiant: She did, and I believe she was true to her word, that the law school she knew was Tucker Hall, that's where she had served, that's where her husband had taught, and that's where she had been secretary to many deans, and, in fact, as stories go, she admitted many students in the course of her many years of service. Warren: Tell me about her. Wiant: An extraordinary woman, just full of life, full of tales, full of mischief, and with extraordinary affection for generations of students who went to law school in Tucker. She was secretary, as I say. On occasion, she was dean of admissions. She was mother, she was confider, she was the taskmaster. She sort of did it all. Warren: When you arrived on the scene, were you stepping on her territory at all? 8 Wiant: I wasn't. At least I never had the sense that I was stepping on her territory. I mean, not only had I no desire to step on her territory, but she was bigger than life. There was no possible way I could. She was someone who was always teasing me and keeping up the spirits when the tasks seemed daunting, to try to do all of those things and still go to school and still do it in the capacity. She was always there with a kind word or a funny story, racing back and forth across the hall. She was always there ready to watch—among the longstanding traditions was the fact that students would while away the hours attempting to flip pennies into the glass globe of the chandelier which hung in the main hall of the law school. And riding herd on the dogs as they came and went, and anyone else who came and went, that she would keep up with. Warren: So one of the things that strikes me most about Tucker is that it's "over there" and Lewis Law School is "over here." Tell me about that dynamic, about what it was like to have the law school be on the main campus as opposed to being more separated. Wiant: It meant the law school felt like it was more a part of the university , not just in that we were there in the law school, we could see Lee Chapel, we could hear the chimes. Faculty regularly held court by leaning against the white columns and tutoring not only in the classroom, but extending the class, and our relationships with the faculty on the colonnade, but many of the students in the law school were seven-year men. In fact, that was relatively common that someone would progress from the undergraduate school directly to the law school. Although we've not had in recent years, the university had a program that you could do law school in a three-three program, and there were many students who were doing that, too. So there was more of a sense of being part of the campus by being there. We all took our breaks at the coop, and at the appointed hour, en masse, for our evening break before the coop would close, we'd trek down for our last cup of coffee or Coke or thick milk shake, trekking back, visiting along the way, doing all the things that 9 undergraduate students do as being part of the campus. It is not only a geographic gulf, but it is a political gulf that divides the law school, and for those of us who actually know what it was like to be on the front campus, we continue to make a concerted effort to go over, to spend time with our colleagues on that side, to understand better the problems that are facing the entire university , rather than the problems that are unique to the law school. Some newer members of faculty, I think, would prefer that the divide be even more strongly delineated, that our interests are different than the undergraduates', and it plays out in a lot of ways, not the least of which are faculty salaries, not the least of which are the fact that for us to compete on a national scale with our peer group, which in some cases is the same peer group that the undergraduate campus competes with, but it does bring some other pressures. And the emphasis on faculty writing, I think, is probably stronger on this side of the campus and came much earlier than the emphasis for scholarship on the front campus, and that plays out in different ways: more secretarial support, computers arrived in the law school earlier than they did in other academic buildings. So I think there are those who think that more separation is better for us, that as we have fewer and fewer seven-year-people that are alums, are probably going to be more willing to support the law school than the university as a whole when it comes down to the competition for dollars. Warren: That's interesting. Yes, that makes sense. Getting to that decision to build this building over here, was this the only location possible? I guess there truly would not have been a site over there that would have been possible. Was there any sadness involved with the decision to come over here? Wiant: The decision to build the building on this location was made before I joined the university , or if it was not, I was not part of it. There was clearly sadness about leaving the front campus. Our first year in the building, not only did we have the sadness that comes with a separation from the rest of the campus, but we had not grown to our full 10 capacity, so that we were few in numbers, rattling around in this magnificent palace. Before, we had been thrown together regularly for conversations. Now the faculty were on the top floor and the students on the bottom floor, and no one was talking to each other. We had a window of time where the growing pains were significant and where the Student Bar Association and the dean's office tried to develop ways where we could recreate that sense of community that had been such a part of Tucker. It began in small ways—coffee and doughnuts on the main floor outside the moot courtroom, because that was neutral space, to try to bring us together. Warren: Did that work? Wiant: It began to work. The Student Bar Association was always a very important part in the aspects of social existence of rural America, and the Student Bar Association began to hold Friday afternoon keg parties on the front terrace, in order to provide yet another opportunity where faculty and students would come together, and then instituted the softball league, where the students play each other all spring, and the winner of the playoffs then plays the faculty. That tradition to this day continues, with the dean's obligation generally to serve as umpire and to make sure that the calls go in such a way that the faculty will not be resoundingly defeated. Warren: I was about to say, you didn't mention that the faculty was practicing all spring. Wiant: Oh, no. The faculty may practice, and for a while there were so few of us that we were allowed to bring in ringers, but now we have enough of a complement that we can field a team. Warren: That sounds like a great tradition. You're speaking of the keg parties. One of the things, when I first moved here, the law school had just opened, and everyone was talking about "the party" associated with the opening of this building. Wiant: Oh, the party! 11 Warren: I notice we have an artifact. I presume that's the artifact itself? Wiant: It is the artifact. Warren: Tell the story. Wiant: When the board of trustees announced that it was going to build this building, Justice [Alexander Marrs] Harman, who was a justice on the Virginia Supreme Court, was traveling. I'm not sure whether he was in England or Scotland. But he decided that he would recreate the scene that had been created by Jockey John Robinson when the first law school was built in the location where Tucker now sits, and Jockey John Robinson had had a barrel of whiskey, which was placed on the front lawn of the university , and which was shared with all members of the university community and the townspeople. Now, the part of the story that wasn't recreated, thankfully, is that the townspeople and the university people got so unwieldy that an axe was taken to the barrel and the barrel was destroyed. That part was not recreated in the dedication in 1976. Warren: So we do have an artifact. Wiant: Yes, we do have an artifact. We do have the barrel. Evidently importation restrictions would not allow the barrel to be shipped full, so that all of the Scotch—and this is malt Scotch, single malt Scotch—all of the Scotch had to be bottled, shipped over, the barrel shipped over, and all the bottles then dumped into the barrel. Well, that in itself was a problem. Then we had to figure out what we were going to serve this Scotch in. Well, the original tradition that was served in little tin cups, and it was among my job to buy all the little tin cups that could be procured, and that number was somewhere in the range of above three thousand. Suppliers like L.L. Bean and Eddie Bauer and camping stores had little tin cups, and we bought them all. All that were to be had, we bought. Then the architects designed a label which had the outline of the—there's one over on the shelf—the outline of Lewis Hall, and the library staff, among all of the 12 envelope-stuffing, would then take breaks from envelope-stuffing of all the dedication brochures and all these invitations, to affix the labels to the tin cans so that we would have plenty of appropriate cups in which to sip this Scotch and toast the dedication of Lewis Hall, and we did do that with great fanfare. I don't recall how many people actually showed up for the dedication, but it was an extraordinary crowd and it was a wonderful time. The remaining Scotch was rebottled. Warren: There was remaining Scotch at Washington and Lee? They didn't finish it off? [laughter] Wiant: They didn't finish it off. Well, some of this may have been bottled prior to, and I believe that Jim Whitehead still has somewhere in his possession a full bottle of the Scotch with the label. Two years ago, an alum came to call, bringing me two treasured rare books and a bottle of the Scotch with about an inch of the Scotch remaining, which is up there on that shelf. So that is part of the Lewis Hall Scotch, and there may be a small amount left, but as I say, I believe Jim Whitehead still has it. I think it should be in my care and keeping, but whether or not I ever get that bottle remains to be seen. The barrel was then put into the tunnels of Lewis Hall, where it was lost for quite some time, and last year—yes, last year, 1995—I was asked if I could find the barrel anyplace in the university , and I did find it, and all the pieces were there. Of course, it had completely collapsed. I was worrying about where I would find—I've forgotten the name of the individual who creates barrels, the word. Warren: Yes, there is a word. Wiant: There is a word and it's not coming to me at this moment. I finally decided that I could ship the pieces, lacking any other thing, I could ship the pieces to Williamsburg and have them repair the barrel. Warren: Great idea. Wiant: In the meantime, before I did that, I thought I would ask Clyde if there was any possibility that he thought he could put the barrel, given that we didn't really know 13 how it went together, but I thought I probably had all the pieces right there, did he think he could put the barrel back together so I could put it on display, and I should have known that that was the place to start, because the answer was of course he could. Warren: Who's Clyde? Wiant: Clyde works, and has worked, for buildings and grounds for I don't know how many years. He can build anything, design anything, refinish anything, and he just did a marvelous job of putting the barrel back together, so it is now on display in the Rare Book Room of the law library. Warren: When I arrived here, those little tin cups were everywhere. That was one of the things that just seemed to be everywhere in this town. Every country home I went to, there was piles of them everywhere, so it was legendary already. Wiant: It was. Warren: And it hasn't been that long since it happened. Wiant: And now they have disappeared, and mine had disappeared, too, although again it was through the generosity of this individual who brought me the Scotch, who also brought me—actually, mine had disappeared because I gave my personal cup to the Law School Archives, because we had not been able to save a cup. Warren: I think we should get a photograph of that for possible inclusion in the book. Wiant: That would be fine. Warren: Are there any photographs of the event? Sally would have been covering it, wouldn't she? Wiant: I believe Sally would have been covering it, and I feel absolutely certainly that there are photographs. I feel absolutely certain that the alumni magazine had an article on that. Warren: It would be nice to have people actually holding the cups. Wiant: Holding the cups, yes, with the Lewises and with Justice Powell. 14 Warren: Speaking of the Lewises and speaking of Justice Powell, tell me about Sydney and Frances. Wiant: We could not be more fortunate in our benefactors, not only through their extraordinary generosity in giving us money to build a building, but more than that was the freedom and the encouragement to build the best possible building that we could build to meet the program that we would like to have here at the law school. Essentially those were their instructions, and while they were very pleased and would offer their comment if asked and their advice and counsel if we wished, they didn't tell us how to do anything. They just said, "Here it is." The only request that I am aware of that they made was that they be allowed to select the portrait artist, Jack Beall, and that the portrait hang in a prominent place. And other than that, they said, "Here. We want you to do what you think needs to be done, and we don't want to dictate to you how that ought to be done." Then Frances, through her own generosity, gave us additional money that became the endowment for the Frances Lewis Law Center, which is a wing of offices that essentially has become the intellectual heart of the law school. It is that program that funds our individual scholarship and our research assistants and that encourages writing of articles and books and provides us the funding and the opportunity to think about law reform in its broadest sense. So that they truly have been a guiding light for the law school, but not a directing light. They have been there through their support and encouragement. It's been wonderful. Warren: Did he attend the law school? Was he a seven-year man? Wiant: No. Warren: He was just an undergrad, right? Wiant: Then he went on to Harvard and got an MBA. He may have gone for a semester. But when he came to speak at graduation—and we've long had a tradition in effect. I secretly yearn for the return of that tradition, in spite of some wonderful 15 speakers, and the tradition was that we didn't have graduation speakers, that we had ample opportunity throughout the academic year to invite speakers, that graduation was an occasion to focus the attention on our graduates and that the president usually made remarks and the dean made remarks. But about ten years ago, we instituted a tradition of having law school graduation speakers, and some have been absolutely extraordinary, and among the best was Sydney Lewis, who said to us something like, "Graduation speakers are supposed to congratulate the graduates on their accomplishments, so congratulations. Graduation speakers are supposed to also..." and he had this little litany of things that graduation speakers were supposed to do, and then he got to the main part of the speech, and it went, "Graduation speakers are supposed to leave the graduates with a few words of wisdom, so here they are. Now go get an MBA, a degree that you can do something with." (laughter) Well, it was the right amount of encouragement, congratulations, and levity and brevity. It was an extraordinary speech. After you sit through speech after speech, it is true, you very rarely remember what any speaker has to say, and he was among the many who had something to say that was memorable and was just a delight. Warren: That's great. Wiant: They don't come to visit us nearly as often as we would like, but regularly we try, through the director of the Law Center and the dean, to visit them. Warren: I need to turn the tape over.