Editing University of Virginia (section)

==== Integration, coeducation, and student dissent ====
The University of Virginia first admitted a few selected women to graduate studies in the late 1890s and to certain programs such as nursing and education in the 1920s and 1930s.<ref name="Breaking and Making Tradition">{{cite web |url=http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/women/coeducation1.htmlhttp:// |title=Breaking and Making Tradition: Women at U VA |publisher=University of Virginia Library |access-date=September 14, 2012 |archive-date=October 17, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221017041614/https://www.library.virginia.edu/exhibitions/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1944, [[University of Mary Washington|Mary Washington College]] in [[Fredericksburg, Virginia]], became the Women's Undergraduate Arts and Sciences Division of the University of Virginia. With this branch campus in Fredericksburg exclusively for women, UVA maintained its main campus in Charlottesville as near-exclusively for men, until a civil rights lawsuit in the 1960s forced it to commingle the sexes.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.virginia.edu/woodson/projects/kenan/home.html|title=Storming the Gates of Knowledge: A Documentary History of Desegregation and Coeducation in Jefferson's Academical Village|author=Priya N. Parker|date=2004|access-date=May 9, 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304054418/http://www.virginia.edu/woodson/projects/kenan/home.html|archive-date=March 4, 2016}}</ref> In 1970, the Charlottesville campus became fully co-educational, and in 1972 Mary Washington became an independent state university.<ref>{{cite book
| last      = Alvey
| first     = Edward
| title     = History of Mary Washington College 1908–1972
| publisher = University of Virginia Press
| year      = 1974
| pages     = 278, 511
| isbn      = 978-0-8139-0528-0}}</ref> When the first female class arrived, 450 undergraduate women entered UVA, comprising 39 percent of undergraduates, while the number of men admitted remained constant. By 1999, women made up a 52 percent majority of the total student body.<ref name="Breaking and Making Tradition" /><ref name="enrollmentdata">[http://avillage.web.virginia.edu/iaas/instreports/studat/hist/enroll/year_by_gender.htm Historical Enrollment Data] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140907051621/http://avillage.web.virginia.edu/iaas/instreports/studat/hist/enroll/year_by_gender.htm |date=September 7, 2014 }}, accessed September 6, 2014</ref>

The university admitted its first black student when Gregory Swanson sued to gain entrance into the university's law school in 1950.<ref name="Road to Desegregation">{{cite web|url=http://www.virginia.edu/100yearslawn/HarrisonI/Road.htmlhttp://|title=The Road to Desegregation: Jackson, NAACP, and Swanson|access-date=September 14, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121021195347/http://www.virginia.edu/100yearslawn/HarrisonI/Road.html|archive-date=October 21, 2012}}</ref> Following his successful lawsuit, a handful of black graduate and professional students were admitted during the 1950s, though no black undergraduates were admitted until 1955, and UVA did not fully integrate until the 1960s.<ref name = "Road to Desegregation"/> When Walter Ridley graduated with a doctorate in education, he was the first black person to graduate from UVA.<ref name="Road to Desegregation" /> UVA's Ridley Scholarship Fund is named in his honor.<ref name="Road to Desegregation" />

The fight for integration and coeducation came to the foreground particularly in the late 1960s, leading up to the [[Student strike of 1970|May Strike of 1970]], in which students protested for higher black enrollment, equal access to UVA admission by undergraduate women, unionization of employees, and against the presence of armed university police and recruiters of government agencies such as the [[CIA]] and [[FBI]] on Grounds.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=May 21, 1970|title=President Shannon Met with STudent Council Tuesday Night|journal=The Sally Hemings|volume=1|issue=16|pages=1–2}}</ref>