Gene Nichol

Greetings from London where we are having a great holiday. I hope things are well with you, Glenn and the girls. I need to tell you about a recent communication from Jim McGlothlin. As you know I have been working hard with Taylor toward a 12 Million dollar gift from Jim to the Law School. I felt that we were making good progress and moving toward closure, but I talked to Jim who is very upset and angry about the Wren cross, and is not prepared to give any more money at this time because he is so upset about the removal of the cross from the Chapel. I am not sure that I can do anything more to help you with Jim. He is very angry. I have said from the time that you became president that I would help you with anything that you needed, and I was prepared to talk about anything with you. We have not spoken (absolutely you're right) but I could have told you where this decision would go. I will do anything that you can think of that would help you at this time — but I have to say that I am so sorry that William and Mary has come to this place.

Local and state levels of government officials, though not directly affected by the decision, spoke against it. Delegate Brenda L. Pogge (R – Yorktown) feared that the College, as a state symbol, may have "tarnished its legacy." Pogge mailed Nichol a letter that asked him to stop the show. She also requested a city police presence to determine if a state obscenity statute was broken.

Additional controversy followed Nichol after allowing the Sex Workers' Art Show to proceed to campus on February 4, 2008. The tour visits college campuses and other venues across the country. While personally expressing his displeasure with the content of the student-funded show, Nichol felt censoring the performance would be inappropriate. He issued a statement saying, "The First Amendment and the defining traditions of openness that sustain universities are hallmarks of academic inquiry and freedom. It is the speech we disdain that often puts these principles to the test. The College of William & Mary will not knowingly and intentionally violate the constitutional rights of its students. Censorship has no place at a great university." Nichol's allowance of the Sex Workers' Art Show to perform on the campus garnered mixed reactions among both the general public and the College student body.

After the Board of Visitors decided not to renew his three-year contract, which was already set to expire on June 30, 2008, Nichol resigned on February 12. Several weeks after his resignation he returned to teach at the University of North Carolina School of Law. Matt Marvin, a UNC Law School spokesperson, said that all of the controversy surrounding Nichol did not alarm them and that they welcomed him back to the university.

In his resignation letter, Nichol claimed that the Board of Visitors had offered him money to stay silent on the reason he was fired, freedom of speech. He also claimed members of the Board of Visitors had been threatened by legislators if they did not order his resignation, and that the Virginia government was unhappy with his efforts to diversify the student body and faculty. Nichol claimed that he was offered "substantial economic incentives" to not mention this as well. The Board of Visitors denied these claims. W. Taylor Reveley, III, then dean of the law school, was named as the interim president of the College after Nichol's resignation. On September 5, 2008, Reveley officially succeeded Nichol as president when he was hired for a full three-year term.

On March 6, 2007, William & Mary announced that the committee had recommended that the cross be returned to Wren Chapel as an artifact displayed in a glass case, with a plaque explaining the College's Anglican heritage and historical connection to Bruton Parish Church. Nichol and the Board of Visitors agreed to the recommendation in a press conference. In addition, the chapel sacristy would continue to be available to store religious symbols of any faith, which may be brought into the chapel as appropriate.

Nichol's October 2006 decision to change a long-standing university policy by removing a cross from permanent display on the altar of the Chapel in the Wren Building ended his first year as president in controversy. He explained that a cross in the chapel of a public university made some students of other religious traditions feel unwelcome in a place considered by the community to be an important part of campus.

The students at the College of William & Mary showed little opposition to the show. The Art Show's first appearance on campus in 2005 received little media attention, but the second visit in 2006 generated more interest from the students for the following year. Students who opposed the show's content often accepted its arrival on campus due to their support for freedom of speech. The tour performed two shows at William & Mary in 2008, both of which sold out quickly.

Nichol made a bid for the United States Senate representing the state of Colorado in 1996 with the Democratic Party, but was defeated in the primary. He also made a bid for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998 and was defeated in a 4-way primary by Mark Udall.

He previously worked at William & Mary as Cutler Professor of Constitutional Law and director of the Institute of Bill of Rights Law from 1985 to 1988. His other positions have included teaching law in the undergraduate and law schools of the University of Colorado, the University of Florida, the University of Exeter, the University of Oxford, and West Virginia University.

Nichol spent his prep years at Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas, Texas (Class of 1969). He then attended Oklahoma State University (Class of 1973), where he received a philosophy degree and participated on the varsity football team. He received his law degree from the University of Texas (Class of 1976), graduating Order of the Coif. He then became the dean of the University of Colorado School of Law from 1988 to 1995, as well as dean of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law from 1999 to 2005.

Gene Ray Nichol, Jr. (born May 11, 1951) was the twenty-sixth president of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. He succeeded Timothy J. Sullivan and officially served from July 1, 2005 to February 12, 2008. It was the shortest tenure for a William & Mary president since the Civil War. During each year of his presidency, however, the College continued to break its own application records.