Poor old Thomas Jefferson! He only wrote the Declaration of Independence, served as America's third president, and arranged the Louisiana Purchase that ultimately added 15 new states to the U.S.

But in progressive circles, Jefferson's now a bad guy because, well, he owned slaves. and one of them, Sally Hemmings, might or might not have been his mistress. He's now kind of like Christopher Columbus, currently a non-person among progressives because he had the temerity to "discover" America. (Today, Columbus Day, is now "Indigenous People's Day" in Minneapolis, Seattle, and other advanced-thinking cities.)

For example, at the University of Missouri, located in Jefferson, the state capital (named after you-know-who because what is now Missouri was part of the Louisiana Purchase), a statue of Thomas Jefferson has been plastered with post-it notes calling Virginia's most famous resident a "racist" and a "rapist." (The latter epithet seems to be based on the alleged Hemmings affair.)

The protest is happening days after a drunk student hurled racist slurs at black students on campus. The incident occurred late on Sunday. In a video posted to YouTube on Monday, School Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin admitted that this is not an isolated incident.

“It’s happened again,” he said, adding, “hate and racism is alive and well at Mizzou.”

Maybe so, but it's unclear exactly what that has to do with the bronze statute in a campus botanical garden depicting Jefferson scribbling Declaration with a quill pen.

But it is clear that student activists have been trying for months to rid the Mizzoui campus of the statue itself:

“Thomas Jefferson’s statue sends a clear nonverbal message that his values and beliefs are supported by the University of Missouri. Jefferson’s statue perpetuates a sexist-racist atmosphere that continues to reside on campus,” states the Change.org petition. “…Removing Jefferson’s statue alone will not eliminate the racial problems we face in America today, but it will help cure the emotional and psychological strain of history.”

The petition was launched two months ago by student Maxwell Little, who told the Missourian he and his peers were inspired in part by the success of the removal of the Jefferson Davis statue from the University of Texas.

Maybe as a further protest, the activists could persuade the state of of Missouri to secede from the Union–oh wait, that already happened!