Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings Issue

You’ve probably heard for years that DNA proved Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings. In this speech, Professor Robert F. Turner, chairman of the independent Scholars Commission that spent a year examining every piece of evidence, presents the panel’s actual findings. What you are about to hear will likely be eye-opening and surprising compared to the version that has dominated media coverage.

The Jefferson-Hemings Scholars Commission Findings by Prof. Robert F. Turner, University of Virginia (Part 1):

The Jefferson-Hemings Scholars Commission Findings by Prof. Robert F. Turner, University of Virginia (Part 2):

Robert F. Turner served as chairman of the Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings Issue, an independent panel convened in 2000 to examine the evidence that Thomas Jefferson had fathered children by Sally Hemings. The commission was organized at the request of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, a group formed by Jefferson admirers, genealogists, and others who believed the paternity claim had not received a fair hearing after the 1998 DNA results and the subsequent report of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation. In a formal letter dated May 26, 2000, the society’s board invited Turner to accept the chairmanship, citing his long-standing professional interest in Jefferson and his reputation as a careful scholar. The invitation explicitly assured the commission of intellectual independence. It would set its own procedures, could add members, and would operate free of influence from the Heritage Society. Members served without compensation.

Turner was then a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he had co-founded the Center for National Security Law in 1981 and taught both in the law school and in the Department of Government and Foreign Affairs. He holds a J.D. from 1981 and an S.J.D. from 1996, both from Virginia. His earlier career included service as an Army captain with two tours in Vietnam, a research fellowship at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, work as national security adviser to a U.S. senator, and several executive-branch posts during the Reagan administration in the Pentagon, the White House, and the State Department. He was the first president of the congressionally established United States Institute of Peace in 1986, held the Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Law at the Naval War College, and lectured at West Point. He has written or edited numerous books on national-security law and related subjects.

The commission itself comprised thirteen senior scholars drawn from history, political science, law, economics, and biochemistry. Among them were historians Forrest McDonald, Lance Banning, and Robert H. Ferrell; political scientists Harvey Mansfield and Jean Yarbrough; economist Walter E. Williams; and others including David N. Mayer and Paul Rahe. Most had held chaired professorships or department chairs at major universities. After nearly a year of individual research and group meetings, the commission released its report on April 12–13, 2001.

The summary findings were unanimous on one central point: the allegation that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings was by no means proven. With a single mild dissent, the remaining twelve members ranged from serious skepticism to a conviction that the charge was almost certainly false. The dissent by Paul Rahe held that the evidence for Jefferson’s paternity of Eston Hemings was somewhat more persuasive than the contrary case, while the paternity of the other children remained unsettled. The commission stressed that the 1998 DNA results established only a genetic link to some Jefferson male, not specifically to Thomas Jefferson, and that other candidates, most notably Jefferson’s younger brother Randolph, remained plausible. The report also examined the documentary record, the timing of conceptions, contemporary testimony, and the reliability of later sources, and it identified what the members regarded as significant weaknesses in the case advanced by proponents.

The full report, containing extensive individual statements and more than 1,400 footnotes, was later published in 2011 as The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission, edited by Turner for Carolina Academic Press. It stands as the principal published statement of the skeptical scholarly position on the question. While the broader historical profession has largely accepted the likelihood of Jefferson’s paternity, particularly of Eston Hemings, the Scholars Commission’s work remains the most detailed and systematic published critique of that conclusion.

Addendum

Despite claiming a 99.96% success rate, the 2026 DNA hair study contains significant methodological flaws: https://www.thomasjefferson.com/jefferson-blog/six-flaws-of-history-by-a-hair-richard-kurin