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The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, a Charlottesville nonprofit long dedicated to promoting the First Amendment, announced Monday that it will close after donating its assets to the University of Virginia School of Law.

The gift of more than $1 million will relaunch the school’s First Amendment Clinic, which is one of the oldest in the country but which has been on a brief hiatus. The clinic will be taught by attorneys at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a national nonprofit that provides free legal services to journalists.

“We had almost 30 years as a center,” said Bruce Sanford, a First Amendment lawyer who has been chair of the board since the center’s founding. “But we think this will be a great win-win both for UVa and for the Reporter’s Committee.”

The center was founded in 1989 with gifts from Thomas E. Worrell, Jr., a former owner of The Daily Progress. The founding director was Bob O’Neil, former president of UVa.

Initially, Sanford said, the center hoped identify and help litigate civil liberties cases itself, “but that was easier said than done.”