COMMENTARY William W. Boyer William W. Boyer is the Charles Polk Messick Professor of Public Administration, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware. He is the author of: Civil Liberties in the United States Virgin Islands. 1917-1949 (Sunny Isle, St. Croix, USVI: Antilles Graphic Arts, 1982), America's Virgin Islands: A History of Human Rights and Wrongs (Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 1983), and many articles and papers on the history of the United States Virgin Islands.