On Friday, the fight with U.S. higher education started by America’s 47th president, Donald Trump, landed at the university founded by its third president, Thomas Jefferson.
The University of Virginia’s president, James E. Ryan, submitted his resignation Friday in an effort to resolve Trump administration demands related to a federal investigation into the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The move is the first such pressure campaign on a public university, which is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s months-long national effort to reshape higher education at America’s top universities. The Justice Department Civil Rights Division pressured the university to uproot diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, as ordered by President Trump, and accused Ryan of simply rebranding them. Multiple sources familiar with the situation told CBS News that the university feared losing federal funding unless a compromise was reached. Ryan’s resignation followed.
In a letter to the UVA community, Ryan explained that he “cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job.” He nodded to a broad threat of federal action against the university and its students if he remained in office.
“To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld,” Ryan wrote.
A spokesperson for the school said “UVA is committed to complying with all federal laws and has been cooperating with the Department of Justice in the ongoing inquiries.”
“The federal government’s support of the University is essential to continue the core mission of research, education and, clinical care,” said the spokesperson, Brian Coy. The New York Times first reported Ryan’s intention to resign.
A person familiar with the matter described the federal scrutiny as being like a “nuclear bomb” going off within the University of Virginia’s administration.
This source said lawmakers including senators urged Ryan not to resign and to remain in office until after the state’s gubernatorial election concludes in November in case a Democratic candidate replaces Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. A future Democratic governor might then be positioned to challenge Mr. Trump’s order, as well as to dismiss Youngkin’s conservative appointees to the university’s Board of Visitors. That Board voted in the Spring to follow Mr. Trump’s orders to excise DEI programs. Youngkin is thought to have presidential aspirations and has embraced Mr. Trump’s anti-DEI platform.
If Democratic candidate for governor Abigail Spanberger were to defeat Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, she would be able to act to preserve Ryan’s standing, they said.
Ryan is known for his efforts to advance diversity both at the University of Virginia and in his previous role as dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Harvard has also been a focus of Trump administration scrutiny, recently suing the federal government over its effort to bar it from admitting international students. Until now private universities, and specifically Ivy league schools had been the prime focus of the Trump administration’s education litigation. Those efforts often cited efforts to combat accusations of anti-semitism on campus.
The Trump administration’s efforts have resulted in colleges nationwide, including Columbia University and the University of Michigan dramatically scaling back their diversity, equity and inclusion messaging and programs.
The University of Virginia was designed and founded in 1819 by Jefferson. Education was central to his legacy, and he left explicit instructions for his gravestone to be inscribed with three accomplishments: author of the Declaration of independence, author of Virginia’s statute of religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia. There was no mention of having been America’s third president.
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