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The University of Virginia president stepped down on Friday after facing intense pressure from the Trump administration over the institution’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
James E. Ryan, who had led the school since 2018, said he had already decided that next year would be his last and decided not to “fight the federal government in order to save my own job” until then.
To make a long story short, I am inclined to fight for what I believe in, and I believe deeply in this University,” Ryan wrote to the UVA community on Friday. “But I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job. 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.”
“This is especially true because I had decided that next year would be my last, for reasons entirely separate from this episode—including the fact that we concluded our capital campaign and have implemented nearly all of the major initiatives in our strategic plan,” he continued.
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Robert D. Hardie, leader of the University of Virginia’s governing board, said in a statement he accepted Ryan’s resignation with “profound sadness,” adding that he had been an “extraordinary president,” led the institution to “unprecedented heights” and that the university “has forever been changed for the better as a result of Jim’s exceptional leadership.”
This comes after the Trump administration had privately demanded that the university remove Ryan to help resolve a Justice Department probe into the institution’s DEI practices, according to The New York Times.
The Justice Department argued that Ryan had failed to dismantle the school’s DEI programs and misrepresented the steps taken to eliminate them, amid the administration’s efforts to root out DEI in higher education, the newspaper reported.
The federal government’s moves targeting higher education include pulling billions of dollars from elite universities such as Harvard, which has been the subject of investigations by various agencies over issues such as DEI initiatives, admissions practices and alleged antisemitism on campus.
But this was the first time the administration had pressured a university to remove its president.
“That sham virtue signaling of DEI has no place in our country, and the Trump administration is working tirelessly to erase this divisive, backward, and unjust practice from our society,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields told Fox News Digital.
“Any university president willingly breaking federal civil rights laws will be met with the full force of the federal government, and it would behoove every school in America to prioritize the civil rights of every student and end DEI once and for all,” he continued.
Ryan had focused on increasing diversity at the university, bringing in more first-generation students and encouraging community service. These efforts had ruffled the feathers of conservative alumni and Republican board members who argued he was “too woke” and wanted to impose his beliefs on students.
Before his time as the university’s president, Ryan served as the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he received recognition for his commitment to DEI programs.
In a joint statement, Virginia’s Democratic senators said it was “outrageous” that the administration would demand Ryan’s resignation over “‘culture war’ traps.”
“Decisions about UVA’s leadership belong solely to its Board of Visitors, in keeping with Virginia’s well-established and respected system of higher education governance,” Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine said. “This is a mistake that hurts Virginia’s future.”
Conservative groups have lambasted Ryan for what they regard as insufficient steps toward compliance with the administration’s plans to eliminate DEI. America First Legal, a nonprofit launched by Trump advisor Stephen Miller, accused the University of Virginia last month of rebranding DEI programs to skirt Trump’s executive orders aimed at ending diversity initiatives.
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“Rebranding discrimination does not make it legal, and changing a label doesn’t change the substance,” Megan Redshaw, an attorney at America First Legal, said in a statement at the time. “UVA’s use of sanitized language and recycled job titles is a deliberate attempt to sidestep the law.”
The group took direct aim at Ryan, noting that he joined hundreds of other college presidents in signing a public statement condemning the administration’s “overreach and political interference.”
On Friday, the group vowed to continue to use every available tool to root out DEI.
“This week’s developments make clear: public universities that accept federal funds do not have a license to violate the Constitution,” Redshaw said in a statement to The Associated Press. “They do not get to impose ideological loyalty tests, enforce race and sex-based preferences, or defy lawful executive authority.”
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