The president of the University of Virginia has resigned his position under pressure from the United States Department of Justice, which pushed for his departure amid scrutiny of the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices.
In an email sent to the university community on Friday and circulated on social media, university president James Ryan said he was resigning to protect the institution from facing the ire of the government.
“I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job,” he wrote.
“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’s resignation has been accepted by the board, two sources told The New York Times, which first broke the story. It remains unclear exactly when he will leave his post.
His departure is the latest indication of ongoing tensions between the administration of President Donald Trump and the academic community.
During his second term, President Trump has increasingly sought to reshape higher education by attacking diversity initiatives, pushing for crackdowns on pro-Palestinian student protesters, and seeking reviews of hiring and enrollment practices.
Ryan’s departure marks a new frontier in a campaign that has almost exclusively targeted Ivy League schools. Critics also say it shows a shift in the government’s rationale, away from allegations of rampant anti-Semitism on campus and towards more aggressive policing of diversity initiatives.
Just a day prior, the Justice Department announced it would investigate another public school, the University of California, for its use of diversity standards.
Ryan, who has led the University of Virginia since 2018, faced criticism that he failed to heed federal orders to eliminate DEI policies.
An anonymous source told The Associated Press news agency that his removal was pushed by the Justice Department as a way to help resolve an inquiry targeting the school.
Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education, called Ryan’s ouster an example of the Trump administration using “thuggery instead of rational discourse”.
“This is a dark day for the University of Virginia, a dark day for higher education, and it promises more of the same,” Mitchell said. “It’s clear the administration is not done and will use every tool that it can make or invent to exert its will over higher education.”
James Ryan had served as president of the University of Virginia since 2018 [Peter Morgan/AP Photo]
Virginia’s Democratic senators react
In a joint statement, Virginia’s senators, both Democrats, said it was outrageous that the Trump administration would demand Ryan’s resignation over “‘culture war’ traps”.
“This is a mistake that hurts Virginia’s future,” Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine said.
After campaigning on a promise to end “wokeness” in education, Trump signed an executive order in January calling for an end to federal funding that would support educational institutions with DEI programming.
He accused schools of indoctrinating “children in radical, anti-American ideologies” without the permission of their parents.
The Department of Education has since opened investigations into dozens of colleges, arguing that diversity initiatives discriminate against white and Asian American students.
The response from schools has been scattered. Some have closed DEI offices, ended diversity scholarships and no longer require diversity statements as part of the hiring process. Still, others have held firm on diversity policies.
The University of Virginia became a flashpoint after conservative critics accused it of simply renaming its DEI initiatives. The school’s governing body voted to shutter the DEI office in March and end diversity policies in admissions, hiring, financial aid and other areas.
Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin celebrated the action, declaring that “DEI is done at the University of Virginia”.
But America First Legal, a conservative group founded by Trump aide Stephen Miller, said that DEI had simply taken another form at the school. In a May letter to the Justice Department, the group said the university chose to “rename, repackage, and redeploy the same unlawful infrastructure under a lexicon of euphemisms”.
The group directly took aim at Ryan, noting that he joined hundreds of other college presidents in signing a public statement condemning the “overreach and political interference” of the Trump administration.
On Friday, the group said it will continue to use every available tool to root out what it has called discriminatory systems.
“This week’s developments make clear: public universities that accept federal funds do not have a license to violate the Constitution,” Megan Redshaw, a lawyer with the group, said in a statement. “They do not get to impose ideological loyalty tests, enforce race and sex-based preferences, or defy lawful executive authority.”
Until now, the White House had directed most of its attention at Harvard University and other elite institutions that Trump sees as bastions of liberalism.
Harvard has lost more than $2.6bn in federal research grants amid its battle with the government, which also attempted to block the school from hosting foreign students and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status.
Harvard and its $53bn endowment are uniquely positioned to weather the government’s financial pressure.
Public universities, however, are far more dependent on taxpayer money and could be more vulnerable. The University of Virginia’s $10bn endowment is among the largest for public universities, while the vast majority have far less.
