U.Va. president resigns under pressure from DOJ

On Friday, University of Virginia President James E. “Jim” Ryan wrote that he was resigning his post at the state’s flagship university due to pressure from the federal government.

“I am writing, with a very heavy heart, to let you know that I have submitted my resignation as president of the University of Virginia,” begins Ryan’s email sent to U.Va.’s community late Friday afternoon. “To make a long story short, I am inclined to fight for what I believe in, and I believe deeply in this university. But I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job.”

Ryan’s sudden departure after seven years as U.Va.’s president was the culmination of mounting pressure at universities nationwide from the Trump administration to dissolve diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives or risk losing federal funding that powers research, funds many university jobs and provides student financial aid. In March, Columbia University’s interim president resigned amid multiple federal investigations by the Trump White House.

In April, Ryan received a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights division, which is led by two U.Va. alumni, calling for the university to produce audio and video from a closed session of its board of visitors, as well as provide evidence that every division of the university and its health system has dissolved and dismantled its DEI initiatives, following a board vote in March.

Signed by U.Va. alumni Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s civil rights division, as well as Deputy Assistant Attorney General Gregory W. Brown, the letter said that the DOJ received complaints that Ryan’s “office and the university may have failed to implement these directives and further that you have refused to produce the report on the matter.” The university was given until May 30 to respond to the letter.

The New York Times reported early Friday afternoon that Ryan had notified the school’s board of visitors he would resign from his post, and on Thursday night, the Times reported that it had learned through three sources that the Justice Department demanded Ryan resign as a condition of settling a civil rights investigation into U.Va.’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Ryan’s email continues by saying that he was resigning to protect federal research funding, “hundreds” of university-based jobs and “hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld.” He also wrote that he had already planned for the next academic year to be his 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.”

The former dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and before that a professor at U.Va.’s School of Law, Ryan joined U.Va. as its president in 2018. He has been a prodigious fundraiser for the university, with U.Va. officials noting this week that the university had exceeded a $5 billion fundraising goal set with the October 2019 public launch of the “Honor the Future” campaign, raising more than $6 billion total. On Thursday, Ryan announced two anonymous $25 million donations.

“While there are very important principles at play here, I would at a very practical level be fighting to keep my job for one more year while knowingly and willingly sacrificing others in this community,” Ryan’s letter continues. “If this were not so distinctly tied to me personally, I may have pursued a different path. But I could not in good conscience cause real and direct harm to my colleagues and our students in order to preserve my own position.

“It has been an honor to be your president,” the email concludes. “Thanks for the outpouring of support over the last few days and weeks. My deepest gratitude to all of the faculty, staff, students and alumni, who make this university and this community both great and good. This was an excruciatingly difficult decision, and I am heartbroken to be leaving this way.”

Hundreds of protesters came to the steps of the Rotunda Friday afternoon to protest the federal pressure that led to Ryan’s resignation, according to local news reports.

Shortly after the Times released its report, U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both Democrats, issued the following statement: “Virginia’s economy and prosperity depend on the strength and integrity of our higher education system. It is outrageous that officials in the Trump Department of Justice demanded the commonwealth’s globally recognized university remove President Ryan — a strong leader who has served U.Va. honorably and moved the university forward — over ridiculous ‘culture war’ traps.

“Decisions about U.Va.’s leadership belong solely to its Board of Visitors, in keeping with Virginia’s well-established and respected system of higher education governance. This is a mistake that hurts Virginia’s future.”

Two people familiar with the matter told the Times that the U.Va. Board of Visitors had accepted Ryan’s resignation, although the effective date is unclear. In a letter to Rector Robert D. Hardie, Ryan said his resignation could be effective immediately but “no later than” Aug. 15, according to a Times source.

Hardie, who is set to rotate off the board June 30 after serving two four-year terms, said in a statement Friday that earlier in the day “with profound sadness,” he accepted Ryan’s resignation on behalf of the board.

Ryan’s resignation also arrives amid a legal fight between Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Senate Democrats over Youngkin’s eight BOV appointees who were rejected by a Senate committee in June. This week, nine Democratic state senators sued the rectors of U.Va., George Mason University and Virginia Military Institute.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs say that Youngkin has been trying to nullify the Senate committee vote by refusing “to recognize the rejection of those appointments by a coequal branch of government, in open defiance of the Constitution of Virginia and 50 years of tradition in the Commonwealth.”

Among the appointees rejected was former Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli, whom Youngkin named to U.Va.’s board to replace outspoken conservative member Bert Ellis, who stoked controversy since Youngkin appointed him in 2022.

The governor’s office released a statement late Friday: “I thank President Ryan for his service and his hard work on behalf of the University of Virginia. The Board of Visitors has my complete confidence as they swiftly appoint a strong interim steward, and undertake the national search for a transformational leader that can take Mr. Jefferson’s university into the next decade and beyond.”

Dhillon, a U.Va. law school alum who graduated in 1993, one year after Ryan’s own graduation from the law school, issued a statement Friday: “The United States Department of Justice has a zero-tolerance policy toward illegal discrimination in publicly-funded universities. We have made this clear in many ways to the nation’s most prominent institutions of higher education, including the University of Virginia.

“When university leaders lack commitment to ending illegal discrimination in hiring, admissions, and student benefits — they expose the institutions they lead to legal and financial peril. We welcome leadership changes in higher education that signal institutional commitment to our nation’s venerable federal civil rights laws.”

DOJ attorneys have Wahoo ties

Brown and Dhillon are both U.Va. graduates, and according to the Times’ Thursday story, Brown was particularly active in the investigation and made demands to university officials and representatives to remove Ryan. A Charlottesville-based defense attorney before joining the Justice Department, Brown sued the university in 2024 on behalf of a then-first year student, Matan Goldstein.

A Jewish and Israeli student, Goldstein said that he was the target of antisemitic attacks at U.Va. amid pro-Palestinian protests taking place on Grounds in reaction to the war in Gaza.

Brown claimed in the lawsuit that the university, as well as Ryan and Hardie, “thoroughly and completely failed” to “protect students from discrimination, harassment, abuse, violence and retaliation, including antisemitism.”

According to news reports in December, Goldstein settled with the university for an undisclosed amount.

Brown said via text Friday that he had no comment and directed inquiries to the DOJ’s public affairs office.

Under Ryan’s leadership, U.Va. set an individual gift record with the 2019 $120 million donation by Jaffray and Merrill Woodriff to launch the School of Data Science, and in 2023, U.Va. started construction of the $350 million Manning Institute of Biotechnology with a $100 million donation by Paul and Diane Manning.

Ryan also shepherded U.Va. through difficult times, including the 2022 slayings of three U.Va. football players by a fellow student and the spring 2020 COVID campus shutdown and resumption of remote classes. Last spring, he faced criticism for the university’s handling of a pro-Palestinian student protest on campus, after 27 students were arrested by police in riot gear who sprayed protesters with chemical irritants.

“Jim Ryan has been an extraordinary president of this great university,” Hardie said in his statement. “He has led our institution to unprecedented heights, always doing so with grace and humility. I know I speak for our students, alumni, faculty, and staff when I express my heartfelt gratitude for Jim’s tireless service to our university, especially for the ways he has guided the institution steadily and with great purpose, even in the face of major challenges like a global pandemic. U.Va. has forever been changed for the better as a result of Jim’s exceptional leadership.”

The Virginia State Senate’s Democratic Caucus sent out a statement Friday, saying that it “stands strongly in support of President Ryan and the presidents of all our public universities. We recognize their commitment to maintaining the academic integrity and educational mission that have made Virginia’s institutions world-class centers of learning.

“We call upon all boards of visitors across our 14 public colleges and universities to resist any efforts by the Trump administration to dictate how Virginia runs its own taxpayer-funded schools.”

Other Virginia Democrats, including gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger, a U.Va. alum, and the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, released statements condemning the Trump administration’s involvement in the matter.

“As governor, I will take decisive steps to ensure that all of our commonwealth’s boards of visitors are composed of individuals committed to the mission of serving and strengthening our public colleges and universities,” Spanberger said. “I will work to restore a standard of leadership that puts academic excellence, Virginia’s students, and the strength of Virginia’s public colleges and universities ahead of any political agenda.”

The VLBC statement blasted the White House and Youngkin: “Their goal is clear: to defund public education, rewrite what is taught in classrooms, restrict who gets to learn, and remove leaders who refuse to conform to their narrow ideological vision. This is not just about one university president — this is about dismantling public education as we know it.”

Mounting pressure

Ryan was under increasing public pressure over the past two months, with America First Legal, a nonprofit right-wing “answer to the ACLU” founded by Stephen Miller, the White House’s deputy chief of staff for policy and one of President Donald Trump’s closest advisers, calling for a full-scale investigation of U.Va.’s DEI practices in May.

In a 98-page missive to Dhillon dated May 21, America First Legal wrote, “the university is operating programs based on race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, and other impermissible, immutable characteristics under the pretext of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ in open defiance of federal civil right law, controlling Supreme Court precedent, and executive orders issued by President Donald Trump.”

The document notes that Ryan was among hundreds of university presidents and other higher education leaders who signed an American Association of Colleges and Universities letter in April condemning what it calls the Trump White House’s “unprecedented government overreach and political interference.”

Ryan was the only president of a Virginia public university who signed the petition.

Closer to home, the Jefferson Council, a group of conservative alumni who have been heavily critical of Ryan, launched a website called Reset UVA earlier this year. On its homepage, the site says, “UVA Needs New Leadership” and describes Ryan’s tenure as “politicized and feckless leadership combined with his institutionalization of double standards has led to an unprecedented series of tragedies, scandals and government investigations that have severely damaged U.Va.’s core values and reputation.”

Bert Ellis is among the founders of the Jefferson Council, along with James A. Bacon Jr., a Virginia alumnus who runs the conservative political website Bacon’s Rebellion and was Virginia Business’ founding editor from 1986 to 2002, as well as its publisher for a time.

However, Wahoos4UVA, a group of alumni, students, faculty, staff members and other supporters of U.Va., started its own website and a letter in support of Ryan.

“Wahoos4UVA is dedicated to protecting the university from misinformation and celebrating the incredible work happening across Grounds,” the site says. “These achievements are clear indications the university is headed in the right direction under the right leadership.”

Ann Brown, a 1974 U.Va. alumna and Wahoos4UVA co-chair, called the pressure on Ryan to resign “an assault not only on U.Va. but on the very principles of academic freedom, institutional autonomy and democratic governance,” in a statement Friday. “Jim Ryan has been a singularly effective leader and has made U.Va. stronger even through times of challenge and tragedy. It is shameful for the Trump administration’s Justice Department to use unconstitutional, extortionate tactics to erase that legacy.”

Meanwhile, Roanoke attorney John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said Friday that he thinks U.Va. has lost its leverage by reacting so quickly.

“I think it’s a mistake by the university to respond so quickly to the kind of shock-and-awe moves by DOJ, because it’s unlikely to end with just one person’s resignation. Without kind of having a complete deal with DOJ, there’s no protection … that there won’t be more repercussions for University of Virginia,” Fishwick said. 

“I think if you’re going to capitulate on one thing, then the DOJ knows you’ll capitulate on other things,” he added. “And so they’ve lost their leverage. They’ve signaled they’re not going to fight DOJ. It’s not over for the University of Virginia. You can fight, and then you can later negotiate, but when you just immediately capitulate, you’re in a very weak position.”

Virginia Business Associate Editor Beth JoJack contributed to this story.