The president of the University of Virginia, James Ryan, resigned on Friday under pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration over the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
In a letter to the UVA community, Ryan said he had made the “excruciating decision” to step down after concluding that resisting Trump officials’ demands would put the school’s students and faculty at risk.
“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-centred 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.”
Virginia’s Democratic U.S. senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, called the Trump administration’s demand “outrageous” in a joint statement and said Ryan’s departure would hurt the university and the state.
It was not clear whether Ryan’s resignation would take effect immediately. Earlier, the New York Times had reported that the Justice Department had demanded his resignation, and he decided to capitulate.
The administration has launched a campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion and targeted colleges and universities that it has claimed are pushing antisemitic, anti-American, Marxist and “radical left” ideologies.
Universities that have been investigated or have had funds frozen have said that Trump’s attacks are threats to freedom of speech, freedom of academics and the schools’ very existence.
In a warning issued to UVA last week, the Justice Department said the government had concluded that the use of race in admissions and other student benefits was “widespread practices throughout every component and facet of the institution,” according to the Times.
