Ryan calls resignation a "hostage situation" at UVA
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The UVA rotunda. Photo: Daxia Rojas/AFP via Getty Images
Former UVA president Jim Ryan broke his silence last week in an intense 12-page letter outlining the events that led to his abrupt resignation in June.
Why it matters: Ryan described the lead-up to his resignation as a "hostage situation," saying he was told that if he didn't immediately step down, "the DOJ would basically rain hell on UVA."
Zoom in: The Justice Department and UVA had been fighting since the spring over the school's use of DEI policies in admissions and hiring. They announced a settlement last month.
- Now Ryan says his resignation was the school's price for DOJ pausing its investigations into the school.
Some might wonder, he wrote, "why I did not just go public when this was happening. I considered that as well. The call for my resignation, right until the end, seemed so outlandish as not to be entirely believable.
- "It also felt like a hostage situation, where the kidnapper threatens harm if you do not keep information about the demands confidential. I was repeatedly told to keep this threat confidential and scolded for sharing the information with some close colleagues to help me think through the best path.
- "I worried that if I went public, UVA would lose funding and get attacked by the Trump administration, and I would still end up being fired or forced to resign regardless."
Ryan said he was the only university president specifically targeted for removal amid the Trump administration's broader attack on schools' DEI policies.
Zoom out: Ryan wrote that he believed UVA's trouble began when Gov. Youngkin's office drafted the school's resolution that dissolved UVA's DEI offices.
- "This was the first time in my seven years that the Governor's office had drafted a resolution on behalf of the Board," Ryan's letter said.
- "'DEI is dead' at UVA," Youngkin announced on Fox News that night, Ryan wrote, which was an "exaggeration of the Board's resolution" and ultimately led to public confusion about the school's policies.
What they're saying: The DOJ has said it didn't tell the university to force Ryan out, the New York Times reports.
The big picture: Ryan's letter was among a flurry of letters that put Virginia's flagship university back in the spotlight over the last week.
- Gov.-elect Spanberger urged UVA's Board of Visitors not to pick a new university president until after her inauguration, calling Ryan's resignation "a result of federal overreach."
- Youngkin clapped back the next day, accusing Spanberger of attempting to "bully or micromanage" the board, adding that neither the DOJ nor the board made Ryan resign.
The latest: On Monday, the Virginia Supreme Court blocked eight of Youngkin's board appointees to three Virginia schools, including UVA.
- In a statement Monday night Youngkin said: "I am disappointed that the Supreme Court of Virginia has refused to decide whether or not one committee of one chamber in the General Assembly can unilaterally, with merely a handful of members of one party, remove incredibly qualified public servants who have been serving Virginia's higher education institutions admirably for months."