In a 12-page letter to the university’s Faculty Senate, former UVA President James E. Ryan detailed how Youngkin had mischaracterized the university’s decision regarding DEI, landing them in hot water with the Trump administration and its overzealous Justice Department. The DOJ promised to “bleed UVA white” before Ryan resigned.
In March 2025, the school received a resolution, drafted by Youngkin’s office, on how it should handle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies under Donald Trump’s second term. Ryan noted that it was the first such time that Youngkin had acted on the school’s behalf in his seven years atop the institution.
But that night, Youngkin went onto Fox News with a very different message for the nation—claiming that the university board had done “something radical and sweeping” by declaring that “DEI is dead.”
“For example, did it mean that we could no longer try to recruit qualified first-generation students from rural parts of Virginia, or offer financial aid, or even serve matzah in the dining halls during Passover, because each of those efforts would be advancing diversity, equity, and/or inclusion?” Ryan speculated.
The school did what it said it would do, in accordance with the agreed-upon resolution. Part of that involved a thorough review of the college’s many schools, which the school deemed would require more than the original 30-day allotted timeframe. It was Sheridan, who was then serving as chair of the board audit committee, who demanded that school officials with knowledge of the shifting DEI policies remain silent until the university board had a chance to meet.
“Having to remain silent about our response to the Board resolution left us in a difficult position because our community was curious about the changes and what it might mean for them,” Ryan argued. “At the same time, external critics interpreted our silence as inaction. We explained to Board members that we were being placed in an untenable position, given that we could not implement any changes if we could not even discuss them publicly.”
Further still, Youngkin’s comments had created false expectations in the Trump administration as to how the university would navigate the DEI demands. Three weeks after the school submitted its update to the board in late April, the school received a letter from the Justice Department, inquiring as to why they had not complied with the board’s resolution, using language that was more aligned with Youngkin’s remarks on Fox News than the actual text of the approved memo.
In the ensuing months, a group of UVA alumni at the Justice Department took aim at their old school. Ryan recollects the school’s communications with this DOJ team, noting that “neither of the DOJ lawyers were fans of mine.” He also chronicles the process of compiling hundreds of pages’ worth of admissions data for the Justice Department—only to have the agency turn around and mischaracterize the school’s approved requests for extensions as attempts to “stall” the process.
Ryan issued his letter a day after Sheridan penned her own account of the Trump administration-infused events leading to the university president’s ouster. The boiling drama adds another flair to tensions between Youngkin and his successor, Democratic Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger, who has questioned the Youngkin-appointed board’s influence over the ability for UVA to select Ryan’s replacement.
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