University of Virginia president resigns amid pressure from Trump admin over DEI initiatives

The President of Virginia University resigned on Friday after facing extensive pressure from the Trump administration about the initiatives of the Foundation’s diversity, shares and integration.

James E Ryan, who led the school since 2018, said that he had already decided that next year would be the last and decided not to “fight the federal government to save my job” until then.

In order to shorten a long story, I tend to fight for what I believe in, and I believe deeply at this university, “Ryan wrote to the UVA community on Friday.” But I cannot make a unilateral decision to combat the federal government to save my own job. Doing this will not only be Soyetic, but it seems selfish and developed around hundreds of employees who will lose their jobs, researchers who will lose their financing, and hundreds of students who may lose financial aid or withhold their visas.

“This is especially true because I decided that next year will be the last, for completely separate reasons for this episode – including the fact that we have finished our capital campaign and we have implemented almost all major initiatives in our strategic plan,” he said.

Trump University pressure on Virginia University to break its president on Dei programs: Report

Robert d. Hardy, the leader of the Board of Virginia University, in a statement that before Ryan resigned with a “deep sadness”, adding that he was “an unusual president”, he led the institution to “unprecedented altitudes” and that the university “has changed forever for the better as a result of the leadership of Jim.”

This comes after the Trump administration asked the private sector to remove the university Ryan to help solve the Ministry of Justice’s investigation in the Dei’s DEI practices, according to the New York Times.

The Ministry of Justice argued that Ryan had failed to dismantle the school’s DEI programs and distort the steps taken to eliminate it, amid the administration’s efforts to clarify Dei in higher education, according to the newspaper.

The movements of the federal government aimed at higher education include billions of dollars from elite universities such as Harvard, which were the subject of investigations by many agencies on issues such as Dei initiatives, admission practices, and alleged anti -Semitism on the campus.

But this was the first time that the administration was Compressed a university To remove its president.

White House spokesman Harrison Fields told Fox News Digital.

“Any university president who breaks the laws of federal civil rights from Tayeb Khater. The full laws of the federal government will be confronted, and every school in America will be supposed to give priority to civil rights to each student and end DEI once and forever,” he continued.

James Ryan, who led the school since 2018, said he had already decided that next year would be the last. (AP)

Ryan focused on increasing diversity at the university, bringing more first -generation students and encouraging community service. These efforts collected the feathers of the conservative graduates and members of the Republican Council who argued that it was “very awake” and wanted to impose his beliefs on the students.

Before his time as president of the university, Ryan held the position of Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Harvard University, where he received a recognition of his commitment to Dei programs.

In a joint statement, Democratic Senators in Virginia said it was “bright” that the administration would demand the resignation of Ryan regarding the traps of “cultural war.”

“The decisions related to the leadership of UVA only belong to the Visitor Council, in line with the firm and respected Virginia system for higher education governance,” said Centers Mark Warner and Tim Kane. “This is a mistake that hurts the future of Virginia.”

Ryan conservative groups criticized what they consider insufficient steps towards compliance with the management plans to eliminate Dei. America was initially accused, a non -profit institution launched by Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller, the University of Virginia last month of assigning Dei programs to coordinate Trump’s executive orders that aim to end diversity initiatives.

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The Trump administration from the private sector called for the removal of the university Ryan to help solve the Ministry of Justice’s investigation in the Dei’s DEI practices. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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“The reincarnation of discrimination does not make it legally, and changing the poster does not change the article,” Megan Redchou, a lawyer in America first, said in a statement at the time. “Use UVA for elastic language and recycled function addresses is a deliberate attempt to avoid law.”

The group targeted Ryan, noting that he joined hundreds of other university presidents in signing a general statement condemning the “political transcendence and intervention” of the administration.

On Friday, the group pledged to continue to use every tool available to assemble Dei.

“Developments this week explain: public universities that accept federal funds do not have a license to violate the constitution,” Ridsu said in a statement to Associated Press. “They do not get the imposition of ideological loyalty tests, the imposition of race and gender -based preferences, or the challenge of the legal executive authority.”