University of Virginia President James Ryan is stepping down amid a Trump administration probe of the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, according to people familiar with the matter.
Ryan informed university leadership of his resignation on a hastily-called meeting over Zoom, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussion was private.
“I thank President Ryan for his service and his hard work on behalf of the University of Virginia,” Glenn Youngkin, the state’s Republican governor, said in a statement. “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,” he wrote.
Ryan’s departure from Virginia’s flagship university underscores the pressure on US higher education from President Donald Trump, whose administration has scrapped federal funding for Harvard University and other schools and begun investigations of colleges for “race-exclusionary” practices.
The New York Times, which first reported the resignation, said late Thursday that the Justice Department had demanded Ryan’s exit as a condition of settling a civil rights investigation of the University of Virginia’s diversity practices.
Ryan, the school’s ninth president, developed a reputation as a champion of diversity while drawing fire from conservative alumni and Republican board members for being “too woke,” the newspaper said. Ryan, who earned a law degree at the University of Virginia, took the reins at the institution in 2018 and previously served as dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
In March, the governing board voted to abolish the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion office.
Youngkin this week appointed four new members to the board. They include a vice chairman at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and a former chief financial officer of Carlyle Group Inc., the private equity firm where Youngkin previously worked as co-chief executive officer.
The University of Virginia didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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