By Douglas Belkin and Eliza Collins

University of Virginia President James E. Ryan has resigned amid tension with the Trump administration, he said in an email to the school community.

Ryan had come under scrutiny over what the Justice Department says was his refusal to dismantle the school's diversity, equity and inclusion programs, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The Justice Department has been threatening to withhold federal funding to the school if it doesn't get rid of the programs, the person said. The school has been in daily communication with the department about how to proceed, the person said.

"I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job," Ryan said in his email. "To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered 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."

The resignation set higher education leaders and Democratic officials on edge.

It's a "sad day for UVA and very worrying for higher education in general," said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents nearly 1,600 colleges and universities across the country. "This level of interference by the federal government in the internal affairs of a state university is as unprecedented as it is unwarranted."

Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Democrats, decried the resignation, calling it an "outrageous" example of government meddling.

Ryan was named president in 2018 and was the former dean of the Harvard School of Education. For months, a well-organized alumni group has been campaigning to force the board of trustees to remove him from office over what it says is his failure to unwind the university's DEI apparatus.

The Trump administration's pressure on UVA reflects a broadening of the government campaign to remake higher education, moving beyond accusations of antisemitism into a wider attack on DEI.

On Thursday, the Justice Department opened a civil-rights investigation into the University of California system. The department is probing whether UC schools discriminated against job applicants, employees and others on the basis of race and sex, according to a letter from Harmeet Dhillon, head of the J ustice Department's civil-rights division, to UC President Michael Drake.

The Trump administration has been waging campaigns against universities for months but so far has pushed hardest on accusations of antisemitism at high-profile Ivy League schools like Harvard University and Columbia University. The government pulled together a dedicated Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, which probed an initial list of 10 schools and prompted the withdrawal of billions in federal funds.

At Columbia, the interim president at the time stepped aside amid the battle with Trump.

The anti-DEI groundwork was laid earlier in the year, when Trump's Education Department explained its interpretation of federal discrimination law, saying that it considered any use of race -- or proxies for race -- to be illegal in hiring and admissions decisions. The advisory letter warned colleges they would jeopardize their access to federal funding if they promoted racial preferences in hiring or admissions.

Trump also issued executive orders attempting to ban DEI programs at federal agencies.

Before Trump took office, a 2023 Supreme Court ruling struck down the use of racial preferences in university admissions. Lawsuits have challenged the use of race in scholarships as well as a federal program designed to funnel tens of millions of dollars to colleges and universities with large percentages of Hispanic students.

The battle against DEI is now advancing to target the use of proxies for race -- which might include geography or class -- in order to boost diversity, said Scott Schneider, a higher education attorney in Texas.

"This is the next wave," Schneider said. Opponents of DEI are "saying if the intent is to circumvent the direct use of race, proxies are just as bad, that's the novel issue that courts are wrestling with."

Write to Douglas Belkin at Doug.Belkin@wsj.com and Eliza Collins at eliza.collins@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 27, 2025 17:41 ET (21:41 GMT)

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