University of Virginia’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jennifer “J.J.” Wagner Davis will act as president while the board works on finding a replacement for outgoing President Jim Ryan, the UVA Board of Visitors announced on June 30.
But some UVA faculty members say the board’s statement is premature. It’s too early to discuss replacements, they say. They plan to contest Ryan’s ouster — and hopefully reverse it.
“This is a significant blow to academic freedom at the University of Virginia — it was an extralegal process of trying to fire our president for ideological and political reasons,” UVA professor and member of the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors Walt Heinecke told Charlottesville Tomorrow. “And we intend on resisting it.”
Despite the mounting pressure from UVA faculty, the Board of Visitors is moving ahead with its plan to find Ryan’s replacement.
Typically, when a UVA president steps down, UVA’s Board of Visitors forms a search committee to find and recommend a new president.
The Board of Visitors said in a statement that it intends to incorporate stakeholders including faculty, students, staff and alumni in this search, which is standard practice at UVA in the search for a new university president. There are also guidelines for the process created by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which prioritize collaborative decision making and ensures the faculty’s input carries weight.
UVA spokesperson Bethanie Glover was not able to provide a more specific timeline or say how many or to what extent stakeholders will be involved in the search. Former Rector Robert Hardie and current Rector Rachel Sheridan did not respond to requests for comment.
According to the board’s statement, the search process will “commence shortly.”
Despite this, many faculty, staff and students at UVA are pushing for his reinstatement following the unusual circumstances that led to his exit.
Ryan’s sudden resignation on June 27 came after the Trump administration threatened to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding and continue investigating the university’s diversity initiatives if Ryan did not step down, according to a report citing multiple anonymous sources in The New York Times.
It’s the first time in American history that federal officials have explicitly tied federal funding to the resignation of a university official, according to an article published by Inside Higher Ed. It’s a move that Heinecke described as a dangerous precedent and a clearly politicized “extortion racket” by the Trump administration.
The UVA Faculty Senate — a representative body of faculty that advises the president, the rector, and the Board of Visitors — outlined similar sentiments in a June 27 statement. The group condemned Ryan’s ouster and gave the board a July 14 deadline “to clarify the circumstances and negotiations” that led to it.
“Things are tense and sad right now,” UVA professor and former faculty board representative and member of the faculty senate Michael J. Kennedy told Charlottesville Tomorrow. “People are looking for answers about how and why this happened.”
At a July 2 emergency faculty forum, UVA faculty and staff expressed similar frustrations, with many calling for Ryan’s reinstatement. They complained of a lack of transparency from the board surrounding Ryan’s ouster and condemned political interference in academic freedom and shared governance.
There is precedent for a president’s reinstatement at UVA as well. In 2012, UVA President Teresa Sullivan was forced to resign after only two years in office due to “philosophical differences” with the board, according to Inside Higher Ed. However, the same board quickly and unanimously reinstated her following protests, pressure from the AAUP and an outpouring of support from the community.
There is a similar level of support for Ryan’s reinstatement, Heinecke said.
UVA’s chapter of United Campus Workers (UCW), a union for public higher education workers, also condemned Ryan’s ouster as “federal authoritarianism and interference” and “politically motivated attacks” in a statement.
“The politicians and members of the Board of Visitors pushing them forward seek to create a climate of fear and repression in our workplaces. Together, we will resist,” the statement, which demanded that the board keep politically motivated interference out of UVA, said. “This is our university — not the Board of Visitors’, not Glenn Youngkin’s, and not Donald Trump’s.”
All three of Charlottesville’s and Albemarle County’s General Assembly representatives — Sen. Creigh Deeds and Delegates Katrina Callsen and Amy Laufer — publicly condemned Ryan’s forced resignation shortly after his ouster.
Leading members of the Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus, led by Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, have supported Ryan as well and condemned both Trump and Youngkin for pressuring him to resign. Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Mamie Locke, Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, former Governor Terry McAuliffe and other lawmakers also criticized the move as part of a broader pattern of attacks by the Trump administration on higher education.
“I think a lot of people are hopeful that maybe Jim Ryan would consider retracting his resignation because of the level of support he’s received,” Heinecke said.
And while that’s not unprecedented, Ryan’s reinstatement would require a vote from a majority of board members, which may be unlikely.
UVA’s Board did not provide any pushback to Ryan’s forced ouster, Heinecke said. Instead, The New York Times reported that some members of the Board were in communication with the Department of Justice before Ryan’s resignation, although the nature of those communications remains unclear.
“The fact that the board did not support Ryan — the fact that the board accepted the resignation so quickly without pushing back on the overreach by the Department of Justice — suggests that there may be some problems or issues with the way that the board reacted,” Heinecke said, adding that the Board of Visitors’ search for a new president should not move forward until their role in Ryan’s ouster is further investigated.
Asking the Board to vote for Ryan’s reinstatement is further complicated by the fact that it’s unclear whether board member Ken Cuccinelli will be allowed to vote.
Three days before Ryan’s exit, nine Virginia Senate Democrats filed a lawsuit seeking to block eight of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appointees from serving on the boards of three Virginia universities — including Ken Cuccinelli at UVA.
The lawsuit alleged that the Senate’s Privileges and Elections Committee, which is legally responsible for confirming the board members, lawfully rejected the appointees — including former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. That means they legally cannot serve or vote on board matters.
There are also groups who support Ryan’s departure. The Jefferson Council — a conservative organization formed by UVA alumni, donors, students and faculty in 2020 — praised Ryan’s removal in a June 27 statement, calling it a “welcome step toward restoring intellectual diversity” and “depoliticizing” the university. The organization — which had previously spoken out against Ryan’s diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives at the university — had been calling for his removal as president since May.
If the search for a replacement moves ahead, Heinecke and other faculty want to ensure the process follows established AAUP guidelines. “There has to be a majority of faculty on the search committee, and the faculty vote on candidates has to be determinative for which candidate gets the job,” Heinecke told Charlottesville Tomorrow.
While the Board of Visitors is not required to follow these guidelines, there could be consequences if it doesn’t. If the AAUP finds that UVA’s Board of Visitors is violating them, it can issue a public nationwide censure of the board — an action that publicly identifies the institution’s administration and governing board for failing to uphold widely accepted principles of academic freedom and tenure.
Being on AAUP’s censure list can damage an institution’s reputation and make it more difficult to attract and retain faculty and students.
“In past presidential searches, the administration and the Board of Visitors have not followed AAUP principles and policies on replacement,” he said. “So this time around, we’re going to be very vocal about this.”
Ryan’s last day will be on July 11, according to a July 2 statement from UVA. After a sabbatical, he will return to UVA as a full professor in the School of Law and the School of Education and Human Development, the statement adds.
