University of Virginia President Jim Ryan on Tuesday joined more than 300 leaders in higher education from across the country condemning the Trump administration’s actions to rein in universities and dictate how they operate.
As of Wednesday, 307 academic leaders, including nearly 250 presidents of both public and private colleges, signed a statement circulated by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, calling the federal government’s actions an “unprecedented government overreach” and “political interference.”
“We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight,” the statement reads. “However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.”
When The Daily Progress requested additional details, UVa spokesman Brian Coy referred back to the statement.
UVa is the first — and only — public university in Virginia so far to sign the statement, which comes just one day after Harvard University sued the Trump administration over its decision to freeze billions of dollars in federal funds.
The other Virginia colleges that signed on were private, including Emory & Henry University in Southwest Virginia and Virginia Wesleyan University in Virginia Beach.
Signatories also include the presidents of large research universities such as the universities of Michigan and Washington, as well as small liberal arts colleges such as Berea, Oberlin and Middlebury — the last of which recently named UVa Provost Ian Baucom its president.
The statement comes as the tension between the Trump administration and Harvard has reached a boiling point. The federal government issued a letter earlier this month accusing the private university of failing to “live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment” and ordered university leaders to capitulate to a list of demands or risk losing federal funds. Harvard refused, prompting Trump officials to freeze $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in federal contracts.
Some of the demands listed in the April 11 letter, which the federal government sent to Harvard President Alan Garber and Penny Pritzker, a senior fellow on the Harvard Corporation, included reforms to the admissions process of international students, an audit on antisemitic conduct on campus and a directive to dissolve all diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs across campus.
Harvard issued its own letter in response, saying the university “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”
“Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government,” the April 14 letter reads. “Accordingly, Harvard will not accept the government’s terms as an agreement in principle.”
The statement issued Tuesday, which Garber signed, made reference to those demands in an attempt to underscore the freedom of inquiry and other endowed principles that have for centuries embodied higher education in America.
“American institutions of higher learning have in common the essential freedom to determine, on academic grounds, whom to admit and what is taught, how, and by whom,” the statement said. “Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation.”
Before taking the helm of UVa in 2018, UVa’s Ryan served as dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education for nearly half a decade.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com