In a sharply worded letter, Gov. Glenn Youngkin rebuked Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger for calling on the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors to pause the selection of its new president.
Youngkin asserted Thursday night that Spanberger’s letter to the leaders of UVa’s board was an ill-informed "breach of protocol" and underscored that Virginia has one governor at a time.
On Friday, UVa’s former president, Jim Ryan, released a 12-page letter to the Faculty Senate in which he challenged accounts of his resignation from Youngkin and Rector Rachel Sheridan. Ryan asserted that "a tiny subset" of the UVa board, including Sheridan and Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson, before they were promoted to those leadership roles, worked with the Youngkin administration and the U.S. Department of Justice to force his departure.
"The whole episode still feels surreal and bewildering, and I still cannot make complete sense of it," Ryan wrote.
In his letter to Spanberger, Youngkin said he had been advised that "this was likely the first time in the history of our Commonwealth that a Governor-elect attempted to interfere with the governance of a university and the fiduciary duties of individual board members. Surprisingly, you have reached conclusions before you or your transition team have taken the time to learn all the facts around the resignation of former UVA President Jim Ryan and the settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)."
"Your letter was riddled with hyperbole and factual errors and impugns both the Board of Visitors and the presidential search underway," he added.
Spanberger, who will be inaugurated Jan. 17 as Virginia’s 75th governor, on Wednesday urged leaders of the school’s board to hold off on choosing a new president until the General Assembly confirms her nominees to the board.
"As both a proud alumna and the Governor-elect of the Commonwealth of Virginia, I am deeply concerned by recent developments at the University of Virginia and how these challenges may impact the legitimacy of the current search for the University’s next president," Spanberger wrote to Sheridan and Willkinson.
"In the wake of the departure of President Jim Ryan as a result of federal overreach — unchallenged by the Board — the University now faces the serious task of selecting its tenth president," Spanberger wrote, adding that the board must make the selection through a "legitimate" and "transparent" process.
A 28-member presidential search committee at UVa announced last week that it is beginning the process of narrowing the field of 60 candidates to a handful, with in-person interviews scheduled for later this month.
Spanberger wrote that five of the 17 members who sit on UVa’s Board of Visitors still have not been sworn in, making the board’s legitimacy, and the legitimacy of any decisions it makes, questionable.
In his response, which he also sent to Sheridan, Wilkinson and other members of the UVa board, Youngkin said the presidential search process should continue.
"My guidance to the UVA Board is to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities, take advantage of the most inclusive and successful presidential search process in UVA’s history and not waste the great pool of candidates by unnecessarily delaying the search and losing them to other schools," he wrote.
Ryan resigned under pressure in July as the Trump administration asserted he was too slow in eradicating diversity, equity and inclusion policies from UVa Grounds. Youngkin asserted that neither the Justice Department, nor the leaders of the current UVa board forced Ryan to resign.
Youngkin said Ryan’s resignation "took place under the leadership of Rector Robert Hardie," a longtime Democratic appointee to the UVa board who is now co-chair of Spanberger’s inaugural committee.
Ryan’s rebuttal
In his letter to the Faculty Senate, Ryan said he was pressured to resign by "a tiny subset of the board."
"If they went even further and actively worked, along with the Governor, to force my resignation, I believe they should have had the courage and decency to say so and to make it happen themselves without hiding behind" the U.S. Justice Department, he wrote.
Ryan said "the trouble began" at the UVa board’s March meeting when it received a resolution on DEI that Youngkin’s office drafted.
"After numerous edits and intense conversation, the resolution passed by the Board was fairly mild — so much so that the Board, which included four members appointed by the previous, Democratic Governor, adopted the resolution unanimously," Ryan wrote.
Ryan wrote that they were directed to dissolve the DEI office at UVa "and move all permissible programs to another institutional home within the University" and were to ensure that they were complying with anti-discrimination laws.
"Confusion began, at least at the public level, that night, when Governor Youngkin went onto Fox News to crow that ‘DEI is dead’ at UVA," Ryan wrote.
Ryan said that was an exaggeration of the board’s resolution. Ryan wrote that it is unclear what it means to "kill" DEI, "and the Governor didn’t go much beyond the soundbite."
"For example, did it mean that we could no longer try to recruit qualified first-generation students from rural parts of Virginia, or offer financial aid, or even serve matzah in the dining halls during Passover, because each of those efforts would be advancing diversity, equity, and/or inclusion?"
Ryan also appeared to counter Youngkin’s statement in the letter that UVa had violated federal law during his tenure as school president.
"It is also fair to say that simply because someone in power does not like a policy, that does not automatically make the policy illegal," Ryan wrote.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, posted on X Friday that Ryan’s letter "details a shocking abuse of power by the UVA Board of Visitors and collaboration between a Governor & AG who betrayed the state and schools they swore to protect so they could curry favor with MAGA extremists."
Youngkin concluded his letter to Spanberger by, essentially, telling her to butt out.
"As was wisely communicated to me by my predecessors, there is just one Governor of Virginia at any time," Youngkin wrote. "This ensures that the Commonwealth’s operations continue unimpeded.
"Communicating with state agencies or Boards of Visitors is confusing, and is inconsistent with proven, professional protocols. And certainly, efforts to bully or micromanage are inappropriate," he wrote. "Your Administration will start on January 17, 2026."
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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