{"id":606,"date":"2025-06-29T20:21:22","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T20:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/francereal.com\/?p=606"},"modified":"2025-06-30T03:45:36","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T03:45:36","slug":"warner-says-doj-letter-to-university-of-virginia-president-was-explicit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/francereal.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/29\/warner-says-doj-letter-to-university-of-virginia-president-was-explicit\/","title":{"rendered":"Warner says DOJ letter to University of Virginia president was 'explicit'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a Sunday interview that University of Virginia President James Ryan, who submitted his resignation on Friday<\/a>, was given an \u201cexplicit\u201d deadline to step aside, in a letter last week from the Department of Justice (DOJ).<\/p>\n

In an interview on CBS News\u2019s \u201cFace the Nation,\u201d Warner condemned the Trump administration\u2019s pressure campaign against Ryan, who resigned on Friday to avoid funding cuts to the university.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s DOJ had been investigating allegations that the school was not in compliance with President Trump\u2019s\u00a0January executive order<\/a>\u00a0barring diversity, equity and inclusion practices at institutions that receive federal funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the most outrageous action, I think, this crowd has taken on education. We have great public universities in Virginia. We have a very strong governance system, where we have an independent board of visitors appointed by the governor,\u201d Warner said. “Jim Ryan had done a very good job; just completed a major capital campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor him to be threatened, and, literally, there was indication that they received the letter that if he didn’t resign on a day last week, by five o’clock, all these cuts would take place,\u201d Warner added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was that explicit?\u201d moderator Margaret Brennan asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was that explicit,\u201d Warner said.<\/p>\n

The New York Times reported Thursday night<\/a> that the Justice Department demanded Ryan resign as a condition of a settlement in its civil rights investigation into diversity practices at the university.<\/p>\n

Ryan posted a letter publicly on Friday confirming his resignation, saying he was \u201cinclined to fight for what I believe in\u201d but could not \u201cmake a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo 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,\u201d Ryan said in the letter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a Sunday interview that University of Virginia President James Ryan, who submitted his resignation on Friday, was given an \u201cexplicit\u201d deadline to step aside, in a letter last week from the Department of Justice (DOJ). In an interview on CBS News\u2019s \u201cFace the Nation,\u201d Warner condemned the Trump administration\u2019s pressure campaign against Ryan, who resigned on Friday to avoid funding cuts to the university. Trump\u2019s DOJ had been investigating allegations that the school was not in compliance with President Trump\u2019s\u00a0January executive order\u00a0barring diversity, equity and inclusion practices at institutions that receive federal funding. \u201cThis is the most outrageous action, I think, this crowd has taken on education. We have great public universities in Virginia. We have a very strong governance system, where we have an independent board of visitors appointed by the governor,\u201d Warner said. “Jim Ryan had done a very good job; just completed a major capital campaign.\u201d \u201cFor him to be threatened, and, literally, there was indication that they received the letter that if he didn’t resign on a day last week, by five o’clock, all these cuts would take place,\u201d Warner added. \u201cIt was that explicit?\u201d moderator Margaret Brennan asked. \u201cIt was that explicit,\u201d Warner said. The New York Times reported Thursday night that the Justice Department demanded Ryan resign as a condition of a settlement in its civil rights investigation into diversity practices at the university. Ryan posted a letter publicly on Friday confirming his resignation, saying he was \u201cinclined to fight for what I believe in\u201d but could not \u201cmake a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job.\u201d \u201cTo 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,\u201d Ryan said in the letter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/francereal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/francereal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/francereal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francereal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francereal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/francereal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":607,"href":"https:\/\/francereal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions\/607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francereal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/francereal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francereal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francereal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}