A senior United States justice department (DOJ) official said “it’s time for a new leadership” at the University of Virginia (UVA), after the Ivy League school’s chairman James Ryan resigned amid pressure from the Trump administration to dismantle the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.“Jim Ryan has built his entire career on what was the academic vogue which is DEI. Now it isn’t. So I think it is time for new leadership that’s willing to comply with federal law,” justice department assistant attorney general Harmeet Dhillon told CNN.“I don’t have any confidence that he was going to be willing and able to preside over the DEI dismantling,” Dhillon added.The New York Times was the first to report Ryan’s resignation and the significant pressure he was facing from both the DOJ and conservative groups.The justice department has been reviewing UVA’s compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bans institution receiving federals funds from discriminating based on race, colour and national origin.Dhillon, the DOJ assistant attorney general, revealed that it sent a letter three months ago, asking Virginia University to confirm its compliance with the United States Supreme Court’s landmark June 2023 ruling which outlawed race as a factor in college admissions.“But officials repeatedly asked for extensions and have not yet provided the confirmation,” she said to CNN’s Jake Tapper.Ryan, the eighth UVA president who has held the post since 2018, resigned on Friday. He called it an “excruciatingly difficult decision” made with a “very heavy heart.”“To make a long story short, I am inclined to fight for what I believe in, and I believe deeply in this university. But I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job. 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,” his letter read.
