Former University President Jim Ryan and Board of Visitors Rector Rachel Sheridan have each provided, for the first time since Ryan’s resignation, full accounts of the circumstances which led to Ryan’s decision to step down.
Sheridan sent a letter to the Faculty Senate Thursday afternoon providing a detailed timeline of discussions with the Justice Department before Ryan’s resignation. Ryan, in response, sent a letter to the Faculty Senate Friday which shared an account he wrote this summer of the circumstances leading to his resignation.
“In light of Rector Sheridan’s letter, as well as the governor’s, which I do not think present an accurate accounting of my resignation, I am sending my document to all of you now,” Ryan wrote. “I am sorry for the slight delay. I did not send this to you yesterday because I thought it would be inappropriate to do so on the third anniversary of the tragic deaths of three of our students.”
The Cavalier Daily corresponded with former Rector Robert Hardie, whose term ended June 30, regarding the two accounts. He confirmed that he agreed with Ryan’s account.
“I concur fully with President Ryan’s recollection of events,” Hardie said.
A conflict with the Justice Department
Beginning April 11, the Justice Department sent a series of seven letters to University leadership which expressed concern that the University was not complying with civil rights law and eventually opened seven investigations into the University’s policies and practices. Two of these investigations were closed in September, while the remaining five were suspended following the University’s decision to make a deal with the Justice Department.
In the letter, Sheridan said that legal counsel had strongly advised her, other Board members and University leadership not to give details regarding the Justice Department’s investigations. The purpose of the letter, Sheridan said, was to provide these details following the agreement with the Justice Department Oct. 22 to suspend five remaining investigations into the University.
Ryan and Sheridan generally agree on the timeline of meetings with the Justice Department and Ryan’s resignation. But they differ strongly on what demands were made by Justice Department attorneys, if anyone demanded Ryan to resign directly, why Ryan was not present at the Justice Department meetings as well as if the University was promised any sort of immunity in exchange for Ryan’s resignation.
Both Ryan and Sheridan also agree that McGuireWoods was hired by the University externally to represent them in dealings with the Justice Department. But Ryan specifically pointed out that only two of the three attorneys were approved by Attorney General Jason Miyares’ office — who must approve all legal counsel for the University. Ryan said that the two approved attorneys — Farnaz Thompson and Jack White — were the most conservative, while the more politically moderate attorney, Jonathan Blank, was not approved.
Sheridan addressed the fact that many community stakeholders thought that the Board should have done more to fight back against the Justice Department, and Student Council and the Faculty Senate both passed no-confidence resolutions in the Board.
Sheridan outlined reasons why the Board should not have fought back, namely that any legal dispute would have harmed the University before it was resolved.
“The DOJ has the power to terminate federal funding and the University would have to sue to get it back,” Sheridan wrote. “In the interim (even assuming an ultimate victory in court), there would have been tangible damage that would have fallen on countless individual students, faculty, staff and their families, who are entirely innocent and would have had no say in the profound disruption of their lives and careers.”
Ryan, alternatively, said that he was committed to following actual law but saw requests that he resign rather than work with the Justice Department as an encroachment on the University’s core principles.
“What I do know is that I was accused more than once by some Board members and the governor’s office of being stubborn. Perhaps I am,” Ryan said. “But stubborn and principled often look the same, especially to those who are unprincipled.”
Who asked Ryan to resign?
Throughout her letter, Sheridan maintained that the Justice Department consistently expressed concerns with Ryan’s leadership. Sheridan said that Ryan posed the idea himself that he would resign at the end of the year and that, when they offered this to Justice Department lawyers, the department said that his resignation needed to happen sooner.
Ryan disagreed with her account. He said that before the June meeting of the Board, Sheridan and now-Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson — who were not yet elected rector or vice rector — met with the Justice Department lawyers and informed Ryan that he would need to resign to avoid further damage to the University via federal sanctions. Ryan was not invited to the meetings, according to his account, but Sheridan said he did not wish to attend the meetings..
Ryan then writes that Board member Paul Manning asked him to get lunch June 16 and told him that he should resign, after previously telling Ryan to stay in place, according to Ryan. Manning could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
Sheridan suggested Ryan talk to one of her friends, Beth Wilkinson, who was an attorney, and they spoke two days before Ryan resigned, he writes. Ryan said he was “startled,” as this friend made clear she thought he should resign. As it turns out, Sheridan had already hired her as an attorney for the Board, according to Ryan.
“This surprised me, both because Rachel did not indicate that Beth was already working for the Board, and also because lawyers representing a potentially adverse party have an ethical duty to indicate as much,” Ryan wrote. “At one point Beth told me that … if I didn’t resign, the Board would fire me.”
Beth Wilkinson could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
While Sheridan indicated in her letter that neither she nor the Board ever demanded Ryan’s resignation, she said that she agreed with Ryan’s decision to resign and not fight the Justice Department.
“While it was not up to me, I support the decision that President Ryan made,” Sheridan wrote. “The situation was terrible and unfair. But the University we all love was in grave peril.”
Exactly which party demanded Ryan’s resignation — if any — is unclear, as Ryan even points out himself. Ryan said that while Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, publicly stated on multiple occasions that the Justice Department never asked him to resign, Sheridan and Manning told him otherwise.
“Given the contradictory statements, someone is obviously not telling the truth, and it’s not clear to me what incentive Harmeet [Dhillon] would have to be dishonest about this,” Ryan wrote. “It’s not as if the Trump administration has been shy about calling for resignations.”
March vote to dissolve DEI
One issue in particular the Justice Department took issue with, mentioned by both Ryan and Sheridan, was in March, when the Board voted unanimously to dissolve the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Ryan noted that the University originally received this resolution from Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office. According to Ryan, the original resolution was sweeping and the Board made significant edits before voting to pass it unanimously.
“This was the first time in my seven years that the governor’s office had drafted a resolution on behalf of the Board,” Ryan wrote.
The resolution included language that the University still valued diversity and merely transferred DEI programs to a new office.
Following this vote, the University began several reviews to ensure compliance with federal law, which The Cavalier Daily confirmed with documents pertaining to the review.
“The legal review was never something we shied away from, as none of us had any interest in violating the law,” Ryan wrote. “At the same time, it is fair to say that the law here is not crystal clear. 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.”
Although the initial directive from the Board and the review led to some changes, Ryan said, Sheridan directed University leadership not to communicate these changes with the community. He claimed that this put him in a difficult position — the community was curious about the changes while simultaneously external critics saw the silence as inaction. The Cavalier Daily reported on this silence in April.
“We explained to Board members that we were being placed in an untenable position, given that we could not implement any changes if we could not even discuss them publicly … But they nonetheless insisted that we remain quiet,” Ryan wrote. “So began the narrative that we were recalcitrant and resistant to any changes, which was not true but would continue up and through my forced resignation.”
Sheridan explained that the March vote was made to “stay ahead” of concerns that the Trump administration would force universities to comply with their interpretation of federal law. Despite this, she noted, letters from the Justice Department began shortly after.
“Those letters made clear that the DOJ believed that they had significant evidence of noncompliance at the University, and that they were very skeptical about President Ryan’s willingness to implement changes,” Sheridan wrote.
The first letter which mentioned Ryan’s conduct was sent April 28. A letter sent June 16 alleged that Ryan was actively making attempts to evade federal law.
Calls for Ryan to resign intensify in June
In her letter, Sheridan does not mention any of the specific discussions during the June meeting of the Board, though she does point out when University leaders were in contact with the Justice Department throughout June — namely a June 3 meeting with the Justice Department which took place just before the Board met.
Ryan and Sheridan agree that a meeting between Justice Department lawyers and Sheridan and Wilkinson took place just before the Board meeting, and after which, Ryan said Sheridan told him that the Justice Department’s lawyers said he would need to resign.
The now-Rector detailed three meetings she took part in with the Justice Department and claimed that Ryan had asked her to attend these meetings June 3, 24 and 26, which she “reluctantly” agreed to do. Ryan offered a different account, saying Sheridan was asked to attend these meetings before even being selected as the next rector, and that Ryan was told he was not invited. Sheridan also said that she had not had any interactions with the Justice Department beyond those three meetings.
“President Ryan encouraged Ms. Wilkinson and me to engage with the Department, indicating that he believed it was critical for the University to gain a clear understanding of the Department’s demands and position,” Sheridan wrote.
Throughout the process, Ryan consulted with Sheridan as well as Manning and Hardie, according to Sheridan. Ryan noted other individuals and friends he consulted with, though some go unnamed.
Sheridan said multiple times that the Justice Department had indicated it did not have confidence in Ryan to enact the changes it was asking the University to make in order to comply with federal law. Sheridan does not say whether the Justice Department demanded Ryan’s resignation in the June 3 meeting.
During the Board meeting however, Ryan wrote that Sheridan did not bring up the Justice Department’s insistence that he resign and did not bring it up again at all in the week that followed.
Ryan said he did not hear about the possibility of his resignation being demanded again until he had lunch with Manning June 16. In that lunch meeting, Ryan said that Manning told him Youngkin and Sheridan thought he should resign.
“He told me that, as a friend, he did not want me to go through the ordeal of trying to fight the federal government, and he was worried what the DOJ—and other agencies—might do to U.Va.,” Ryan wrote. “It was unclear to me whether this conversation was Paul’s idea, or whether he was carrying water for the governor and Rachel [Sheridan].”
The Cavalier Daily has been unable to verify who demanded Ryan’s resignation, if anyone did at all.
Differing timelines of Ryan’s resignation
Ryan said that after his meeting with Manning, in which he said he was told the decision to resign was his alone, he met with Sheridan’s friend, who had apparently already been hired by the Board as a lawyer.
That lawyer, Ryan said, told him that if he did not resign, the Board might even fire him for cause — which would have caused him to lose his tenure and be kicked out of the University. Ryan said he called both Manning and Sheridan to express that he was “stunned and angry.”
Ryan said that Manning also reached out to the Justice Department again in the 10 days before he resigned, in which the lawyers for the Justice Department told Manning that if Ryan did not resign, they would “bleed UVA white,” according to Ryan.
After pondering the situation he was presented with, Ryan said, he decided to resign at the end of the next academic year, and Sheridan presented that information to the Justice Department’s attorneys, hoping it would improve the University’s standing. Both Sheridan and Ryan agree on those facts.
“Whether I would have ultimately decided to make next year my last year if I had had some time away this summer before making the decision is impossible to know at this point, given all that has transpired,” Ryan wrote.
Sheridan said in her letter that she strongly disagreed with the proposition of asking the Justice Department if Ryan’s resignation would improve the University’s standing. Gregory Brown, former deputy associate attorney general for civil rights, told University counsel that the University’s standing would only improve if Ryan’s resignation “took effect more immediately,” Sheridan said.
“During that videocall together, President Ryan was shaken by the DOJ’s response, as was I,” Sheridan wrote.
Ryan then planned to announce his resignation July 15, according to Sheridan, but the reporting by the New York Times June 26 that Ryan was being pressured to resign reportedly angered the Justice Department’s attorneys and expedited the timeline. Both Sheridan and Ryan state this, and The Cavalier Daily has confirmed that Sheridan made this statement in text messages to Manning and Hardie through records obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request provided to The Cavalier Daily from State Sen. Creigh Deeds.
In his letter, Ryan wrote that he was told the Justice Department attorneys wanted his resignation by 5 p.m. June 26 or “the DOJ would basically rain hell on U.Va.” Ryan said that when consulting with his colleagues, he was told the Board would fire him if he did not resign — something Sheridan said she and Manning would not have been supportive of.
“After pursuing as many options as we could to forestall my resignation, around 4pm one of my closest and wisest colleagues said: ‘If you don’t have any Board support, it’s over. You can’t fight this on your own,’” Ryan wrote.
Ryan echoed claims by others, including Deeds, that the University was promised a deal by the Justice Department in exchange for Ryan’s resignation.
“I was then told that the DOJ had offered an amazing deal — unlike any the lawyers had ever seen, in their words. They were basically willing to grant U.Va. blanket immunity — all of the inquiries and investigations would be suspended, no financial penalties would be imposed and agencies would be told not to cut off our research funding,” Ryan wrote.
Ryan and Sheridan both agree that he submitted his resignation letter internally June 26 to Hardie. Ryan said after he submitted his resignation to Hardie, he asked Sheridan repeatedly to have the Justice Department’s “blanket immunity” offer in writing, and that he would like to see it.
He then says that he was told the agreement was partially in writing, but he would not be able to see it for fear of a leak.
Sheridan disagreed, writing that the Justice Department did not make promises to end its investigations in exchange for Ryan’s resignation. Instead, Brown from the Justice Department told the University that the Justice Department would suspend ongoing investigations, not open new ones or use enforcement measures while negotiations were ongoing.
“If the DOJ ever offered to give UVA ‘blanket immunity’ or to terminate ‘all current and possible future DOJ investigations’ merely as a result of President Ryan’s resignation, as Senator Deeds recently claimed, that was never communicated to Mr. Manning, Ms. Wilkinson or me,” Sheridan wrote.
Ultimately, while Ryan’s announcement was supposed to be held, according to Sheridan and Ryan, he was preempted by a leak to the New York Times June 27 and announced later that day.
The aftermath
In the letter, Sheridan claimed that “hundreds” of University policies and websites were not “correctly and clearly” in compliance with federal law. Since the Justice Department investigations, she said, the University has conducted a systematic review and made changes to comply with the 2023 Supreme Court decision Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
“The community’s reaction to these events has been influenced by a widespread belief that the University has always been in full compliance with Students for Fair Admission and federal civil rights law, and that the DOJ’s investigations therefore must be entirely baseless,” Sheridan wrote. “In fact, those issues were quite complex.”
Ryan said that throughout these events, he knew of only three potential legal issues — two he said were “arguably, though not definitively” out of compliance with the Supreme Court decision, and one that he never saw proof of. However, Ryan said, the Justice Department never found any legal liability prior to his resignation.
“We were committed to following the actual law. We were also open to changing policies and practices if they were not working well or if there were persuasive, principled reasons to change course,” Ryan wrote.
Sheridan also denied claims that the Board prevented Ryan from responding to the Justice Department’s inquiries and denied having any connections to administration officials involved in the investigations.
Ryan’s letter did not contradict Sheridan’s statement, but said instead that every time a letter from the Justice Department came, the University would compile information — then, just before the deadline for submission of this information, a new letter would arrive. He claimed that lawyers advised him not to respond until the University could respond to all the inquiries at once, which meant that at the time of his resignation, the University had not yet responded to the Justice Department.
“The public claim made by one of the DOJ lawyers that we kept stalling by asking for extension after extension was misleading, at best. Why our own lawyers did not seem to understand or appreciate that submitting information in stages would be better than submitting nothing at all, especially given the false accusations that we were stonewalling, remains a mystery to me,” Ryan wrote.
Moving forward
In the letter, Sheridan asked the Faculty Senate for collaboration with University leadership moving forward.
“We call on the Faculty Senate to collaborate with University leadership in uniting our campus and our community,” Sheridan wrote. “The Board has worked constructively with the past three leaders of the Faculty Senate, who favored responsible engagement and civil dialogue even in the face of serious tension and disagreement.”
Ryan left a series of six questions to close his letter, pertaining to involvement of Youngkin, the attorney general’s office, the Justice Department and the Board in his resignation which he believes remain unanswered.
The letters follow months of tensions between the Board and the Faculty Senate over Ryan’s resignation and several resolutions by the Faculty Senate calling on Sheridan and Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson to speak directly to senators about the circumstances surrounding investigations by the Justice Department and Ryan’s subsequent departure.
Both letters also came just ahead of a Faculty Senate meeting Friday afternoon, where senators will vote on whether to pass a resolution calling for Sheridan and Wilkinson to step down from their positions on the Board due to what senators see as a lack of leadership and accountability. The resolution was drafted prior to Sheridan sending her letter.
Rector Rachel Sheridan's Letter
Former President Jim Ryan's Letter
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