On Your Mark Get Set Go
On your mark get set go. The first-year students move in on August 21. There are still far too many questions and little evidence that the BOV or the DOJ cares about them or really has any idea what those of us who actually work and learn here do every day. (What the students mostly do not do is read the syllabus so the BOV and DOJ can stop worrying about that indoctrination stuff)
No Confidence The consensus from people who do stuff at UVa seems to be that they have NO CONFIDENCE in the BOV. Board of Uva faculty senate, the General Faculty Council, the Student Council, Retired Faculty, Medical Students, Jewish faculty and staff and probably more.
Show up on Tuesday (Tuesday, 8/26), the Faculty Senate and Student Council are jointly hosting a rally at 4:30 pm in the Amphitheatre. They will rally under the banner, “WE are UVA”, to celebrate the first day of classes and the vibrant community we create together—faculty, staff and students who live, work and learn together on Grounds.
The Cavalier Daily Rocks They continue to do brave reporting, and they continue to offer scathing editorials. On August 13 they slammed the BOV for destroying shared governance.
“But the dearth of students and faculty indicates that our opinion is neither wanted nor considered. Long before the search committee was announced, students and faculty noted that the committee was a moment for the Board to revitalize shared governance which many felt had been curtailed in the wake of former University President Jim Ryan’s forced resignation. But this moment was not seized — by losing confidence that students and faculty may have had in them, the presidential search committee became tainted in a way that likely risks limiting stakeholder support for our next president. Put simply, the self-serving actions of the Board are not just harmful to students and faculty today, but they are harmful to our institution as a whole and the future president who will be invited to lead it. “ https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025/08/editorial-shared-governance-is-dying-while-our-board-prospers.
They Forgot There was an email from the interim President on Aug 11. He is excited for the new gig. And there was an email on August 12 about exchanging ID cards for some weird ID on your phone thing. No official communication saw fit to acknowledge the 8th anniversary of the horrific events of Aug 11/12. On Aug 11 a few hundred white supremacists marched on the laws chanting” Jews Will Not Replace us” and “Blood and Soil.” Many brave students were injured by the torches. Some of the torch bears have been convicted on felony charges. Various people at the University of Virginia were at best complicit. Most of them were gone within a year of the horrid events. On August 12 there was a large riot and James Alex Fields murdered Heather Heyer with his car. If it seems too “woke” to acknowledge these events it might have made sense to wait until Aug 13 or 14 to send out communications. Also, this is an odd omission given how worried so many folks claim to be about antisemitism. If the new Prez and BOV are fuzzy on the details they can read the outside report on the events, https://www.policinginstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Charlottesville-Critical-Incident-Review-2017.pdf, Deborah Baker’s Charlottesville: An American Story, or a few hundred other articles.
Federalist Society The interim President a member of the Federalist Society. There is a federalist society award named for him. Somewhat oddly his wife seems to have received the award twice 2023 and 2018. She also was an original founder of the Academic Freedom Alliance. Even Teen Vogue knows that the Federalist Society is not just another student organization. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-is-federalist-society Over 88% of Trumps nominees are FedSoc. Six of the nine members of the current Supreme court are FedSoc. That would be the court that has killed reproductive freedom, Affirmative Action, gender affirming care for minors etc. This very dangerous organization began in the 1980’s as a space for conservative leaning law students to debate. They also worked hard to promote “originalism” That means they want to make Supreme court decisions based on the “original meaning” of the constitution. This means making decision based on what was meant in in 1791, 1868 etc. If you happen to be old enough to have had a “Block Bork” button, you might remember the emergency of originalism. Erwin Cheerinsky Worse than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism is a helpful book on this.
Stabilize the Affairs The new President has said twice this week that he wants to “stabilize our affairs,” once in the Aug 11 and once in an interview with UVa today. Note that the affairs were fairly stable before. He told UVa that this is why he stepped in. It’s simple. I love the University and want to do what I can to help. I have experience negotiating agreements, navigating complex regulatory systems and advising organizations on governance. That experience may be helpful in the coming months I can’t speak for the Board of Visitors, but I believe they probably asked me to do this job because they thought I am a reasonably steady hand and that I have worked with nearly all the constituencies at UVA. I’m just going to do my best to stabilize things, get everyone in a position to do their best work, and then get out of the way. He assured readers that he will not be passive. “I also recognize that the University can’t afford for the interim president to just be a caretaker. That would mean standing still in a dynamic environment, and standing still means falling behind. So, I intend to hit the ground running.”
Drama Free Also, he says he is “drama free,” to “calm some waters that have been a bit turbulent lately.” The South loves euphemisms…. I suppose you could call the federal government essentially getting a well-liked not very woke President to resign “a bit turbulent.” And I guess, you could call the various threats to Visa status “a bit turbulent.” And I’m thinking admissions may be sort of vexed with the feds demanding admissions data. Oh and as a small aside these 18-year-olds starting to college were ten the last time DT was President, so their entire politically sentient life has been inflected by a regime governed by hate. They were in middle school during COVID and they have been living with school shootings their entire sentient life. So good luck with the no drama thing.
Transparency Theater There is a lot of talk about shared governance and stakeholders but almost no representation from the college of Arts and Sciences on the Presidential search committee. The one faculty member affiliated with the college is also affiliated with the public policy school and with the Miller Center. With much love and respect to my colleagues in the other schools 48% of the students on grounds are enrolled in the college. The other 52% are spread over 11 other schools. Most of the “drama” the President wants to avoid centers on us which means we have to clean up the mess, and educate the almost approximately 11, 391 undergrads who are mostly between the ages of 18 and 22. (3% of the undergraduate are over 25.) Also, there are zero humanities, arts or qualitative social sciences people on the search committee. The college is very good in the humanities and the humanities remains central to what we do. This is in part because when the Department of Defense funded Universities UVa was still doing lots of Eugenics. When NSF launched in 1950 there was still some Eugenics.
DOJ Investigations and thank you Wahoos4UVa They are ongoing, and no one knows when they will be “resolved.” It should be very soon. Ann Brown and Chris Ford, the awesome alumns behind Wahoos4UVa gave great explanations in their newsletter yesterday about why this is scary stuff. The resolutions with other schools often look more like an “extortionist, politically-motivated, ideological takeover of a university.” The explain that if an agreement has terms that exceed actions resolving the actual legal violation than it is unlawful. The chief defender is Attorney General Miyares. Sign up for their newsletter. https://www.wahoos4uva.com/
Many many Questions. On August 1 State Sen. Creigh Deeds demanded responses and documentation from the BOV and especially from the Rector and Vice Rector. There were 46 very specific questions. Some highlights. (see Cav Daily https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025/08/virginia-general-assembly-demands-answers-about-ryans-resignation-in-aug-1-letter) There is SO VERY MUCH detail here. In the words of MacBeth “something wicked this way comes…”
· How does the Rector deal with the fact that she says she did not meet with DOJ but other reports say she did meet with them on June 3, June 24, June 26.
· Did the Rector or Vice Rector receive a draft of the March 3 DEI resolution from the Governor and negotiate with the governor?
· Did Farnaz Thompson and Jack White of McGuire Woods represent the BOV, the
President, or someone else?
· Did you exchange emails/texts with federal or state officials?
· Who leaked the story about JR’s resignation to the New York Times?