Note: This account was originally posted in the November 15, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement but for some reason was not archived here until December 11, 2025. The post has been back-dated to November 14, 2025.
The University of Virginia Faculty Senate met on November 14, 2025 to consider a resolution calling on the immediate resignation of Rachel Sheridan as the chair of the Board of Visitors and Porter Wilkinson as vice chair. The resolution’s frame is a timeline of events that took place this summer before the resignation of Jim Ryan as UVA’s ninth president in late June.
Before they met, both Rector Sheridan and President Emeritus Ryan sent letters with their accounts of the events of what happened. This edition of the newsletter breaks format slightly to document this latest chapter.
Rachel Sheridan, an attorney with the firm Kirkland & Ellis, became Rector of the Board of Visitors (BOV) on July 1. State code calls for that body to have 17 members and defines the rector as the person who presides over meetings. Sheridan was appointed to the BOV in 2023 by Governor Glenn Youngkin, a Republican. Virginia code gives the governor sole power to appoint members to four-year terms though the Virginia Senate must confirm nominations.
There are currently only 12 members because the Virginia Senate has not confirmed Youngkin’s final five appointees due to ongoing concerns from Democrats over pressure from the federal government about internal operations at the University of Virginia and other institutions of higher education across the country.
President Jim Ryan was named as UVA’s ninth president in 2017 and was inaugurated in October 2018. He continues to serve on the faculty after resigning.
Sheridan’s account of the resignation
Before the Faculty Senate meeting on Friday, Sheridan sent an eight page letter to its members this week that began with a recollection of a July meeting of the Faculty Senate at which details could not be shared given pending investigations from the U.S. Department of Justice. Interim President Paul Mahoney signed an agreement on October 22 to settle the cases.
“Now that there is an agreement with the Department of Justice that suspends the pending investigations, I have more latitude to share what I know,” Sheridan said.
Sheridan said President Donald Trump indicated during his transition that he would threaten universities believed to be in violation of the 2023 Supreme Court case of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, a 6-2 ruling that said any use of race in the admissions process was unlawful and a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
“The Administration also made clear that the government would use every tool at its disposal to force universities to fully comply with their understanding of federal law—including cutting off federal research funding, student financial aid, health care reimbursements, and visas for foreign students,” Sheridan continued.
Sheridan said that though the Board of Visitors voted in March to discontinue any non-compliant programs, letters from the Department of Justice began arriving in April. Sheridan said she reluctantly said yes after President Ryan asked her to participate in a meeting on June 3 with federal officials. At the time, Sheridan was chair of the BOV’s Audit, Risk, and Compliance Committee.
“They indicated that the DOJ lacked confidence in President Ryan to make the changes that the Trump Administration believed were necessary to ensure compliance,” Sheridan wrote. “They also made clear that if the University did not chart a different course, the DOJ could and would expand its investigations into additional issues, subject other personnel to scrutiny, and pursue the cutoff of federal funding.”
Further letters from the Department of Justice continued and by this time they began to be addressed to Sheridan rather than Robert Hardie. Sheridan said that was a mistake and Hardie ran the BOV until his term was over on June 30.
Sheridan said she first learned from BOV member Paul Manning that Ryan was considering resigning the week of June 16, a decision that became closer to reality that week as the former president considered the logistics of doing so.
Originally, Ryan’s intention was to try to remain president until the end of the 2025-2026 academic year. Sheridan said she and Manning both supported that, but she said Ryan sought to ask the Department of Justice if they would support that approach. A phone call was held on June 26.
“Counsel posed the question as President Ryan had instructed, and [deputy assistant attorney for civil right Greg Brown] responded in definitive terms that President Ryan’s resignation would not improve the University’s posture unless it took effect more immediately,” Sheridan wrote.
Sheridan said the original idea was for Ryan to announce on July 15 but he did so on June 27 after a New York Times article was published that broke the news based on leaked documents.
Sheridan said it was always understood that Ryan’s resignation would not lead to an immediate end to Department of Justice investigations. She said UVA had to check to make sure that all policies had been checked against the reality of the Students for Fair Housing v. Harvard case.
“The Students for Fair Admissions decision two years ago was a very dramatic change in the law as all of us understood it for pretty much 50 years,” Sheridan said. “And making the changes the decision compelled have required institutional diligence, including a methodical and systematic review of the kind commensurate with such a significant change in the law.”
Sheridan denied that she interacted with the Department of Justice aside from the June 3 meeting and two phone calls. She denied she has a relationship with Brown or Associate Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon.
“I know that many believe that the Board should have refused to accept President Ryan’s resignation and essentially dared the Department of Justice to pursue enforcement actions,” Sheridan wrote. “The outcome of that fight would have been highly uncertain, and no legal process or even victory in court could have protected the University from much of the resulting harm.”
Read the full letter here on the website of Inside Higher Education.
Youngkin responds to Spanberger’s letter
Shortly after Abigail Spanberger won the election to become Virginia’s next governor, she met with Glenn Youngkin to discuss the transition.
This week any cordiality has likely vanished after Spanberger wrote to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors asking them to put a presidential search on hold until after she can appoint new members. The Virginia Senate failed to confirm five appointees made this year by Youngkin.
Youngkin wrote a three-page letter in response that has been published in full on the Virginia Political Newsletter.
“I am advised that this was likely the first time in the history of our Commonwealth that a Governor-elect has attempted to interfere with the governance of a university and fiduciary duties of individual board members,” Youngkin wrote.
Youngkin defended the presidential search that is underway and accused Spanberger of jumping to conclusions about the circumstance in which Ryan resigned.
“Make no mistake, the [Department of Justice] did not randomly or without a predicate select UVA when it started its formal investigation,” Youngkin said. “The evidence is compelling that the University has repeatedly ignored the law.”
Youngkin said Ryan was encouraged by Rector Robert Hardie to move up his resignation. He asked Spanberger to allow him to continue to carry out his term without direct correspondence to state agencies.
Spanberger becomes the 75th Governor of Virginia on January 17.
Former President Ryan responds to Sheridan and Youngkin
President Emeritus Jim Ryan continues to serve on the faculty as a professor of law and a professor of education. On the morning of November 14, he sent a document to the Faculty Senate with his side of the story because he said the accounts of both Sheridan and Youngkin were not accurate.
Ryan began writing the letter two weeks after he resigned as a journal of sorts and it was not originally intended to be a public document.
“The trouble began at the March 2025 Board meeting, when we received a resolution regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) that Governor Youngkin’s office drafted,” Ryan wrote in the letter. “This was the first time in my seven years that the Governor’s office had drafted a resolution on behalf of the Board.”
Ryan said the original resolution contained much language copied from President Trump’s January 20, 2025 executive order titled “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing.” The resolution was edited and eventually passed unanimously.
“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 said. “That was an exaggeration of the Board’s resolution. It was also a little hard to decipher, as it’s not clear even today what it means to kill DEI, and the Governor didn’t go much beyond the soundbite.”
Ryan said UVA dissolved the Office of Equity and Inclusion but could not meet a deadline to provide a full report within 30 days because of the decentralized nature of UVA with 12 different schools. He also said there were several areas that needed to be further studied to see if they were in violation of the law.
“It is fair to say that the law here is not crystal clear,” Ryan said. “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 said a report was made to the board within 30 days with a message that a more in-depth review would follow. There also would have been a public communication about what had been done.
“We were told by a board member, Rachel Sheridan, who is now the current Rector, that we could not communicate with the community because the Board needed to meet with us again to offer feedback first,” Ryan wrote.
Ryan said this created a silence that was interpreted by many to be inaction.
“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,” Ryan continued.
In his 12-page page letter, Ryan documents the Department of Justice letters that began to arrive with demands. He said it was unclear to him why the federal government was taking such a special interest in a state institution. Because UVA is a public school, the administration had to get permission from Attorney General Jason Miyares to hire outside counsel and the firm McGuire Woods was retained to assist.
Ryan said the administration was complying but letters kept arriving making more demands.
“Over the next several weeks, a pattern evolved. We assembled voluminous information related to admissions for one or more of our twelve schools, and a few days before the deadline for submission, we would receive another DOJ inquiry asking about another school,” Ryan said.
Ryan said he was not allowed to participate in the June 3 meeting with the Department of Justice attended by Sheridan.
“I offered at a later time to go meet with the DOJ lawyers but was told by Rachel and Porter that that would be supremely unpleasant and would likely lead to a bad outcome,” Ryan said. “All of which means that I never once spoke directly with the DOJ lawyers; everything was communicated through Rachel, [Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson], and later another board member, Paul Manning.”
Porter Wilkinson was appointed by Youngkin in 2024 and Manning was appointed in 2023. Manning has also donated the core investment for the Institute of Biotechnology that carries his name as well as that of his wife.
Ryan said Sheridan and Wilkinson gave an update to the Board at the June meeting but did not mention that the Department of Justice lawyers demanded his resignation. The former president said he met with Paul Manning on June 16 at which the Board member told him he felt he should resign.
“Paul told me that he had heard from both the Governor and Rachel about the need for me to resign,” Ryan said. “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 UVA, especially with respect to research funding.”
Ryan said he had many conversations with Sheridan and Manning between the June 16 lunch with Manning at which he said he was willing to resign but did not think it was in the best interest of the University. He said he tried to convince them that principles of independence were at stake and he wanted the full Board to take up the matter.
“They told me that this was just an issue between me and the Trump administration,” Ryan wrote. “I let them know I thought otherwise, and that a decision by Board members not to do anything to prevent this was a decision all the same, and that they would likely be held accountable for it—both by our community and by their fellow Board members.”
Ryan said Sheridan asked him to speak with an attorney named Beth Wilkinson who Sheridan said had helped Columbia University negotiate through similar threats from the federal government. However, Ryan said the call on June 24 was mostly about Beth Wilkinson persuading him to step down and he did not know that Sheridan had hired her to do work for the UVA Board.
“I called Paul to tell him how stunned and angry I was that he and Rachel were not honest with me about Beth’s role and about her threats against me on behalf of the Board. I also called Robert Hardie, who was still the Rector, to ask if he knew that Rachel had hired a lawyer, ostensibly on behalf of the Board,” Ryan wrote. “He did not know, and he was quite upset about it and conveyed as much to Rachel and Paul.”
Ryan made the decision to resign with the hope to conclude out the 2025-2026 academic year but said the Department of Justice was furious that the story of his resignation had leaked to the New York Times on the evening of June 26. She said Sheridan called him with two attorneys from McGuire Woods on the call.
“I was told that the DOJ lawyers were very upset with the leaked story in the Times and that the only offer on the table was that I needed to resign by 5pm that day or the DOJ would basically rain hell on UVA,” Ryan said.
Ryan said he was also told that there would be blanket immunity for UVA if he would just resign and Sheridan encouraged him to do so immediately. As the day continued, Ryan talked to many people to try to find a different outcome but was told he had lost support from the Board and would be fired if he didn’t resign. He asked to see the agreement but was told he could not for fear it would be leaked.
After resigning, Ryan learned that an external review would be taken and that there were three potential legal issues.
“One set an aspirational goal of increasing the diversity of our faculty; one had to do with how some employment searches were run,” Ryan said. “I say these were arguably out of compliance because the Court’s decision was about college admissions and applying that reasoning beyond the admissions context involves some judgment calls.”
Ryan said those policies had been changed.
Immediately after Ryan resigned, many critiqued the action. On page nine of the letter, Ryan reflects on whether he could have done something different.
“I considered that, and some of my colleagues encouraged me to take that path,” Ryan wrote. “That was in part why I suggested there be a Board meeting. In the end, when I had four hours to decide whether to resign, I was told there was not enough time, realistically, to call the Board together in the few hours before the 5pm deadline.”
Ryan said the full Board should have weighed in on the decision and been involved with the discussions. He specifically said Sheridan, Wilkinson, and Manning should bear responsibility for keeping a threat from the Department of Justice from the rest 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 DOJ,” Ryan said.
Ryan also wonders if the timing was made to ensure that the resignation would be accepted by Robert Hardie who had been appointed to his first term in 2008 by then-Governor Tim Kaine. He concludes his letter with six questions listed verbatim:
- According to Paul Manning, the Governor knew what was happening and suggested I needed to resign. What did the Governor know, when did he know it, and what—if anything—did he do to try to either secure my resignation or prevent it?
- How involved was the Attorney General’s office in directing the legal representation offered by McGuire Woods?
- Why did [Sheridan], [Wilkinson], and later [Manning] not inform the rest of the Board about the DOJ’s apparent insistence that I resign?
- Harmeet Dhillon, one of the DOJ lawyers, publicly and unequivocally stated—twice—that neither she nor her colleagues asked for my resignation or offered some sort of quid pro quo. That is not what Rachel, Porter, and Paul conveyed to me. Who is telling the truth?
- Was it appropriate that Rachel Sheridan hired a lawyer to persuade me to resign, without informing me or the rest of the Board?
- Was there a written agreement before my resignation, as I was told? If so, what did it say? If not, why was I told there was one?
Faculty Senate approves resolution calling for Sheridan and Wilkinson to resign
There are two purposes for the University of Virginia Faculty Senate according to its Constitution and by-laws.
- The Faculty Senate represents all faculties of the University of Virginia with respect to all academic functions such as the establishment and termination of degree programs, major modifications of requirements for existing degrees, and action affecting all faculties, or more than one faculty, of the University of Virginia.
- Additionally, the Faculty Senate shall advise the President and the Rector and Board of Visitors concerning educational and related matters affecting the welfare of the University of Virginia.
The group has been active this year in response to Ryan’s resignation.
- On April 28, they adopted a resolution supporting Ryan
- On June 27, they adopted a resolution calling on the Board of Visitors to condemn the federal pressure that led to Ryan’s resignation and asked the Board of Visitors to meet with them by July 14
- On July 11, they adopted a vote of no confidence against the Board of Visitors for not protecting the University from outside influence
- On October 24, they adopted a resolution asking for interim President Paul Mahoney to appear before them to explain why he signed an agreement with the Department of Justice to close out the investigations
Mahoney met with them on November 14.
“To me, the question was straightforward,” Mahoney said. “What path would do the least damage to both our tangible interests and our core values and mission? Of the options that were reasonably available, anyone doing this job, whether for a long or a short period, would have confronted those limited and imperfect choices.”
Mahoney said when he became interim president on August 11, he got a briefing from McGuire Woods and directed outside counsel to ask the Department of Justice to stop its investigations as a first step towards an agreement. He said in the spring, there had been several examples of how UVA was potentially in violation of the 2023 Supreme Court case.
“By October, it was clear that the only way to resolve the outstanding five investigations was to enter into some form of agreement,” Mahoney said. “The idea that we could then have fought a DOJ in court without devastating consequences is, I think, pure fantasy.”
Mahoney said UVA stood to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.
Later in the meeting, the Faculty Senate took up a resolution with the title “Calling for Leadership Rooted in Transparency and Accountability.”
“At both the July 9th Executive Council meeting and the July 11th Faculty Senate meeting, the Rector committed to sharing information regarding the forced resignation of President Ryan ‘once an agreement was made [with the Department of Justice]’”, reads a portion of the resolution.
“The Rector and Vice Rector have refused multiple requests for meetings with the Faculty Senate, stating that they intend to return to ‘ordinary practice’ whereby the BOV will only speak directly ‘with the interim President, the future President and the faculty representative on the BOV regarding matters of concern for the faculty’”, reads another portion.
“The faculty, staff, students and alumni of the University of Virginia need leadership that is transparent, accountable and brave and that is not tainted by the ongoing and as yet unanswered questions surrounding the decisions and actions of the BOV in the forced resignation of President Ryan,” reads another.
The resolution goes on to call for the resignation of Rector Sheridan and Vice Rector Wilkinson and to ask that the presidential search be paused. The resolution passed with 41 affirmative votes, 17 opposed, and two abstentions.
You can read the full resolution here.
Before you go: This was originally in the November 15, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement and then posted here on December 11, 2025. Why the delay? Mostly capacity issues on the part of Town Crier Productions, a little one-person information outlet that could. And does. But sometimes it takes a bit to add to the archive.
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