James Ryan, the president of the University of Virginia, resigned Friday due to pressure from the administration of President Donald Trump on the school’s policies of inclusion, equity, and diversity.
Ryan wrote to the UVA community that he had made the “excruciating decision” to resign after determining that defying the demands of Trump authorities would endanger the safety of the university’s teachers and students.
“I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job,” he stated. “To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centred 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 their visas withheld.”
