Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) warned Sunday that if President Donald Trump can wage a successful ideological pressure campaign on the University of Virginia’s administration, it can do so “elsewhere,” too.
University of Virginia President James E. Ryan announced Friday he would step down amid the Trump administration’s battle against diversity, equity and inclusion programs there.
“This is the most outrageous action, I think, this crowd has taken on education,” Warner said of the Trump administration during an appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
Ryan indicated in a letter to the University of Virginia campus community that he was resigning in hope of saving others’ positions and funding.
“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,” the outgoing president wrote.
Warner affirmed that the move was made in response to threats from the federal government.
“For him to be threatened — and, literally, there was indication that they received [in] the letter that if he didn’t resign on a day last week, by five o’clock, all these cuts would take place,” Warner said.
He added: “It was that explicit.”
At another point, Warner called out lawmakers across the aisle, saying, “I thought the Republicans were about states’ rights.”
“This federal DOE and Department of Justice should get their nose out of University of Virginia,” Warner went on. “They are doing damage to our flagship university. And if they can do it here, they’ll do it elsewhere.”
The Trump administration has turned elite college campuses into battlegrounds in its culture war against higher education, claiming that such institutions discriminate against conservatives and their viewpoints.
Other elite schools are being targeted based on supposed mistreatment of Jewish students because administrators permitted anti-war demonstrators to protest Israel’s destruction in Gaza.
As it attempts to stand its ground, Harvard University has already seen hundreds of millions in federal spending cut, with the Trump administration threatening further cuts Monday.
Columbia University’s leadership tried a different tack earlier this year. In late March, the school caved to the Trump administration’s demands and its interim president, Katrina Armstrong, stepped down.
But the Trump administration has not relented. Further funding was cut after the university’s concessions, and the school’s accreditation may now be in jeopardy.