What Colleges and Universities Should Take Away from What Happened at UVA

What happened to the President of UVA is devastating.  And we have let ourselves believe it is surprising.  But, while it should be shocking that the federal government – one that has been repeatedly talking about the return of education to the states – is interfering with the administration of a public university, it should have been expected if you were paying attention.

Amanda Fuchs MillerWhy is that?  This Administration, as promised in Project 2025 and as evidenced by the appointees placed in Trump’s White House and the Department of Education, laid out a roadmap they would take to undermine higher education, as they are doing with other democratic institutions.  Using colleges’ responses to October 7th, and in the name of fighting antisemitism, the Trump Administration has taken steps since January 20th to undermine colleges and universities – not chipping away but taking a sledgehammer and finding everything to be a nail.

The tools in this Administration’s toolbox include cancelling funding, slashing federal student aid, investigating and auditing schools, removing and threatening international students and immigrants, and increasing the costs of higher education institutions doing their work – from indirect cost increases on research funds to attempting to revoke tax-exempt status, and the list goes on. 

These actions have, and will, hit institutions across the board hard – from Columbia and Harvard to public state schools to small independent colleges to community colleges.  All of these schools – and their students – rely on and benefit from public investments in higher education. 

And the damage is not just to the schools and students.  The communities, cities, and states where these schools are located benefit economically when colleges and their students thrive. Our nation’s standing as a leader in innovation – in technology, medical advancements, and other fields – will be threatened without federal investments in higher education.  And, without academic freedom ensuring a diversity of viewpoints at our institutions, free from political interference, our democracy will be at risk.

So, what lessons can we take from what happened at UVA and the forced resignation of President Ryan? 

First, this has never been just about the Ivies.  There has been a belief that the elite schools are the target.  Just take a look at the list of the 60 colleges that the Trump Administration opened investigations into, under the pretext of antisemitism, in March – Ivy League schools but also publics (in blue states and red states), privates, and small independent colleges. The reconciliation bill, which was signed into law last week, eliminated Grad PLUS loans and capped Parent PLUS loans – programs that help students at all schools, including HBCUs.  And, the President’s FY26 budget would eliminate programs that fund wraparound services which will hurt community college students who rely most heavily on those federal investments.

Second, it is not just about the words used. Following UVA President Ryan’s resignation, DOJ Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon told CNN that although UVA decided in March 2025 to dissolve its DEI office, it “used a series of euphemisms to simply rebrand and repackage the exact same discriminatory programs that are illegal under federal law.”

This raises a couple of lessons that can be learned as higher ed institutions look ahead.  Following the President’s executive orders on diversity, equity and inclusion, many organizations began scrubbing their websites, shuttering DEI offices, and disbanding committees with diversity and equity in their titles.  Schools instead need to first do a campus-wide review of their activities.  Then, they should undertake a risk assessment to both determine which activities can be viewed as being in contrast to Trump’s executive orders and the new certifications being tied to federal funding and to determine which activities are actually in violation of current state and federal antidiscrimination laws.  The first bucket of activities – those that do not follow the executive orders – may put schools’ funding at risk but are not necessarily illegal.  This Administration is using a chilling effect to stop allowable initiatives that are in contrast with their ideology and politics.  Understanding the risk is important for schools to protect themselves but schools must also continue to fulfill their missions of serving all students and providing diverse environments and inclusive communities and must be ready to push back when wrongly being accused of engaging in “illegal DEI,” which isn’t in and of itself a thing.

Sometimes changing the words, or renaming or eliminating an office, may be necessary.  In fact, for federal grants, agencies are utilizing AI to do word searches so there may be a reason to use different words and reframe proposals for federal funds.  But, if schools are going to do so, they need to engage in genuine stakeholder outreach to explain what is and what isn’t changing.  In addition to the closing of UVA’s DEI office now being criticized as irrelevant in the eyes of the Trump Administration, the school leadership faced criticism from faculty, students and other university community members when they did so, which likely caused them to lose some of the support they needed to push back against the false charges by DOJ.   Explaining which changes are being made early – and which aren’t and why – can help college leaders on multiple fronts.

Third, this Administration is continuing to not tell the truth about what the U.S. Supreme Court 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard  (SFFA) meant.  Assistant Attorney General Dhillon told CNN in her interview about UVA, “It’s not just admissions part, it’s also preferences in special programs while students are at the school … this is all illegal under Students for Fair Admissions.”  Well, no.  The Supreme Court’s decision in SFFA was about admissions.  Telling schools to stop activities because of SFFA in other areas is again a scare tactic that must be pushed back on both in courts and in the court of public opinion.

This is the time for higher ed institutions and their stakeholders to come together and fight back.  Institutions must think outside the box and do the hard work so that they can continue to fulfill their missions of serving all students and being inclusive communities while not increasing the risks of harmful actions that will hurt their students, their communities, the economy, and our democracy. 

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Amanda Fuchs Miller served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher Education Programs at the U.S. Department of Education in the Biden-Harris Administration. She is the president of Seventh Street Strategies, which provides advocacy and policy supports to higher ed institutions, nonprofit organizations, and foundations.