But MAGA friends are easily distracted. Ignore the knife in your back, instead look at all the gay, cat-eating immigrants who would love to take your guns and make you pay for their abortions.
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War on Universities, Lawyers & Expertise
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CFordUNC
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While there are different flavors of conservatism in America, none are served by a president who acts like a despot. Trump is leveraging the power and money of the Federal government to whip every institution (including law firms, for heaven’s sake) to bend the knee and pledge loyalty to him over loyalty to the freedoms embedded in our Constitution. Those who celebrate his triumphs in tyranny are too ignorant to understand that when we applaud the undermining of the rule of law, we enable despots of every political persuasion to dismantle and destroy the democratic norms and institutions that all of us, regardless of political affiliation or political ideology, cherish.
SnoopRob
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Of course not...the new accreditation body will be focused on ensuring that conservative views are given, if not priority, at least enforced equality with actual academic perspectives. It'll be something like the School for Civic Life & Leadership in the accreditation realm.
The base level goal will be to ensure that the accreditation process doesn't interfere with conservative attacks on public universities, with a second-tier goal of using the accreditation bodies to increase conservative viewpoints within these universities.
CFordUNC
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I obviously know that our resident MAGAts don’t care, but what happened to UVA today should be about a five-alarm warning to not only the rest of higher education, but the rest of the country period. Jim Ryan was about as moderate/centrist as a major research university president could possibly be. Hell, he clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist for heaven’s sake. Ryan was no pointy-headed, far left, out of touch ivory tower dork as is the popular conservative caricature for university leaders. He was orphaned, adopted, and raised in a lower middle class family, and worked his way to Yale and then to UVA Law. He’s been a champion of focusing on enhancing geographic and socioeconomic diversity at UVA as opposed to obsessing about race and ethnicity. He has made UVA that best value public education in America, and the number one ranked public university for need-based financial aid. Under his leadership, UVA was ranked number one by the FIRE Foundation last fall out of all colleges and universities in America for upholding principles of free speech.
UVA as an institution is about as conservative as any major R1 university can possibly be- that’s not to say that UVA is conservative in the sense that a Liberty University or a Bob Jones University is conservative, but that it is a lot more moderate ideologically than virtually every other elite university in America.
If the moderate-to-conservative leader of one of America’s most moderate elite public institutions can be a target of Trumpian authoritarianism, nobody is safe. It is stunning to me that this is the country in which Republicans want us to all live- themselves included- whereby democratic norms and laws be damned at the petty and authoritarian whims of a wannabe despot. Authoritarianism and fascism comes for everyone and it doesn’t give a damn about your political party, your political ideology, or for whom you’ve voted.
UVA as an institution is about as conservative as any major R1 university can possibly be- that’s not to say that UVA is conservative in the sense that a Liberty University or a Bob Jones University is conservative, but that it is a lot more moderate ideologically than virtually every other elite university in America.
If the moderate-to-conservative leader of one of America’s most moderate elite public institutions can be a target of Trumpian authoritarianism, nobody is safe. It is stunning to me that this is the country in which Republicans want us to all live- themselves included- whereby democratic norms and laws be damned at the petty and authoritarian whims of a wannabe despot. Authoritarianism and fascism comes for everyone and it doesn’t give a damn about your political party, your political ideology, or for whom you’ve voted.
CFordUNC
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Here’s the letter that Ryan sent to the UVA community this afternoon:
To the University community:
I am writing, with a very heavy heart, to let you know that I have submitted my resignation as President of the University of Virginia.
To make a long story short, 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. To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered 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 or have their visas withheld. This is especially true because I had decided that next year would be my last, for reasons entirely separate from this episode—including the fact that we concluded our capital campaign and have implemented nearly all of the major initiatives in our strategic plan.
While there are very important principles at play here, I would at a very practical level be fighting to keep my job for one more year while knowingly and willingly sacrificing others in this community. If this were not so distinctly tied to me personally, I may have pursued a different path. But I could not in good conscience cause real and direct harm to my colleagues and our students in order to preserve my own position.
It has been an honor to be your President. Thanks for the outpouring of support over the last few days and weeks. My deepest gratitude to all of the faculty, staff, students, and alumni, who make this University and this community both great and good. This was an excruciatingly difficult decision, and I am heartbroken to be leaving this way.
Best,
Jim
Jim Ryan
President
To the University community:
I am writing, with a very heavy heart, to let you know that I have submitted my resignation as President of the University of Virginia.
To make a long story short, 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. To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered 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 or have their visas withheld. This is especially true because I had decided that next year would be my last, for reasons entirely separate from this episode—including the fact that we concluded our capital campaign and have implemented nearly all of the major initiatives in our strategic plan.
While there are very important principles at play here, I would at a very practical level be fighting to keep my job for one more year while knowingly and willingly sacrificing others in this community. If this were not so distinctly tied to me personally, I may have pursued a different path. But I could not in good conscience cause real and direct harm to my colleagues and our students in order to preserve my own position.
It has been an honor to be your President. Thanks for the outpouring of support over the last few days and weeks. My deepest gratitude to all of the faculty, staff, students, and alumni, who make this University and this community both great and good. This was an excruciatingly difficult decision, and I am heartbroken to be leaving this way.
Best,
Jim
Jim Ryan
President
donbosco
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(I cannot vouch for the article source -- this seemed to be one of the first pieces that I found that had at least some details. Link to Inside Higher Ed at the conclusion of this cut and paste)
DeSantis developing new university accreditor to ‘upend’ ‘woke accreditation cartels’
Education, Gov & Politics
Jun 26, 2025
In conjunction with other southern states, Florida is developing a new university accrediting commission in response to existing agencies the governor says require schools to “bend the knee” to get accredited.
During a Thursday news conference at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced, alongside State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues and university leaders from Texas and South Carolina, that the states are developing a Commission for Public Higher Education.
DeSantis has focused heavily on “woke” ideologies by pushing legislation to ban state spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and remaking state higher education institutions to be more conservative.
In the way of his higher education initiatives, he has said, are accrediting agencies that may require a commitment to those values or other expectations for a university to be recognized.
In order to “shape institutions in a positive way,” DeSantis said, “You gotta go two or three levels down sometimes. And we’ve identified this accreditation cartel as an issue for a long time.”
Florida is establishing the commission with the University System of Georgia, the University of North Carolina system, University of South Carolina, the University of Tennessee system, and the Texas A&M University system, which DeSantis said will “upend the monopoly of the woke accreditation cartels.”
The layers, for example, can be shown by a 2023 law, SB 266, which outlawed state spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion, but allowed for DEI initiatives to continue if required to maintain accreditation.
DeSantis, who used to own an LSAT prep company, said during the “woke era” “institutions really became corrupted by ideology, and they were putting ideology ahead of the pursuit of truth during COVID.”
Timeline
DeSantis did not lay out a timeline for when the commission would be up and running, acknowledging that it has to meet federal requirements before the U.S. Department of Education can approve it.
“We’re establishing it. You kind of got to go and actually do it for, you know, some period of time,” DeSantis said, adding, “I think U.S. DOE wants to be quick on this.”
DeSantis said he nudged Rodrigues shortly after Trump won the presidency.
“We didn’t really have the prospects of launching anything like this successfully during the Biden years, but it’s a new day, and I think this is going to make a big big difference,” DeSantis said, adding that if it gets established during the Trump presidency, “then it’s almost impossible for a future federal administration to try to upend the apple cart.”
As recently as 2020, the year after DeSantis took office, the State University System of Florida created a workgroup that, in its final report, concluded that the universities’ “Board of Governors is making a clear and steadfast commitment to prioritize and support diversity, racial and gender equity, and inclusion.”
In 2022, Florida lawmakers approved and DeSantis signed SB 7044 to provoke institutions to seek accreditation from accreditors approved by the State Board of Education or Board of Governors.
Expecting favorability
“I think almost all the states in our region are going to be favorable to this,” DeSantis said.
“All those states have done good stuff in higher ed anyways but, you know, it’s been more difficult when you have this accreditation cartel nipping at you all the time,” he said. “You know, now I think it’s going to be really, really smooth sailing.”
Florida’s and other southern state institutions are members of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. DeSantis and Rodrigues made jabs at SACSCOC, saying Florida institutions have problems with the accrediting organization and that its member schools’ performance has not been impressive.
“The Commission for Public Higher Education will offer an accreditation model that prioritizes academic excellence and student success while removing ideological bias and unnecessary financial burdens. These reforms will benefit our faculty, our students, and the hardworking taxpayers who fund our public systems,” Rodrigues said.
In an emailed statement to the Phoenix, SACSCOC said, “We welcome any new accreditor as they go through a rigorous approval process. Accreditation is central to quality education; thus accreditors are held to high standards and must themselves be reviewed.”
“As for SACSCOC, we know we currently accredit institutions that serve the largest number of students in the country (approximately 5M),” the organization said. “As such, we will work with our partnering institutions to ensure and strengthen a high standard of accreditation that reflects the needs of students, our institutions, and the workforce.”
DeSantis complained that Florida law schools “should not be captive to having to bend the knee to get accreditation from” the American Bar Association, which he said “mandates explicit DEI compliance as a condition of accreditation” and “has now become a far left activist group.” The association has suspended its DEI standard until at least 2026.
The commission “will create a first-of-its-kind accreditation model for public higher education institutions that will offer high-quality, efficient services prioritizing academic excellence, student outcomes, and achievement,” according to the State University System.
“Together, we are leaving behind the legacy systems and failed institutions of the past, while charting a new course in higher education, that puts student success at the forefront of everything that we do,” said Florida Atlantic University President Adam Hasner, who was recently named to that position following outcry from students who feared he would politicize the position.
Union backlash
The Florida Education Association and United Faculty of Florida released a joint statement following DeSantis’ announcement, saying they “strongly oppose” the move as “directly threatens the independence, integrity, and academic credibility of the state’s higher education system.”
“Accreditation matters because it’s the backbone of academic freedom, shared governance, and public trust in the quality of our institutions,” UFF President Teresa M. Hodge said in a news release.
“This proposed state accreditor appears designed to align more with political priorities rather than academic independence. It seems to be the state’s latest attempt to exert top-down control over what faculty can teach and what students are allowed to learn.”
Andrew Spar, president of the FEA, said he is concerned about how a new accreditor might affect teacher preparation programs.
“Students learn best when they’re free to learn and educators are free to teach — not when curriculum decisions are dictated by politics,” Spar said.
The commission’s announced core principles:
It is appropriate and necessary to introduce competition, aligned with state and institutional needs, into the existing marketplace of university accreditation.
It is in the best interests of all interested parties, including students, to launch an accrediting body comprised of true peer institutions focused on public colleges and universities and their governing university systems.
It is imperative to reduce bureaucracy through a more efficient and focused accreditation process, which will result in lower costs and significant time savings for member institutions, and which will translate into lower tuition prices for students and families.
It is critical to ensure that this new accrediting body is accountable to the states of the member institutions.
It is necessary for the new accrediting body to become and remain recognized by the U.S. Department of Education for the purposes of Title IV participation by its accredited institutions.
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Also See: DeSantis Announces Launch of New Accreditor
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University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration
The Justice Department had demanded that James E. Ryan step down in order to help resolve a civil rights investigation into the school.“The Trump administration on Friday secured perhaps the most significant victory in its pressure campaign on higher education, forcing the resignation of the University of Virginia’s president, James E. Ryan, over the college’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
The extraordinary wielding of federal power to oust the 58-year-old college president showed the unusual lengths the administration would go to pursue President Trump’s political agenda and shift the ideological tilt of academia, which he views as hostile to conservatives.
… The Justice Department had targeted the University of Virginia for at least the past month. But 10 days ago, government lawyers tasked with enforcing federal laws issued a stern warning to the board overseeing the University of Virginia that the school needed to act quickly. The department informed the college of multiple complaints of race-based treatment on campus, and of the government’s conclusion that the use of race in admissions and other student benefits were “widespread practices throughout every component and facet of the institution.”
… In recent days, members of the board appointed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, had talked to senior Justice Department officials to learn what could be done to resolve the situation, and were told Mr. Ryan had to go. In response to those discussions, members of the board had been anxious to demonstrate to the Trump administration that Mr. Ryan would indeed step aside, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.…”
tarheelbillie
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Seems to me that our MAGA friends are already in the grasp of fascism and same is coming for us.
Centerpiece
Iconic Member
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Are they in the grasp of fascism…. Or are they simply straight up fascists to begin with? There is a difference.
heelslegup
Distinguished Member
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Some have said in various media outlets that this ts f Trump's version of Mao's very destructive Cultural Revolution
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superrific
Legend of ZZL
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It's not a perfect analogy but it is getting scarily closer by the day.
To describe the Cultural Revolution as "very destructive" is an understatement. It was one of the most irrational entropic political systems in history -- one that gave birth to probably the single most irrational entropy ever, the Khmer Rouge.
SnoopRob
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Yes, but the difference is that they enjoy it.