Senator Deeds' Letter to UVA
On August 1, Senator Creigh Deeds sent a letter to Rachel Sheridan and Porter Wilkinson, the current Rector and Vice-Rector of the UVA Board of Visitors, probing the circumstances of Jim Ryan’s forced resignation as President.
Deeds’ missive was 6 pages long and contained 46 questions, raising in his words “urgent concern about “whether …the University’s governing board has operated within the bounds of its legal and ethical responsibilities.” and asking for a response by August 15.
The details contained in Deeds’ questions were obviously provided by an individual or individuals with extensive knowledge of the situation and not pleased with the outcome. Deeds asks questions about the roles of Governor Youngkin and Attorney General Miyares, the hiring of outside counsels, the precise stance taken by the Department of Justice, and the level of communication by Sheridan and Wilkinson with other UVA board members.
It is hard to underestimate how potentially explosive this letter is.
It seems to me that implied in Deeds’ questions are the following possibilities:
Were Governor Youngkin and/or Attorney General Miyares more involved with the process leading to designated Ryan’s resignation than previously reported? Deeds asks very specific questions about any possible communication that may have occurred between Sheridan and Wilkinson and the offices of the Governor and Attorney General.
Was the official leadership of the Board at the time of Ryan’ resignation, Rector Robert Hardie and Vice-Rector Carlos Brown, fully and timely informed of the discussions that were taking place with the Department Justice (DOJ)? It is not evident from Deeds’ letter whether the Board had designated Sheridan and Wilkinson to speak with DOJ, but it seems clear that negotiations with Justice did not include the official leadership of the Board and there is concern about the level of information they were provided.
Was the current Rector, Ms. Sheridan, forthcoming when she told the Faculty Senate she had not been involved with the DOJ negotiation. Deeds says “at the July 11, 2025 Faculty Senate meeting, Ms. Sheridan denied being the BOV member involved in DOJ negotiations. Ms. Sheridan, how do you reconcile this statement with multiple reports indicating you met with DOJ officials on June 3rd, June 24th, and June 26th?”
What’s Next?
I would be surprised if Senator Deeds gets the answers to the 46 questions he posed on Friday, the August 15th deadline. The legal counsel at the University is an employee of the Attorney General’s office. AG Miyares has just appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court a lower court decision that upheld the non-confirmation of several of Governor Youngkin’s appointments to university boards by the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee. I doubt that he will be in a rush to honor the Senator’s deadline or to provide a fulsome response to each and every question.
But if it’s not exactly clear what the response will be on Friday, the longer term political implications are more apparent.
Senate Democrats intend to use every possible means of exercising the authority in the Code of Virginia that “boards of visitors of public institutions of higher education shall at all times be under the control of the General Assembly.” Come January 2026, it can be expected that the Democrats will refuse to confirm even more of the appointments the Governor made this summer.
If the conventional wisdom holds and Abigail Spanberger is elected Governor, will she go further and remove individuals who have already been confirmed and are sitting on boards for “malfeasance” and/or “nonfeasance?” I think that Assembly Democrats here are setting this up with Deeds’ questioning of how the UVA Board has handled its “ethical and legal responsibilities” and General Assembly Democrats’ insistence that the UVA board delay the presidential search until their questions about Ryan’s resignation are answered. This will be one of the earliest decisions that a Spanberger governorship would have to make.
The letter also reinforces the perspective that this is one of the most critical Attorney General elections in recent times. I have no doubt that with a Democratic Attorney General, Deeds would have no problem getting his questions answered. This makes it all the more curious that the Spanberger campaign has sent out several fundraising letters of late on behalf of her “good friend” Ghazala Hashmi without mentioning Jay Jones.
All this, of course, is taking place in a backdrop with ongoing federal investigations of George Mason University and some uncertainty about whether the Trump administration will ultimately be satisfied with simply Ryan’s resignation or will it attempt to exact other penalties for the University’s alleged transgressions. And, by the way, cutbacks in NIH and NSF funding will have a wide-ranging impact on scientific and medical research in the Commonwealth.
Virginia rightly boasts about the quality of its higher education system, widely perceived to be one of the top two in the country. This is the most challenging time for the Commonwealth’s colleges and universities since I started teaching at VCU in 1978.