In June 2025 the Trump administration pressured University of Virginia president James Ryan to resign and threatened to withdraw federal funding over alleged noncompliance with civil rights law. Other elite institutions such as Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania faced similar pressure and many capitulated. The administration issued executive orders targeting DEI programs, accreditation processes, and the autonomy of higher education, framing white people as victims of racial discrimination. The administration's actions aim to impose ideological control over curricula and punish institutions that resist a racist, sexist, and transphobic agenda. Persistent student misconceptions about affirmative-action "quotas" remain widespread despite a 1978 Supreme Court ban.
In June 2025, the Trump administration pressured University of Virginia (UVA) president James Ryan to resign, threatening to withdraw federal funding due to an alleged lack of compliance with civil rights law. Like other elite higher education institutions such as Harvard, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and many others targeted by the Trump administration, UVA capitulated to the coercive authority and dictatorial weaponization of civil rights law.
These and other executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and policies, and the autonomy of higher education institutions, rest on the erroneous idea that white people are victims of racial discrimination rather than the perpetrators and beneficiaries of an unjust system. My goal as an educator is to challenge these and other inaccurate beliefs in the classroom.
I've been teaching university students in Virginia since 2009, and during the past 16 years at least one of my students every year has expressed the belief that colleges routinely use "quotas" as part of their admissions process, and that Black students benefit unfairly from this practice. This is shocking, considering that the Supreme Court issued the decision to make the use of quotas in college admissions illegal in 1978, almost 50 years ago.
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